Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

“No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 625 posts

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#71

Post by jb1991 »

chx wrote: post #57

There's a significant population of science denying cranks and so those who want to raise legit concerns about the quality and alas, often motivation of medical studies are easily grouped with those. But: 1. There's no such thing as good / bad cholesterol. This is complete baloney and Pfizer lost a staggering amount of money when a drug raising good cholesterol got as far as human trials -- and failed them. There is…

I would be curious to see discrepancies in ADHD diagnosis between countries. You hear about it all the time in the U.S. but rarely in many other places, including Europe.

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#72

Post by walrus01 »

_yoqn wrote: post #65
sn0w_crash wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know plenty of depressed rich people. I understand your theory but spend a week in the Hampton’s and you’ll see some real sad souls.

Yeah they are probably into some extremely toxic, unnatural things that cause them to secretly hate themselves. I wonder how much shady sexual shenanigans happens in the households of the top 1%? Plenty of drugs, gossip, gluttony, lust, etc. Happiness comes from the overcoming of not unknowable obstacles toward a known goal. It's the journey, not the destination. And the trick is to set another goal once you attained…

> I wonder how much shady sexual shenanigans happens in the households of the top 1%

Fidelio

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#73

Post by frazbin »

biophysboy wrote: post #25
Arubis wrote: post #2

So...why do SSRI users self-report efficacy?

Depression has no common cause or common set of symptoms. I read a paper that likened it to a watershed, with tributaries feeding into a general pool of malaise. The watershed varies from person to person, and affects their internal “ecosystem” differently. Maybe it’s a bit cute, but with this understanding, I think the headline is not shocking. We will never find the one cause of depression because there isn’t one.…

The test to see how depressed a lab mouse is, is to put it in a bucket of water and see how long it struggles. True story.

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#74

Post by pindab0ter »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #66
chx wrote: post #57

There's a significant population of science denying cranks and so those who want to raise legit concerns about the quality and alas, often motivation of medical studies are easily grouped with those. But: 1. There's no such thing as good / bad cholesterol. This is complete baloney and Pfizer lost a staggering amount of money when a drug raising good cholesterol got as far as human trials -- and failed them. There is…

> The diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in adults but most especially in children is extremely suspect. Go on… (I’m adult diagnosed, for disclosure, but please do go on and tell me how suspect my diagnosis was, how I shouldn’t have been diagnosed as a child, how my medication is harmful. Go on and tell me about my life which you know better than I do.)

Just because you might have gotten a diagnosis that helped you doesn’t mean everyone has.

I for one am actually interested if he can back up that claim. So when you as them to “Go on…”, please leave it at that. There’s no reason to be snarky.

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#75

Post by tuxie_ »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #66
chx wrote: post #57

There's a significant population of science denying cranks and so those who want to raise legit concerns about the quality and alas, often motivation of medical studies are easily grouped with those. But: 1. There's no such thing as good / bad cholesterol. This is complete baloney and Pfizer lost a staggering amount of money when a drug raising good cholesterol got as far as human trials -- and failed them. There is…

> The diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in adults but most especially in children is extremely suspect. Go on… (I’m adult diagnosed, for disclosure, but please do go on and tell me how suspect my diagnosis was, how I shouldn’t have been diagnosed as a child, how my medication is harmful. Go on and tell me about my life which you know better than I do.)

Don't take it personal. Both things can be true, you can have adhd and adhd can be overdiagnosed, doesn't mean that none of those diagnostics are valid.

I'm sure you must be tired of people telling you about how overdiagnosed adhd is, I'm sorry about that, but don't take it personal, it's just a person on the internet.

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#76

Post by ggm »

asveikau wrote: post #67
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. they prescribe both boosters, and inhibitors, to treat the same symptoms. This suggests the aetiology of disease here, is not well defined by a single behaviour because the same symptom (depression, anxiety) is responsive in some people to suppressing of a chemical imbalance, and in others to boosting it. "Chemical imbalance" isn't actually taught as the root cause of depression. I suspect your psychologist migh…

> It doesn't make sense to make blanket statements about "the drugs" when psychiatric drugs differ widely in this regard. > I'd be cautious of taking advice from anyone who makes blanket statements about "the drugs". This is bordering on uninformed anti-psychiatry. Yeah, as someone who has been close to people who need antipsychotics, I sometimes feel the anti-antidepressant crowd extrapolates to all psychiatric drug…

I am not anti-antidepressant, or drugs in general. Bipolar people get huge benefit from their medications. And their families!

The ones I know also say there are times they miss the emotional highs. It's probably why they (and schizophrenics) go non-compliant.

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#77

Post by mathgladiator »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #58
mathgladiator wrote: post #53

As a member of the anti-psychiatry side after seeing primary care doctors wreck my mother... I think we will see a sea change in how we approach this with things like psychedelics. I recently got treated with six weeks of Ketamine, and it works. If you ever thought about rebooting your brain, then I recommend it. However, you really have to surrender yourself to the experience; it is a very intentional act.

Ketamine treatment is interesting, but it's not really a replacement for SSRIs. The anti-depressant effects of Ketamine are unfortunately relatively short-lived. Tolerance also seems to develop to the effects over time. There are some adventurous providers experimenting with frequent ketamine dosing over long periods of time, but the results haven't really been great from what I've seen. Also, a psychedelic experienc…

I'm finding the biggest impact from the psychedelic experience as a spiritual awakening, and the biggest thing I feel is that I'm no longer in the nihilism trap.

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#78

Post by chx »

pindab0ter wrote: post #74
eyelidlessness wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in adults but most especially in children is extremely suspect. Go on… (I’m adult diagnosed, for disclosure, but please do go on and tell me how suspect my diagnosis was, how I shouldn’t have been diagnosed as a child, how my medication is harmful. Go on and tell me about my life which you know better than I do.)

Just because you might have gotten a diagnosis that helped you doesn’t mean everyone has. I for one am actually interested if he can back up that claim. So when you as them to “Go on…”, please leave it at that. There’s no reason to be snarky.

doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.5335

> Findings In this systematic scoping review of 334 published studies in children and adolescents, convincing evidence was found that ADHD is overdiagnosed in children and adolescents. For individuals with milder symptoms in particular, the harms associated with an ADHD diagnosis may often outweigh the benefits.

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#79

Post by seventytwo »

carabiner wrote: post #43
walrus01 wrote: post #19

I have a completely unscientific, subjective theory that some significant portion of depression in the population as a whole is caused by the economic circumstances that some people live in. Things like being trapped in a dead end job to keep healthcare benefits in the USA, living in a never ending treadmill of debt.

IOW: Are you ready for me to diagnose your totally normal reaction to our shitty society as mental illness so I can get you addicted to mind altering drugs for the rest of your life? https://imgur.com/Jb1mJyx Or as the Unabomber said, "Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening…

> Life for so many people is crawling through glass Monday through Friday, then getting shitfaced on the weekend. Is that happiness?

Ooof

Re: “No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels

#80

Post by lettergram »

klodolph wrote: post #38
lettergram wrote: post #30

One of the most interesting things I heard recently that really hit me like a bolt of lightning… Depression is a disease of despair, and all these treatments are really just treating the symptoms. In other words, people experience despair because of some underlying situation - examples: death of child, lonely, broken home. “Normal” things, and we try to treat it with pharmaceuticals. It would be like treating depress…

Bolts of lightning can be factually wrong, it sounds.

No doubt, but this article is about how the SSRIs don’t seem to be effective.

To be clear a disorder (ie depression disorder) can be caused by a variety of factors, including (but not limited to): genetics, environment, trauma, illness, etc.

Given that’s the case, some drugs may help ease symptoms (depression being the symptom), but finding and correcting the root cause (if possible) is important.

Unfortunately, the medical industry as a whole has very little reason to try and “cure” these diseases / disorders. Why would a therapist? Why would a pharmaceutical company? Recurring revenue to ease symptoms is perfect.

Which imo is why this is often not discussed. The vast majority of the research money is poured into drug research or clinical research around therapies. Often this overlooks other avenues — one which I mentioned.

Post reply on HN