Over 17 million Americans are affected by depression and yet many of these cases are never diagnosed or treated properly.
Depression is characterized by persistent symptoms lasting for over two weeks.
Symptoms include feelings of sadness and pessimism, loss of motivation or initiative, changes in sleep patterns and in appetite, bouts of crying and thoughts of suicide. Drugs aimed at treating depression are effective at modifying the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, with resulting clinical improvement of the symptoms. For this reason there has been a renewed interest in natural substances which are used to lessen the symptoms of depression without causing significant side effects. Examples of these natural substances are kava kava, St John's Wort, and SAMe. SAMe and methylation SAMe is the most important methylating agent in the brain.