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- THE WEEK, Page 25HEALTH & SCIENCEIt's a Sad, Sad World
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- Depression is on the rise, and the young are the most vulnerable
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- If the world has been getting you down lately, you're not
- alone. According to a major international study published in the
- Journal of the American Medical Association, the younger you
- are, the greater the chance that you have suffered from
- clinical depression sometime in your life. The investigation
- combined 12 local and regional studies made during the 1980s in
- such places as the U.S., Taiwan, Munich, Paris, Beirut and
- Christchurch, New Zealand. In virtually every case, people born
- before 1905 had a lower rate of depression than those born
- between 1905 and 1914, who in turn had a lower rate than those
- born between 1915 and 1924, and so on.
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- The depression rates vary widely from place to place, and
- there are age groups in which the trend jumps upward or even
- temporarily downward. In Beirut, for example, periods of
- especially severe political unrest were paralleled by a sharp
- rise in depression. Overall, though, the trend is steadily
- upward in every age group. The cause? Researchers suggest it
- might have to do with the breakdown of families, or increased
- drug use, or the fact that more people are living in cities.
- The truth is they simply don't know, which is depressing in
- itself.
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