A newly published study says that having a bipolar parent increases the everyday level of a key stress hormone. This might seem like a no-brainer, but in fact the study results are more interesting than that. For one thing, they weren't looking at young children, but at offspring between the ages of 14 and 28, so many of the study participants were not actually living with the bipolar parent any more - yet the stress effect continued."Previous research has shown that children of parents with bipolar disorder are four times as likely to develop mood disorders as those from parents without the condition," said the senior author Dr. Mark Ellenbogen. "The goal of our study was to determine how this is happening."
They already knew that high levels of the stress hormone cortisol often occur in people who later develop bipolar disorder - and that high stress levels can contribute to developing BP. What they found out in this study is that people with a bipolar parent react to both low-level and high-level stress by producing more cortisol than those with the same stress level but no bipolar parent.
Angela sent in this photo from Andalucia, Spain (Andalusia is the English spelling) that she says illustrates the balancing act she tries to do between mania and depression. I've placed it in the "Images of Depression" series because of its somber coloring.
Jane has sent in a picture that, she says, is all about how bipolar hypomania affects her. When you read what she has to say about it, I think you'll agree that she is, as she says herself, "kooky."
