Among college students, depression is so common that it is often referred to as the “common cold of mental health concerns” by psychologists. A 2011 survey of UC Davis students, performed by the American College Health Association, showed that 20 percent of students acknowledged feeling so depressed in the last 12 months that it was difficult to function.

Although most students tend to avoid confronting this issue, most psychologists and health providers alike agree that depression in college students is a topic that commands our attention.

“Depression can be triggered by difficulties in life and there’s no shortage of opportunities for things to become difficult in college,” said Dorje Jennette, a psychologist at UC Davis’ Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS).

According to the National Institutes of Health, depression is a common but serious mental illness typically marked by sad or anxious feelings. Other symptoms of depression may vary, but commonly people feel empty, hopeless and guilty and often have a loss of appetite, lack of energy, problems concentrating and loss of interest.

Although most, if not all, college students occasionally feel sad or anxious, these emotions usually pass quickly — within a couple of days. But when these feelings don’t go away, depression is usually the cause.

“It is normal to feel run down every once in a while, but being down and out, not functioning, for more than a couple weeks would be a clear sign that it’s a good time to get to a health professional,” Jennette said.

Depression does not have a single cause and can be triggered by many different factors. Many of these factors are prevalent in college.

“Relationship issues, anxiety about school and increased stress level can all trigger depression,” said Jacqueline Horn, a UC Davis professor of psychology. “Also, depression involves loss, so sometimes just returning to school after a break can trigger feelings of depression.”

Although depression can be very prevalent in college, many resources are available to students, and psychologists suggest seeking help as soon as possible before the problem gets out of hand.

“For many students, college is a time to learn how to cope with difficulties. An effective array of coping strategies can be key to preventing a setback from becoming a knockdown,” Jennette said.

Jennette explained that CAPS has professionals who know the proven ways to handle depression, and CAPS mental health staff is available by phone 24/7. Student Health and Counseling Services also have a free anonymous screening questionnaire on its website that helps to assess depression.

Most mental health professionals acknowledge that reaching out for help can be the hardest step. But the Davis community has made it easier by providing services that appeal to all students. The House, a confidential peer-counseling center affiliated with CAPS, offers a variety of free and confidential services to UC Davis students.

“We offer drop-in peer counseling from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. We also have classes on meditation and yoga and a biofeedback machine in which a computer program leads you through exercises that measure heart rate to help modulate your breathing and bring down your anxiety and stress level,” said Kong Lor, a senior psychology major and peer counselor at The House.

Horn also warns that seeing depression in yourself can sometimes be difficult. Thus, friends can often be a student’s best support system.

“Usually people are less likely to notice this in themselves, but their friends often will. I’d encourage [students] to listen to their friends, and if their friends express concern, then talk to someone who can help,” Horn said.

CLAIRE MALDARELLI can be reached at science@theaggie.org

Pizza, burgers, ramen, burritos and pretty much anything that can be made instantly are part of many college students’ diets. Although these choices might not have immediate health impacts for students beside weight gain, they can lead to a wide variety of problems later in life.

“Many students don’t prepare foods for themselves. They get things on what looks and smells good,” said Liz Applegate, director of sports nutrition at UC Davis.

Applegate said that the reliance students have on eating heavily prepared foods is one of the biggest problems with their diets. She said that people can barely get by on their nutritional needs with the food they are eating.

“Sometimes students are really busy, so they skip breakfast,” Applegate said. “What students need to realize is that this affects how you think and how you perform.”

According to Applegate, one of the greatest problems with students’ diets is they do not consume enough fruits and vegetables and don’t select whole grains, along with the fact that fiber intake is commonly low. Fiber is important to keeping the lower digestive system regular, while whole grains are important to cardiovascular health and maintaining cholesterol levels.

“Older age groups’ nutritional habits are motivated by health. You try telling that to a 20-year old, and it sounds irrelevant,” Applegate said. “I try to relate it to performance issues, such as students’ performance on tests.”

Not consuming enough fruits and vegetables, whole grains and fiber can have more detrimental effects than just a poor performance on a test, though.

“Heart disease and erectile dysfunction can be caused by nutritional problems,” Applegate said.

Applegate does not believe the argument that students cannot eat more healthfully as a result of being on a budget.

“No, it doesn’t cost more to eat healthfully. I don’t buy that; you can buy beans and whole grains,” Applegate said. “It can be done; it just takes time and motivation, since we’ve fallen into a lifestyle of eating away from home.”

Applegate recommends that people make their own meals and incorporate as many fruits and vegetables into their diet as they can.

“Don’t skip meals, and don’t shift calories all to one time of the day,” Applegate said.

According to Applegate, students will be more tired from not eating well and not eating well enough.

“Food is very powerful. Never underestimate the power of the food you’re eating,” Applegate said.

Lucia Kaiser, specialist in the cooperative extension of the department of nutrition at UC Davis, believes that the nutritional problems are not just limited to students; according to Kaiser, only 5 to 7 percent of the U.S. population eats enough fruits and vegetables.

“We need to get doctors communicating well to people, and we need to get parents role-modeling good nutritional habits in the home,” Kaiser said. “There’s a social influence with the family.”

According to Kaiser, many children don’t consume enough fruits and vegetables either, something she believes is worsened by the prevalence of fast foods and sweetened beverages.

“[Sweetened drinks are] a factor influencing obesity in children,” Kaiser said. “Consuming calories and sugar in that form causes over-consumption.”

Kaiser believes that students should reduce the amount of sweetened drinks consumed, and notes that people would be surprised to find out how many calories are actually in their drinks. For instance, 16 ounces of a Starbucks Blended Frappuccino Coffee contains 240 calories and 49 grams of sugar.

“Maybe 35 percent of the [U.S.] population is on the way to diabetes,” Kaiser said. “One thing that can help is to have a balanced diet.”

According to choosemyplate.gov, an updated government resource aimed at helping people with their nutritional needs, people should have half their plates made up of fruits and vegetables. The government resource also recommends that people make at least half of the daily grains consumed whole grains and choose lean or low-fat meat and poultry.

ERIC C. LIPSKY can be reached science@theaggie.org.

It’s easy to take for granted how well our bodies work, at least most of the time. Bones stay strong and rigid for support, food flows through the digestive tract, and we constantly breathe in and out without conscious thought. Obviously, any one of these things and more can go wrong if you’re unlucky, but for the most part, the body stays together in an impressive balance.

Of course, humans evolved these traits over hundreds of thousands of years of life on Earth. What happens when we’re miles away from Earth itself, either in orbit around the planet or traveling elsewhere?

It’s hard to guess and even harder to study. After all, there aren’t any microgravity places on Earth that we can put people to study them. All we have are the past and current astronauts, both on short-term shuttle missions and long-term stays on the International Space Station (ISS).

Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a NASA astronaut and UC Davis alumna, has experienced both. Dyson spent 12 days on a shuttle to travel to and work on adding instruments to the ISS in 2007. On April 2, 2010, she launched from Kazakhstan to the ISS and lived on board for 176 days. In that time, she also performed three space walks to complete a crucial emergency repair.

With so much stress and so little gravity, how did her health fare?

“I don’t have anything from the spaceflight that I wasn’t able to recover from,” Dyson said.

Wait, what? How about bone loss or muscle atrophy? Of the spaceflights that have happened, bone and muscle loss is one of the most common side effects.

“That was the one very surprising thing, I didn’t experience any bone loss,” Dyson said. “I didn’t even have to supplement that with any medication or anything like that.”

Dyson was lucky. When people are in space, the body experiences a number of extreme changes. Like I mentioned above, bone and muscle density loss is one side effect of being in space. Even when you spend most of your time sitting at a desk in class, your bones and muscles still need to be able to support the weight of your body against gravity so that you can sit or stand up straight. Without gravity to give resistance, bones and muscles may atrophy. Use it or lose it.

One side effect that Dyson did experience, as seen in pictures and videos of her stay on the ISS, is fullness of the face. This is because of the redistribution of fluids around the body.

Right now, you are full of water. However, you probably don’t feel it most of the time since you’ve become used to it over your entire life. Gravity tends to pull that water down toward the lower body; when gravity isn’t in the picture, the fluid redistributes so that it is about equally spread through the body. This causes fullness in the face of astronauts as fluid migrates toward the head.

The different fluid flow can also be dizzying. When a person closes their eyes, they are still able to tell how their head is oriented in space. This is because fluid flow in the inner ear sends signals to the brain on which way is up (think of how when you tip a glass of water, the water moves relative to the glass). When you’re in space, the fluid in the inner ear doesn’t flow and so it’s difficult to tell which way is up or down. To a certain extent, it doesn’t really matter which way is down; one of the pictures Dyson showed at her lecture was of half of the astronauts on the “floor” of the ISS and the other half on the “ceiling.”

Becoming uncertain of how you’re oriented, however, can present serious problems when you need to know where you are; for instance, on a space walk. NASA tries to solve this by training astronauts in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (basically a huge indoor swimming pool with an ISS model on the bottom), where astronauts put on their full suits and practice how to maneuver while floating.

This isn’t a perfect model, since any dropped tools or equipment will simply sink to the bottom rather than float away, but the pool combined with virtual reality helps prepare astronauts for the other worldly experience of walking in space.

How to prepare for the other problems of living in space, such as anemia, low plasma levels and mental health of the astronauts? It’s hard to say without more people to test.

The only way to know for sure is for manned spaceflight to continue, slowly but surely, into the future.

AMY STEWART can be reached at science@theaggie.org.