But for some people the cold months bring disabling depression, and a new national study is looking for the best way to treat this distinctly northern affliction. Right now there is little scientific evidence on which treatment is most effective for the disorder, says Dr. Anthony Levitt of the Faculty of Medicine's psychiatry department and Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre. There is frequently a misunderstanding about seasonal depression among some physicians and the general public, says Levitt, one of five researchers across Canada involved in the CAN-SAD study.
People always talk about seasonal depression in a kind of folksy, almost comical way.
We talk about the winter blahs, but the truth is the people who really have seasonal depression suffer considerably and for these people it's definitely not comical. In a recent survey of the general population in Toronto published in the October issue of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Levitt found about three per cent of people have seasonal depression, a higher percentage than other well-researched diseases such as schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder. Another issue with SAD, Levitt says, is that people with the condition know they will feel better when the weather changes so they often do not seek treatment. The more than 600,000 Canadians who suffer from SAD each year may experience fatigue, overeating, oversleeping, loss of interest in life and even thoughts of suicide. Levitt's interest in seasonal depression started as an effort to refute its existence - a pursuit he soon abandoned.