SAD in the Summer. We may be familiar with the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder striking many of us in the winter, but doctors are reporting an increase in patients with Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder or Summer SAD.

The most common symptoms of Summer SAD are poor appetite, weight loss, agitation and anxiety. As with winter SAD, symptoms present in other kinds of depression such as ongoing feelings of hopelessness or helplessness, feelings of guilt, loss of interest or pleasure in activities previously enjoyed and physical problems such as headaches and stomach aches. Many people with summer SAD report feeling ‘attacked by the sun’. One woman reported the sun feeling ‘like it’s piercing into me.' She went on to say, 'I start to feel more and more desperate to escape it. I have a hard time organizing and managing my daily life. By August, I’m barely able to function and don’t really recover until autumn. October is a good month. I’m waking up, and I feel like I’m being released from summer, what I would call a jail cell.’

In one study, people with severe summer depression were found to have higher temperatures at night whereas among healthy people, temperatures tend to drop during the night. During the study, the patients were cooled down with a reverse thermal blanket and their symptoms decreased. After the treatment was over however, the patients walked out into the summer heat and as their temperatures rose, their symptoms returned; thus showing that re-entering a hot summer environment undid whatever affect the treatment might have had.

Many sufferers of summer SAD have developed their own strategies for combating symptoms, but all are related to cooling the body. Some people make sure they stay in air-conditioned environments; others take frequent cold showers or baths while still others swim daily in cold water to lessen symptoms. To keep the body temperature down at night recent AllergyBestBuys customers have found the Chillow Pillow, thin cotton DreamBag and Cotton Cellular Blankets or the SilkWash SuperCool duvet have all offered cooling nighttime comfort. For others their only relief comes from pharmacological defence. Antidepressants lower brain and body temperature, thus reducing their symptoms.

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A link between childhood obesity and allergies. A new study, published in the May issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology showed that obese children and adolescents are at increased risk of having some kind of allergy, especially to a food. "We found a positive association between obesity and allergies," said Darryl Zeldin, M.D., senior author on the paper. The researchers analyzed data from 4,111 children and young adults aged 2-19 years of age. They looked at total and allergen-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) or antibody levels in response to a large panel of indoor, outdoor and food allergens in relation to body weight, and responses to a questionnaire about diagnoses of hay fever, eczema, and allergies. Obesity was defined as being in the 95th percentile of the body mass index for the child's age. The researchers found the IgE levels were higher among children who were obese or overweight. Obese children were about 26 percent more likely to have allergies than children of normal weight.

"The signal for allergies seemed to be coming mostly from food allergies. The rate of having a food allergy was 59 percent higher for obese children," said researcher Stephanie London, M.D., a co-author on the study.

"As childhood obesity rates rise, we will continue to work to determine how environmental factors affect this epidemic," said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., "Seeing a possible link between obesity and allergies provides additional motivation for undertaking the challenge of reducing childhood obesity."