This article uses the example of depression and Type 2 diabetes comorbidity to illustrate how attending to the social determinants of mental and physical health beyond the reproductive years contributes to a more holistic agenda for women's health.
Using the example of depression and Type 2 diabetes co-morbidity in India, Mendenhall and Weaver establish that women are increasingly confronting these diseases within the complexities of the full spectrum of health concerns covering invariably communicable and non-communicable conditions (9).
Unlike, say, dog poop that can be easily washed off a shoe, people have no way to avoid the smell wafting from a giant hog farm and animal studies suggest that the impact of stressors, which can cause, for example, feelings of depression and anxiety, can be modulated by a sense of control over that stressor.
For example: feelings of depression, 'quiet despair' or futility.
One can easily focus on a different disease or topic (for example evolution of depression or drug prescriptions).
For example, complaints of depression, memory loss, insomnia, and nervousness have been reported among workers exposed to PCBs at capacitor plants (Fischbein et al. 1979).
The effect was stronger for depression (for example prevalence of depression in the older age group was 5.56% vs 1.38% in the younger group, p < 0.001, while for anxiety disorders was 9.44% vs 4.64% respectively, p < 0.001).
Having data available for two covariates (for example symptoms of depression and physical activity) over several study waves, makes it possible to explore whether change in one of these variables, preceded change in the other.
Compared to participants with a higher mental health status, the participants with the lowest mental health status (first quartile, table 1) were impaired in a range of variables; for example, symptoms of depression and anxiety, cardiac disease severity, comorbidity, socioeconomic resources and health behaviour.
For example, symptoms of depression can be helped by eating a more nutrient-rich diet.
So, for example, people complaining of depression may suddenly pronounce themselves well upon leaving the therapist's office after just one visit.
