Word: sad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Sad-jowled Lyndon Johnson at the end of March, peering out at America, through the close-up on a grainy black-and-white television screen: "Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your Presi . . ." The nation stunned, astonished, and millions of the young performing backflips...
Krabacher suffers from SAD, short for seasonal affective disorder, a syndrome characterized by severe seasonal mood swings. "This is more than the winter blahs," says Psychiatrist Carla Hellekson of Fairbanks. "This is something that needs to be taken care of." Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health began studying and defining the syndrome in the early 1980s; it received formal acceptance this spring, when it was included for the first time in the American Psychiatric Association's bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Third Edition). Says NIMH Research Psychiatrist Norman Rosenthal, a pioneer in SAD studies...
Typically, SAD sufferers become clinically depressed with the approach of winter. Besides gaining weight, oversleeping and being listless, they withdraw socially, lose interest in sex and feel anxious and irritable. As spring approaches, depression subsides and behavior returns to normal. In fact, some people become downright euphoric during the long days of July and August. Carl Harris, 37, of Takoma Park, Md., whose winter plaint is "If I were a bear, I'd hibernate," finds in summer that he needs only four hours of sleep a night and can work two or three jobs at once. Latitude appears...
With research in its infancy, investigators can only guess at the number of SAD victims -- in the U.S., the figure is estimated at anywhere from 450,000 to 5 million -- and they caution against making SAD the new fad disorder. Experts say the syndrome, which afflicts about four times as many women as men, usually appears in the early 20s. But the malady has been diagnosed in children as young as nine. Child Psychiatrist William Sonis of the University of Pennsylvania, who in a 1985 survey found that 6.5% of 1,000 students at a suburban Minnesota high school...
What causes SAD is a mystery. Experts suspect there is a genetic factor, because more than two-thirds of those with the syndrome have a close relative with a mood disorder. Also baffling is the exact role that the absence or presence of light plays in seasonal mood shifts. Among the theories: a disturbance in the body's natural clock and abnormal production of melatonin, a hormone manufactured in the brain, and serotonin, a chemical that helps transmit nerve impulses...