Of all the problems that people face today, depression proves to be one of the hardest to pinpoint. People often suffer secretly, not wanting to admit their need of professional help. They continue with their normal routines and, many times, unhealthy eating habits. Now, health professionals are actually linking diet and depression and have found success in using diet to treat the disorder.

Several researchers and Australian institutions at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, set out to evaluate the direct link between diet and depression. They carried out the study over a 12-week period and observed 67 patients with moderate to severe depression. For their control group, the patients received social support rather than switching their eating habits to a well-balanced diet. The other patients then received dietary counseling sessions where they were advised to eat a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. After the trial period, over 30 percent of the patients had gone into remission with their depression. Only 8 percent of the control group actually experienced this same improvement. This trial has greatly helped researchers understand and better help patients suffering from depression.

Most Americans today do not associate their diet and depression together. Nearly 60 percent of Americans eat over processed foods. 90 percent of added sugar comes from these processed foods. For people with depression, this diet might give a short energy burst, but it will eventually cause energy to sink, bringing happy moods down with it. Many people also love caffeine, drinking multiple cups each day. Again, they consume extra sugar. However, the caffeine can also disrupt sleep and cause anxiety. In addition, people with depression may have a tendency to turn to alcohol Unfortunately, alcohol depresses the central nervous system, which will directly influence a person’s mood for the worse, especially those dealing with depression.

According to the research, diet and depression do go hand in hand. Those suffering from depression should do away with processed foods as much as possible. With a few simple changes in lifestyle, these patients can improve their mental health and return to normal activities with renewed energy and joy.

During the outbreak of novel coronavirus, cities are locked down and borders are closed. Science, on the contrary, is becoming more open. And this “open science” is already making a difference.

Soon after the epidemic started in China, a research team from Fudan University in Shanghai successfully sequenced (测定序列)the DNA of the virus. But they didn’t keep the information to themselves. Instead, they placed the sequences on GenBank, an open-access data platform, so researchers around the world could download them for free and start studying the virus.

Due to this openness, pharmaceutical (制药的) companies across the globe are now able to work simultaneously (同时地)to develop a vaccine. “There may be room for multiple different vaccines for different purposes and different age groups,” Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security in the US, told Al Jazeera. “The                    bigger menu we have of vaccines, the more resilient (有适应力的) we’ll be against coronavirus outbreaks in the future.”

Major drug companies around the world are also sharing their study results. Remdesivir, a drug originally developed by US company Gilead Sciences to treat Ebola, is found to be promising in fighting against the novel coronavirus. Currently, two trials of the drug are already underway in China, and the results might be available as soon as April, according to The Verge.

This openness in science is going to be even more critical in the future. “With climate change, increasing globalization, and population shifts, epidemics will not go away, and might even become more frequent,” Dan Barouch, a Harvard Medical School professor, told Harvard Magazine.

He said, “No one group can do everything. It has to be a coordinated (合作的) approach. But I do think that the world has a greater sense of readiness this time to develop knowledge, drugs, and therapeutics (疗法) very rapidly.”

Every epidemic is indeed a crisis, but it can also be a learning opportunity. One redeeming (补偿的) factor of the COVID-19 outbreak is that it is helping science adapt for the better.

As the whole nation joins efforts to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak, scientists in China have started efforts aimed at developing vaccines and drugs for the virus.

The Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday it will soon start research and development of a vaccine against the novel coronavirus after managing to isolate strains of the virus on Friday.

Zhang Yanjun, director of the center's microbiological laboratory, said it obtained the qualification to undertake such research on Jan 22, and isolated the first strain from the sputum samples of a confirmed patient last week, paving the way for work on a vaccine and the development of anti-virus medicines and rapid test kits.

Zhang said his laboratory was working on genome testing of the virus, but it might take some time before the new vaccine is developed as "more clinical trials are needed".

Li Lanjuan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said it will take at least a month to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, the news website ifeng.com reported.

At the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing, researchers have started to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, the center said on Sunday.

Scientists from the center have isolated the virus, and are working to select the proper strain for vaccine production, Xu Wenbo, head of the center's viral disease control and prevention institute, said.

Research and development of a vaccine was complex work, he said, usually requiring between two and three years before availability for use, while adding it could be possible to develop a new vaccine in a few months in emergency conditions with priority approval.

The Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences also announced on Monday that it has set up a special team comprised of senior experts from home and abroad to organize research on the new virus, including researching and developing innovative drugs and treatment.