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THE ANTI ANTIDEPRESSANT

Mandy Oaklander’s Aug. 7 cover story on the use of ketamine to treat depression inspired many to write in about what worked for them. Jennifer Mesko of Winter Garden, Fla., said that the drugs discussed in the article “made all the difference,” while Jeannie Drinkwater of Spooner, Wis., said she’d been helped by electroconvulsive therapy, and Batya Klein of Englewood, N.J., wrote about how transcranial magnetic stimulation had helped a family member. But George Sigel, a psychiatrist in Norwood, Mass., argued that it’s a “fantasy” to hope for a drug to lead to wellness on its own, without therapy. “Patients benefit from medication,” he wrote. “But often not unless they do their homework.”

BEING ‘COWARDLY’ ABOUT CANCER

Many readers agreed with Josh Friedman’s essay in the Aug. 7 issue about society’s unrealistic expectations that patients bravely “battle” cancer. Pat Powell of Grand Junction, Colo., who has been facing cancer for five years, lamented how “strangers dump their wishful thinking on us at every turn.” Others, however, said that courage was more relevant than the piece suggested. Benjamin J. Hubbard, a cancer survivor in Costa Mesa, Calif., noted that a study review summarized later in the issue showed that a positive attitude can improve health, and Mark Morrissey, a 20-year survivor in Pinellas Park, Fla., agreed. “When you die, it does not mean that you lost to cancer,” he wrote. “You beat cancer by how you live, while you live.”

A CRITICAL WINDOW

In a new video, TIME’s Africa bureau chief Aryn Baker goes inside an effort to improve health for moms and babies at a camp for people displaced by the militant group Boko Haram in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The work focuses on the “golden window”–the 1,000-day period that begins with conception–during which health experts say it is particularly crucial for mother and child to receive the nutrients they need, even in emergency situations such as these. See the full report at time.com/nigeria-moms

THE PEOPLE’S PRINCESS

A LIFE special edition about Princess Diana–reissued in advance of the 20th anniversary of her Aug. 31, 1997, death–chronicles her life and her enduring legacy. Among the highlights: her fairy-tale wedding to the Prince of Wales in 1981, her devotion to diplomatic and humanitarian causes, and the impact of her celebrity on the monarchy. Available on Amazon and in the TIME Shop, at shop.time.com

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