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American Morning

Discussion of Seasonal Affective Disorder

Aired December 16, 2002 - 08:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The weather gets colder, the days shorter, millions of Americans get depressed. They call it seasonal affective disorder. We call it the winter blues. How do you treat it? What do you do about it? Let's turn to Dr. Sanjay Gupta now, who has some answers.
Do you think you've ever been afflicted with this? I know I have.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I might have.

ZAHN: Working these hours, you're never outside. It's very easy I think to be affected by it.

GUPTA: I think so, and while you and Bill always seem very chipper in the morning, even in the winter months, as much as the summer, this is a serious problem. It affects about 25 percent of the population, seasonal affective disorder, which can be something that, as you say, Paula, a lot of people have experienced at one time or another. About 25 percent of people actually report to their doctors mild symptoms; 5 percent of people actually have severe symptoms, severe depressive symptoms, that clearly come out in the winter and go away in the spring and summer.

It appears to affect women much more than it affects men, 75 percent of the sufferers are women, and it usually tends to affect people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, a little bit earlier in life.

The further you get away from the equator, the more likely you are to have seasonal affective disorder. If you were to think about that in the United States, it seems to affect only about 1 percent of Florida residents, about 4 percent of Washington D.C. residents, and 10 percent of Alaska residents. You can see, that you get further away from the equator, that seems to be the problem there, but exactly what is it? How do you know if you have it? There are some questions you can sort of ask yourself to try and figure that out.

Let's take a look at some of them. Do you find yourself sad or unhappy most winter days? We talk about that, not to trivialize some of these questions, but the last two or three winters in a row, have you felt sad or unhappy? Do you feel better during the warmer seasons? Do you have mood problems that occur only in winter months? Do you feel guilty or critical of yourself in the winter? Do you have difficulty concentrating or thinking in the winter? Some of the mood problems they're referring to can be very severe, finding yourself overeating, oversleeping, as you already mentioned, Paula, things like that, pretty significant symptoms -- Paula. ZAHN: So what's the most obvious way to treat this?

GUPTA: There are a lot of different ways to treat this. There was a -- the biggest thing is to sort of understand that your biological clock is sort of getting thrown off by this change in light patterns really. It appears to be light and the amount of it that you get more than anything else. Getting outside and getting daylight can be the best thing. Regular exercise appears to help and also something called melatonin. We've talked about that before. Possible low-dose melatonin may work to reset your biological clock so as the days are getting shorter, you reset that clock come December, January and February, that may also help in some severe cases.

ZAHN: Doctor, if you go into your doctor's office, and you report just some of these symptoms, are they going to look at you like you're nuts? Are we actually taking this more seriously now?

GUPTA: You know, it's interesting. People have been -- didn't talk about season affective disorder that much, even just a few years ago, and some researchers have told us that, in fact, they think everybody suffers from some degree of seasonal affective disorder, to some extent. So it's becoming a much more widely recognized thing.

If it is starting to interfere with your life, if you are developing some of the symptoms that we just talked about a few minutes ago, there may be some treatments that may be very good for you.

And, Paula, as you just mentioned, it may not be jumping to medications, or antidepressants, which seem to have benefit, but something as simple as light therapy. We get a lot of lights here in the newsroom, but getting outdoor, like getting certain kinds of light, appear to be better than others.

ZAHN: I know a lot of people who are helped by buying one of those light boxes, and for a number of hours a day, exposing themselves to it. And they were so happy.

GUPTA: Absolutely. It seems to help.

ZAHN: All right, doctor, thanks for the advice, as always.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 16, 2002 - 08:46   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The weather gets colder, the days shorter, millions of Americans get depressed. They call it seasonal affective disorder. We call it the winter blues. How do you treat it? What do you do about it? Let's turn to Dr. Sanjay Gupta now, who has some answers.
Do you think you've ever been afflicted with this? I know I have.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I might have.

ZAHN: Working these hours, you're never outside. It's very easy I think to be affected by it.

GUPTA: I think so, and while you and Bill always seem very chipper in the morning, even in the winter months, as much as the summer, this is a serious problem. It affects about 25 percent of the population, seasonal affective disorder, which can be something that, as you say, Paula, a lot of people have experienced at one time or another. About 25 percent of people actually report to their doctors mild symptoms; 5 percent of people actually have severe symptoms, severe depressive symptoms, that clearly come out in the winter and go away in the spring and summer.

It appears to affect women much more than it affects men, 75 percent of the sufferers are women, and it usually tends to affect people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, a little bit earlier in life.

The further you get away from the equator, the more likely you are to have seasonal affective disorder. If you were to think about that in the United States, it seems to affect only about 1 percent of Florida residents, about 4 percent of Washington D.C. residents, and 10 percent of Alaska residents. You can see, that you get further away from the equator, that seems to be the problem there, but exactly what is it? How do you know if you have it? There are some questions you can sort of ask yourself to try and figure that out.

Let's take a look at some of them. Do you find yourself sad or unhappy most winter days? We talk about that, not to trivialize some of these questions, but the last two or three winters in a row, have you felt sad or unhappy? Do you feel better during the warmer seasons? Do you have mood problems that occur only in winter months? Do you feel guilty or critical of yourself in the winter? Do you have difficulty concentrating or thinking in the winter? Some of the mood problems they're referring to can be very severe, finding yourself overeating, oversleeping, as you already mentioned, Paula, things like that, pretty significant symptoms -- Paula. ZAHN: So what's the most obvious way to treat this?

GUPTA: There are a lot of different ways to treat this. There was a -- the biggest thing is to sort of understand that your biological clock is sort of getting thrown off by this change in light patterns really. It appears to be light and the amount of it that you get more than anything else. Getting outside and getting daylight can be the best thing. Regular exercise appears to help and also something called melatonin. We've talked about that before. Possible low-dose melatonin may work to reset your biological clock so as the days are getting shorter, you reset that clock come December, January and February, that may also help in some severe cases.

ZAHN: Doctor, if you go into your doctor's office, and you report just some of these symptoms, are they going to look at you like you're nuts? Are we actually taking this more seriously now?

GUPTA: You know, it's interesting. People have been -- didn't talk about season affective disorder that much, even just a few years ago, and some researchers have told us that, in fact, they think everybody suffers from some degree of seasonal affective disorder, to some extent. So it's becoming a much more widely recognized thing.

If it is starting to interfere with your life, if you are developing some of the symptoms that we just talked about a few minutes ago, there may be some treatments that may be very good for you.

And, Paula, as you just mentioned, it may not be jumping to medications, or antidepressants, which seem to have benefit, but something as simple as light therapy. We get a lot of lights here in the newsroom, but getting outdoor, like getting certain kinds of light, appear to be better than others.

ZAHN: I know a lot of people who are helped by buying one of those light boxes, and for a number of hours a day, exposing themselves to it. And they were so happy.

GUPTA: Absolutely. It seems to help.

ZAHN: All right, doctor, thanks for the advice, as always.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com