Depression is a mental disorder with feelings of sadness, loneliness and despair. It can be treated with anti-depressant medicines in up to 80% of patients. The challenge is to develop medicines that more accurately target the brain functions concerned. Pharmaceutical companies are rising to the challenge, so millions more people with depression can lead better lives.
Disease: Depression
Last update: June 2008
Intro
FAQ
-
What is it?
Depression is a temporary or chronic mental disorder. People with depression feel sad, lonely, despairing and have low self-esteem. In bi-polar disorder, a type of depression, there are severe mood swings from states of high agitation to deep despair. Up to 80% of patients can be successfully treated. -
Who gets it?
Depression is most common between the ages of 25 and 44. It is more frequent in women and in people who are unemployed. It carries a high suicide risk and represents an important cause of early death. It is estimated that some 23 million people in the EU are diagnosed as having depression at any one time. As many as three in four cases may not be recognised or treated. -
What can be done about it?
Treatment usually involves antidepressant medicines which may be combined with psychiatric assessment and support. Currently available medicines act on substances in the brain called neurotransmitters, the two main ones being serotonin and noradrenaline. Patients may also be treated with older medicines which, although they were a major advance many years ago, have a wide range of side effects. Newer agents tend to be better tolerated. -
What does the future hold?
Research into antidepressants continues to be very active. The increased understanding of the brain's biochemistry is leading to agents that more and more accurately target the activities of the neurotransmitters serotonin and noradrenaline.
In the longer term, one avenue being explored is the development of substances that work on a neurotransmitter called 'substance P', which is involved in pain and mood.