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 Nutritional supplement kit was designed for postpartum brain changes in women 
 
 
 
 TORONTO, March 13, 2017 – A dietary supplement kit, created to counter mood-altering brain changes linked to depression, virtually eliminated the “baby blues” among women in a new study at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). 
 
 Postpartum blues are common among women after giving birth. However, when severe, they substantially increase the risk of clinically diagnosed postpartum depression, which affects 13 per cent of new mothers and is the most common complication of child-bearing. 
 
 The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was led by Dr. Jeffrey Meyer, who heads the Neuroimaging Program in Mood & Anxiety in CAMH’s Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute. 
 
 
 
 Dr. Jeffrey Meyer 
 
 
 
 “Developing successful nutrition-based treatments, based on neurobiology, is rare in psychiatry,” says Dr. Meyer, who holds a Canada Research Chair in the Neurochemistry of Major Depression. “We believe our approach also represents a promising new avenue for creating other new dietary supplements for medicinal use.” 
 
 The nutritional kit consists of three supplements. They were carefully selected to compensate for a surge in the brain protein MAO-A, which occurs in the early postpartum phase, and which also resembles a brain change that persists for longer periods in clinical depression. Both findings were discovered in previous brain imaging studies by Dr. Meyer’s group. 
 
 MAO-A breaks down three brain chemicals that help maintain mood: serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. When these chemicals are depleted, it can lead to feelings of sadness. MAO-A levels peak five days after giving birth, the same time when postpartum blues are most pronounced. 
 
 The kit includes tryptophan and tyrosine, which compensate for the loss of the three mood-regulating chemicals, as well as a blueberry extract with blueberry juice for anti-oxidant effects. Dr. Meyer’s team had also tested and confirmed that the tryptophan and tyrosine supplements, given in higher amounts than people would normally get in their diet, did not affect the overall concentrations in breast milk. 
 
 The current study, administered by research fellow Dr. Yekta Dowlati, included 21 women who received the supplements and a comparison group of 20 mothers who did not. It was an open-label study, meaning the women knew they were receiving nutritional supplements. The supplements were taken over three days, starting on the third day after giving birth. 
 
 On day five after giving birth – when the baby blues peak – the women underwent tests to assess the kit’s effect on mood. The testing included sad mood induction, which measured the ability to be resilient against sad events. The women read and reflected on statements with sentiments that expressed pessimism, dissatisfaction and lethargy, and then listened to a sad piece of classical music. Before and after this test, researchers measured depressive symptoms. 
 
 The results were dramatic. Women who were not taking the supplements had a significant increase in depression scores. In contrast, women taking the dietary supplements did not experience any depressed mood. 
 
 “We believe this is the first study to show such a strong, beneficial effect of an intervention in reducing the baby blues at a time when postpartum sadness peaks,” says Dr. Meyer. “Postpartum blues are common and usually resolves 10 days after giving birth, but when they are intense, the risk of postpartum depression increases four-fold.” 
 
 The results support further research to replicate the effects in a larger sample in a randomized, controlled trial, and further assess the kit’s ability to reduce both the postpartum blues as well as clinically diagnosed postpartum depression. 
 
 Since severe postpartum blues significantly heighten the risk of postpartum depression, this supplement kit is anticipated to be an integral part of a dietary supplement regimen that health-care providers could one day recommend widely to prevent postpartum depression, the researchers say. 
 
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 The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital and a world-leading research centre in this field. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental illness and addiction. CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, and is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. For more information, please visit camh.ca or follow @CAMHnews on Twitter. 
 
 
 
 For more information, please contact: 
 
 Sean O’Malley 
 
 Media Relations, CAMH 
 
 (416) 595-6015 / sean.omalley@camh.ca 
 
 

 As many as three out of every four women will experience the short-term mood swings known as the "baby blues" after their baby is born. But nearly 12% experience more serious and longer-lasting postpartum depression. 
 
 How can you tell the difference between the normal mood changes that will abate, and those that could mean depression and a need for treatment? How can you manage postpartum emotions -- whether it's the baby blues or true depression -- in the colder, darker, and more isolated winter months? 
 
 Got the Baby Blues? 
 
 "Baby blues are very normal and very common," says Catherine Monk, PhD, Herbert Irving Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology in the departments of psychiatry and obstetrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. "Having a baby, even if it's a second or third baby, is a sea change in your life. That, combined with the fluctuating hormones as your body goes from being pregnant to not pregnant, can lead to major mood swings." 
 
 There are two big differences between baby blues and true postpartum depression, experts say: 
 
 How long your depressed feelings last 
 
 How intense the feelings are 
 
 The baby blues usually begin a few days after delivery and last about 10 days to two weeks. But don't immediately assume that if you're still feeling weepy on day 15, it must be postpartum depression, cautions Monk: "It's not that exact a science." 
 
 The baby blues also feel different than postpartum depression. "They're not just about being sad. Baby blues seem to be about being full of feeling," explains Nada Stotland, MD, MPH, professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at Rush Medical College in Chicago. "You may cry because you're feeling sad, but you may also just look at the baby and cry because you're full of emotion." 
 
 Could It Be Postpartum Depression? 
 
 Postpartum depression lasts longer, and it's more severe. Stotland describes it as "feeling dragged down all day long, with a gray lens in front of everything you do." The symptoms of postpartum depression include: 
 
 Sleep disruption. Everyone tells you to "sleep when the baby sleeps" -- but when you try to fall asleep, and know you need to, you just can't. 
 
 Appetite changes -- either loss of appetite and losing more postpartum weight than you should, or overeating. 
 
 Having no interest in seeing people. 
 
 Inability to enjoy the things you used to enjoy. 
 
 Inability to concentrate. 
 
 Intense self-criticism and self-blame, thinking that you're a bad mother and you can't do anything right. 
 
 Inability to bond with your baby, which can cause intense feelings of shame or guilt. 
 
 If you have several of these symptoms and they've persisted for some time, call your doctor to ask about being screened for postpartum depression. And if you've had any thoughts of harming the baby or yourself, make that call right away. 

 Conflict of interest statement: Y.D. is developing natural health products to overcome a high MAO-A state in early postpartum. J.H.M. has received operating grant funding for other studies from Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lundbeck, SK Life Science, and Johnson & Johnson/Janssen in the past 5 years. J.H.M. has served as a consultant for all of these companies except Johnson & Johnson, as well as for Sepracor, Trius Therapeutics, and Mylan Inc. None of these companies participated in the funding, design, or execution of this study or preparation of the manuscript. J.H.M. is developing natural health products to treat high-risk states for major depressive episode, and is listed as the inventor on a patent application for this dietary supplement. J.H.M. is applying for patents to implement measures using MAO to diagnose or treat mood disorders and to use peripheral measures as surrogate measures for brain inflammation. Z.V.S. receives royalties from Guilford Press for books related to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and fees for training workshops. He also serves on the advisory board of MindfulNoggin, part of NogginLabs, a private company specializing in customized web-based learning. D.E.S. is a member of the scientific advisory board for the Cymbalta (duloxetine) Pregnancy Registry for Eli Lilly. She is a co-author of UpToDate chapters on antidepressant drugs during pregnancy and their effects on exposed infants. A.V.R. and M.S. do not have any conflicts of interest related to this work.
– Could new mothers fight off the baby blues by taking a trio of supplements? Researchers at Canada's Center for Addiction and Mental Health are reporting in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their small new study suggests so, and they say there's something novel about that. "Developing successful nutrition-based treatments, based on neurobiology, is rare in psychiatry," says Dr. Jeffrey Meyer, whose team endeavored to do exactly that. Their focus: the brain protein MAO-A, which breaks down and therefore drains the body of three mood-regulating chemicals, serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. After giving birth, a woman's MAO-A surges, peaking five days postpartum. So researchers designed a "dietary supplement" kit that includes tryptophan, tyrosine, and blueberry extract with blueberry juice. The first two "compensate for the loss" of the mood-related chemicals, per a press release; the latter was added for its antioxidant effects. Some 21 woman began taking the supplements three days after giving birth and took them for just three days. They were then subjected to a sad-mood-induction test, as were 20 control mothers. "The results were dramatic": a sharp increase in depression scores for the controls, but no such depression for the test group. If the results can be replicated on a larger scale, the impact could be staggering; up to 75% of new moms experience the temporary moods swings dubbed the "baby blues," reports WebMD, which tend to resolve within a couple weeks. The most severe cases develop into longer-lasting postpartum depression, which more than one in 10 new moms suffer from. (New dads are affected by postpartum depression, too.)