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

bmj.com

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

#201

Post by makeitdouble »

ggm wrote: post #23

My psychologist tells me that in his profession there is a significant gulf emerging between the ones who feel the prescribing is justified, and the ones (like him) with significant concerns: 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…

I had the same feedback talking to a few professionals. There is doubt about the exact effect of the prescription and the science behind it, and they regularly have patients that get no clear effect from commonly prescribed treatments.

But they also see other patients showing measurable improvement, and trying different prescriptions until finding one that seem to have an effect is a common practice.

All in all, this is very murky situation, but drug prescription can still be effective and might be the only option for some patient for who other approaches didn't work.

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

#202

Post by emptysongglass »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #127
tuxie_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Don't take it personal Oh I take it personally. I’m alive today because I sought diagnosis and treatment. I very nearly wasn’t alive from the consequences of being undiagnosed and untreated. I very probably would be dead today if I had taken this “just person on the internet” more seriously than I already had. I’m more than tired of people offering their ignorant opinions about stuff they don’t understand.

I want to support you, also toward HN, that I do take it personally and am pretty exhausted by people all the way back to both of my parents denying I have a condition.

People of the internet: there are better things you can be doing than playing armchair psychiatrist, especially by invoking notions that can ultimately be harmful to a class of people who have forever been told they just need to put in more effort. You don't know what it's like to live with this so please stop with the conjectures. Thank you.

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

#203

Post by quickthrower2 »

missedthecue wrote: post #100
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.

All quintiles of the US population make more money (inflation adjusted) than they did 20, 40 or 60 years ago. Yet there are more depressives around than ever.

Inflation measurement is a political tool.

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

#204

Post by [deleted] »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #161
willcipriano wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, the state threw a ADD diagnosis on me because I was bored in school, pumped me full of a methamphetamine analog and put me into classes with profoundly disabled people ruining my social life from a early age. I'd stare at the wall in my bedroom for hours due to the drugs, eventually my parents stopped giving them to me when I was at home, but that lead my dad to try them, and eventually get addicte…

In all seriousness, I’m sorry you went through this. I also grew up with a parent and family with addiction. I’m in no place to assess anything about your life, but what you describe is consistent with the diagnosis. And unfortunately your dad taking your meds and becoming an addict is consistent too. ADHD is frequently hereditary, and substance abuse and addiction are common for people with undiagnosed ADHD. Your ow…

[deleted]

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

#206

Post by [deleted] »

smolder wrote: post #122

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the prominence of depression is largely caused by a broken interface with the world at large. The traps created by modern society wherein you struggle for other people's benefit are better designed than ever before. What our social machine procedurally treats as progress is advances in subjugation. Depression may often be an artifact of "efficiency" with respect to extracting v…

[deleted]

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

#207

Post by klodolph »

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 bet dollars to doughnuts in a few decades we will look at all current nutrition advice to something akin of medieval quackery.

All current nutrition advice? Does this equally include the nutrition advice that your cousin gives on Facebook, as well as the advice given by doctors of nutritional science?

I get where this skepticism comes from. Nutrition is complicated, and there's a lot of bad advice shared by random people you meet. There's also the diet supplement aisle at your local grocery store, which is full of poorly-regulated products with dubious claims. (At least, in the US, we have these. They are not regulated as drugs.)

At the same time, nutrition-based interventions are some of the most effective public health policies we've ever implemented. In the US, we have programs like WIC. We have iodized salt. We cure blindness in children. We cure scurvy. These are all amazing things--things which we kind of take for granted, because we're not ever exposed to scurvy, childhood blindness, etc.

This is not the first time I've heard such extreme skepticism of nutritional science and it just boggles the mind because if you talk to someone who works in the field, they have amazing success stories to talk about.

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

#208

Post by sigg3 »

current_thing wrote: post #176

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tFgF1JPNR5E&t=9m35s Tom Cruise was right then.

Tom Cruise is a leading member in the fascist cult Church of Scientology, who is on record saying they can bring back people from the dead and levitate.

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

#209

Post by bowsamic »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #155

It is depressing reading the comments here from people who know nothing of this field, yet feel like they are qualified to spout tons of unsubstantiated nonsense on a forum where we are encouraged to only engage in the conversation when we actually know something.

I’m not sure what you can expect since this problem affects so many of us in such a huge way and yet no one has answers or even stable advice

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

#210

Post by oq_computer »

smolder wrote: post #122

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the prominence of depression is largely caused by a broken interface with the world at large. The traps created by modern society wherein you struggle for other people's benefit are better designed than ever before. What our social machine procedurally treats as progress is advances in subjugation. Depression may often be an artifact of "efficiency" with respect to extracting v…

'The Weariness of the Self' from Alain Ehrenberg gives a really good account about the history of the depression more or less along these lines.
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