There is new research indicating the brain responds to antidepressants within a few hours.

A new study published in the journal Current Biology found that a single dose of widely used antidepressants change the brain’s architecture after only a few hours.

However, patients who take drugs to treat depression usually don’t report any improvement until weeks later, according to the Los Angeles Times. Researchers hope their findings will allow doctors to determine whether or not a patient will respond to certain psychiatric drugs by way of a brain scan.

Low levels of the chemical transmitter serotonin in the brain are associated with depression. Antidepressants work by blocking how serotonin is reabsorbed into the brain.

The drugs are known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs.

Low salt diet


Eating a diet high in salt may increase the risk of rheumatoid arthritis among smokers, according to a large study from Sweden.

Researchers set out to see if a salty diet might be linked to the onset of RA, but found a connection only among smokers – who were more than twice as likely as anyone with a low-salt diet to develop the condition.

“Although we could not confirm our original hypothesis, we were surprised by the large influence of sodium intake on smoking as a risk factor,” Björn Sundström.

The cause of rheumatoid arthritis isn’t known, but it results from a person’s own immune system attacking joint tissues. Genetics and lifestyle factors, such as smoking, hormone and cholesterol levels and obesity, have all been identified as risk factors.

PSTD in women

Women with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more than twice as likely as women without the disorder to be addicted to food, according to a new study.

The results don't necessarily mean that PTSD causes food addiction or vice versa, but it may help explain a link between the mental health condition triggered by traumatic events and obesity, the researchers write in JAMA Psychiatry.

“I’d really like the message to come across that people bring a whole lot of history to their eating behaviors,” said Susan Mason, from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, the study's lead author.

Mason and her colleagues write that people with PTSD experience reliving, arousal and avoidance or numbing in response to a potentially traumatic event.

About seven percent of Americans will have PTSD during their lifetimes, but it’s more common among women.