The effectiveness of gentle prenatal yoga on the recovery of depression level in pregnant women aged

What can the psychoneuroimmunology of yoga teach us about depression's psychopathology?

Depression, the most prevailing mental health condition, remains untreated in over 30% of patients. This cluster presents with sub-clinical inflammation. Investigations trialling anti-inflammatory medications had mixed results. The lack of results may result from inflammation's complexity and targeting only a few of depression's abnormal pathways. Mind-body therapies' biological and neuro-imaging studies offer valuable insights into depression psychopathology. Interestingly, mind-body therapies, like yoga, reverse the aberrant pathways in depression. These aberrant pathways include decreased cognitive function, interoception, neuroplasticity, salience and default mode networks connectivity, parasympathetic tone, increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity, and metabolic hyper/hypofunction. Abundant evidence found yogic techniques improving self-reported depressive symptoms across various populations. Yoga may be more effective in treating depression in conjunction with pharmacological and cognitive therapies. Yoga's psychoneuroimmunology teaches us that reducing allostatic load is crucial in improving depressive symptoms. Mind-body therapies promote parasympathetic tone, downregulate the HPA axis, reduce inflammation and boost immunity. The reduced inflammation promotes neuroplasticity and, subsequently, neurogenesis. Improving interoception resolves the metabolic needs prediction error and restores homeostasis. Additionally, by improving functional connectivity within the salience network, they restore the dynamic switching between the default mode and central executive networks, reducing rumination and mind-wandering. Future investigations should engineer therapies targeting the mechanisms mentioned above. The creation of multi-disciplinary health teams offering a combination of pharmacological, gene, neurofeedback, behavioural, mind-body and psychological therapies may treat treatment-resistant depression.

Pregnancy Status Is Associated with Lower Hemoglobin A1c among Nondiabetes Women in the United States from NHANES 2005-2016

BACKGROUND

It has been verified that the incidence rate of diabetes mellitus (DM) is sharply increased in pregnant female adults. However, the relationship between pregnant status and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) in nondiabetes women remains unclear.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study of 7762 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005-2016. Multivariable linear regression models were performed to evaluate the associations between pregnant status with HbA1c and serum glucose in nondiabetes women.

RESULTS

HbA1c was significantly lower in the pregnant group than in the nonpregnant group. There was a negative association between urine pregnancy test and HbA1c in all three models (model 1: β = -0.23, 95% CI: (-0.18 to -0.27); model 2: β = -0.20, 95% CI: (-0.15 to -0.24); model 3: β = -0.24, 95% CI: (-0.20 to -0.29)). In the subgroup analysis stratified by age, this negative association existed in all age subgroups (age <20: β = -0.20, 95% CI: (-0.04 to -0.27); age ≥20, <35: β = -0.24, 95% CI: (-0.20 to -0.29); age ≥35: β = -0.28, 95% CI: (-0.17, -0.39)). In the subgroup analysis stratified by race, the negative associations steadily existed in different subgroups (Mexican American:β = -0.20, 95% CI:(-0.11 to -0.29); Other Hispanic:β = -0.31, 95% CI: (-0.16 to -0.46); Non-Hispanic White: β = -0.24, 95% CI: (-0.17 to -0.31); Non-Hispanic Black: β = -0.21, 95% CI: (-0.12 to -0.31); Other races:β = -0.22, 95% CI: (-0.08 to -0.35)). On the other hand, a negative association between self-reported pregnant status and HbA1c was also found (model 1: β = -0.22, 95% CI: (-0.18 to -0.27); model 2: β = -0.19, 95% CI: (-0.15 to -0.2); model 3: β = -0.23, 95% CI: (-0.19 to -0.28)). In the subgroup analysis stratified by age, this negative association also existed in all age subgroups.

CONCLUSIONS

The study indicated that nondiabetes women with pregnant status had significantly lower HbA1c compared with those nonpregnant. Moreover, the negative associations between pregnant status and HbA1c steadily existed in subgroups stratified by age and gender.