Hopefully we can finally accept the reality that mental wellbeing has been over medicalised and human emotion does not need to be dampened by medication.
I’m sure pharmaceutical companies and governments will still rather blame biology. Actually addressing systemic issues that create discontentment and despair is just too much effort.
>However experts from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, questioned the findings and urged people not to stop taking their medication in light of the study, arguing that antidepressants remained effective.
Irresponsible journalism.
This has been really obvious for awhile now, but many are reluctant to say it because doing so would acknowledge that the mental health care system in this country and most others is woefully inadequate. I’m a neuroscience student, and with all the reading I’ve had to do during my degree it didn’t take long to notice the glaring faults in studies that saught to promote serotonergic antidepressants, ignoring placebo effects and neglecting to follow up long term.
One of the biggest reasons that people are miserable is trauma/sustained stress which this article points out. There is very little social support in most places in the UK and individualistic attitudes make it difficult for people to find a sense of meaning and community, which is integral when you’ve been through something traumatising. Not to mention, sustained stress wrecks havoc on your body and can lead to a myriad of health issues, which could worsen anyone’s mental state.
This seems to be quite an important paragraph towards the end of the article. It’s not dismissing that even if low levels aren’t a significant factor in the onset of depression, that taking the medication could still be of benefit.
> Dr Michael Bloomfield, a consultant psychiatrist and principal clinical research fellow at University College London, who was not involved in the study, said: “Many of us know that taking paracetamol can be helpful for headaches, and I don’t think anyone believes that headaches are caused by not enough paracetamol in the brain. The same logic applies to depression and medicines used to treat depression.
^edit ^working.
nothing massively new here as we’ve known depression isn’t due to ‘low serotonin levels’ for a long time – if it was then antidepressants would work more or less instantly
I think it’s fair to say we don’t really know quite how antidepressants work, and they’re certainly not a ‘magic pill’, but they are a genuine help for many people and so research like this shouldn’t be used to undermine pharmacological interventions for MH issues
as with anything, they’re just another part of the toolkit to help people get over the issues they’re facing, not always useful, sometimes even harmful (they were in my case), but they can also be life-saving
forgive me for i am not an expert in this field, but from what i understand, the serotonin theory of depression has not been the dominant theory for a while. there are many, many possible biological/biochemical AND psychological causes for depression. furthermore, antidepressants are measurably effective as long as they are used and prescribed responsibly. it seems irresponsible to imply that antidepressants do more harm than good, or (as the opening of the paper seems to imply) that they only work by a placebo effect, particularly when the meta-review in question doesn’t seem to substantiate these claims. that’s not to say that the meta-analysis is wrong, but most scientists i know would say ‘this warrants more research’ and not ‘hey, everyone! quit your meds!’. it also concerns me that the last author is the ‘co-founder of a company aiming to help people safely stop antidepressants in Canada’.
are there any experts in this field who can comment on this?
[deleted]
I’ve long believed that society causes depression. The state of the world is absolutely fucking depressing it’s so easy to get consumed by it all. Life is hard. *its not the cause of all depression but it was certainly the cause of mine.
My wild assed guess is that it’s an extension of the placebo effect.
If you take a straight sugar pill, having been told it will help your depression, then your mind will often to some degree take this onboard and you will improve.
If you take a psychoactive substance and your mind’s able to perceive (unconsciously in the case of SSRIs, at least after the first few days) that you took something, you’ve been told it will help depression, then that might create a stronger effect.
Same thing with recreational drugs – despite all the “opening the doors of perception” stuff it’s really just messing with your neurons, and along with what you’ve been told the MDMA/LSD/speed should do, you conjure up the advertised effect.
I have no idea how you could test this hypothesis (but then, testing the serotonin hypothesis has been fairly clearly shown to be impossible).
the old “there’s no money in the cure” adage comes to mind.
10 comments
Hopefully we can finally accept the reality that mental wellbeing has been over medicalised and human emotion does not need to be dampened by medication.
I’m sure pharmaceutical companies and governments will still rather blame biology. Actually addressing systemic issues that create discontentment and despair is just too much effort.
>However experts from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, questioned the findings and urged people not to stop taking their medication in light of the study, arguing that antidepressants remained effective.
Irresponsible journalism.
This has been really obvious for awhile now, but many are reluctant to say it because doing so would acknowledge that the mental health care system in this country and most others is woefully inadequate. I’m a neuroscience student, and with all the reading I’ve had to do during my degree it didn’t take long to notice the glaring faults in studies that saught to promote serotonergic antidepressants, ignoring placebo effects and neglecting to follow up long term.
One of the biggest reasons that people are miserable is trauma/sustained stress which this article points out. There is very little social support in most places in the UK and individualistic attitudes make it difficult for people to find a sense of meaning and community, which is integral when you’ve been through something traumatising. Not to mention, sustained stress wrecks havoc on your body and can lead to a myriad of health issues, which could worsen anyone’s mental state.
This seems to be quite an important paragraph towards the end of the article. It’s not dismissing that even if low levels aren’t a significant factor in the onset of depression, that taking the medication could still be of benefit.
> Dr Michael Bloomfield, a consultant psychiatrist and principal clinical research fellow at University College London, who was not involved in the study, said: “Many of us know that taking paracetamol can be helpful for headaches, and I don’t think anyone believes that headaches are caused by not enough paracetamol in the brain. The same logic applies to depression and medicines used to treat depression.
^edit ^working.
nothing massively new here as we’ve known depression isn’t due to ‘low serotonin levels’ for a long time – if it was then antidepressants would work more or less instantly
I think it’s fair to say we don’t really know quite how antidepressants work, and they’re certainly not a ‘magic pill’, but they are a genuine help for many people and so research like this shouldn’t be used to undermine pharmacological interventions for MH issues
as with anything, they’re just another part of the toolkit to help people get over the issues they’re facing, not always useful, sometimes even harmful (they were in my case), but they can also be life-saving
forgive me for i am not an expert in this field, but from what i understand, the serotonin theory of depression has not been the dominant theory for a while. there are many, many possible biological/biochemical AND psychological causes for depression. furthermore, antidepressants are measurably effective as long as they are used and prescribed responsibly. it seems irresponsible to imply that antidepressants do more harm than good, or (as the opening of the paper seems to imply) that they only work by a placebo effect, particularly when the meta-review in question doesn’t seem to substantiate these claims. that’s not to say that the meta-analysis is wrong, but most scientists i know would say ‘this warrants more research’ and not ‘hey, everyone! quit your meds!’. it also concerns me that the last author is the ‘co-founder of a company aiming to help people safely stop antidepressants in Canada’.
are there any experts in this field who can comment on this?
[deleted]
I’ve long believed that society causes depression. The state of the world is absolutely fucking depressing it’s so easy to get consumed by it all. Life is hard. *its not the cause of all depression but it was certainly the cause of mine.
My wild assed guess is that it’s an extension of the placebo effect.
If you take a straight sugar pill, having been told it will help your depression, then your mind will often to some degree take this onboard and you will improve.
If you take a psychoactive substance and your mind’s able to perceive (unconsciously in the case of SSRIs, at least after the first few days) that you took something, you’ve been told it will help depression, then that might create a stronger effect.
Same thing with recreational drugs – despite all the “opening the doors of perception” stuff it’s really just messing with your neurons, and along with what you’ve been told the MDMA/LSD/speed should do, you conjure up the advertised effect.
I have no idea how you could test this hypothesis (but then, testing the serotonin hypothesis has been fairly clearly shown to be impossible).
the old “there’s no money in the cure” adage comes to mind.