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

Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 196 posts

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#31

Post by pessimizer »

tokai wrote: post #19
bheadmaster wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're gonna accuse someone of posting lies and FUD, at least have some sort of reference [0] to point to, please. Otherwise you're just participating in a "uh-huh!", "nuh-uh!" pissing contest. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0

You know SSRIs can work while the serotonin hypothesis is wrong right? And no - I'm just going to asking people posting FUD, like SSRIs dont work, to stuff it. If huuhee had posted some of the review articles problematising the performance of SSRIs we could have exchanged different studies and had a discussion. But they didn't, as you didn't even if you think you did. And don't accuse me of having a pissing contest w…

Telling people to shut up needs to come with a reference. Giving your opinion doesn't. The only people who care about the fact that you disagree with them are your friends and family. Strangers only care why you disagree with them. They don't know you personally.

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#32

Post by weego »

bheadmaster wrote: post #13
tokai wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't post lies and FUD here please.

If you're gonna accuse someone of posting lies and FUD, at least have some sort of reference [0] to point to, please. Otherwise you're just participating in a "uh-huh!", "nuh-uh!" pissing contest. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0

No one needs to reference decades mature globally established best practice.

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#33

Post by junon »

passwordoops wrote: post #20
peterlk wrote: post #2

> In a new study that is yet to be peer reviewed Thank you very, very much to the author for saying this

For all practical purposes, peer review is mostly useless today. More often than not, it's either: -a cursory glance by someone who doesn't have time to care -a highly detailed critique from someone who will either be scooped or proven wrong, so they're looking for any reason to reject the paper, good or bad -a grad student who puts in the effort but probably still lacks the experience for a good review And if peer r…

Man I remember the arsenic-based lifeforms thing, always wondered what happened to that. I didn't know it was ever debunked.

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#34

Post by logifail »

aftoprokrustes wrote: post #17
cameronh90 wrote: post #3

> They gave volunteers ketamine while they were under general anesthesia, theoretically preventing the participants from going on a trip. Maybe it's the trip that helps.

As a relatively seasoned meditator, I am absolutely sure that this is the trip that helps, not the chemistry. One way to look at meditation (and, I hear, psychedelics) that fits my experience is that it has the potential effect of opening the range of "ways of looking", to change the way one builds the perceived world. What propulsed my meditation to a totally different level was to see it as a practice of actively e…

> As a relatively seasoned meditator, I am absolutely sure that this is the trip that helps, not the chemistry

The trip is (also) the chemistry!

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#35

Post by padjo »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #11

Unusual is an understatement. This just seems ill-conceived to me. You can't eliminate one effect on the brain by introducing other effects on the brain that might have their own consequences for the results. All this shows is that ketamine while under general anaesthesia is not more efficacious than placebo. Ok then. This just seems like a failed attempt to introduce better blinding to me. I'm not convinced it sheds…

But it did also find that using Ketamine to treat depression had about the same efficacy as knocking them out and shooting saline into them.

So maybe Ketamine does nothing and people just feel better when someone cares for them.

Anyway in the absence of an objective measure of depression everything seems to be on a loose footing

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#37

Post by amelius »

logifail wrote: post #34
aftoprokrustes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a relatively seasoned meditator, I am absolutely sure that this is the trip that helps, not the chemistry. One way to look at meditation (and, I hear, psychedelics) that fits my experience is that it has the potential effect of opening the range of "ways of looking", to change the way one builds the perceived world. What propulsed my meditation to a totally different level was to see it as a practice of actively e…

> As a relatively seasoned meditator, I am absolutely sure that this is the trip that helps, not the chemistry The trip is (also) the chemistry!

Can we create a trip without drugs but e.g. using VR goggles only?

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#38

Post by bheadmaster »

tsimionescu wrote: post #28
bheadmaster wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're gonna accuse someone of posting lies and FUD, at least have some sort of reference [0] to point to, please. Otherwise you're just participating in a "uh-huh!", "nuh-uh!" pissing contest. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0

There's a simple reference that doesn't even need to be quoted: SSRIs are approved for treating depression in all major countries on Earth. And this approval required they pass phase 3 clinical trials, demonstrating effectiveness over placebo. Also, given that they are typically preferred over other classes of anti-depressants (try-cyclics etc), we also know they have demonstrated better effectiveness than other drug…

If it's so obvious and well-established, it shouldn't be hard to find some reference to support it, no?

How else would I know that the emperor is, indeed, wearing clothes?

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#39

Post by bheadmaster »

pessimizer wrote: post #31
tokai wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know SSRIs can work while the serotonin hypothesis is wrong right? And no - I'm just going to asking people posting FUD, like SSRIs dont work, to stuff it. If huuhee had posted some of the review articles problematising the performance of SSRIs we could have exchanged different studies and had a discussion. But they didn't, as you didn't even if you think you did. And don't accuse me of having a pissing contest w…

Telling people to shut up needs to come with a reference. Giving your opinion doesn't. The only people who care about the fact that you disagree with them are your friends and family. Strangers only care why you disagree with them. They don't know you personally.

> The only people who care about the fact that you disagree with them are your friends and family. Strangers only care why you disagree with them. They don't know you personally.

This is exactly my point. You've hit the nail on the head.

Re: Ketamine no better than placebo at alleviating depression, unusual trial finds

#40

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #27
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #11

Unusual is an understatement. This just seems ill-conceived to me. You can't eliminate one effect on the brain by introducing other effects on the brain that might have their own consequences for the results. All this shows is that ketamine while under general anaesthesia is not more efficacious than placebo. Ok then. This just seems like a failed attempt to introduce better blinding to me. I'm not convinced it sheds…

Actually, what it shows is both that getting ketamine while under general anaesthesia is roughly as effective as when taken without anaesthesia (40% here vs 45% in [1]), and as effective as just taking anaesthesia (their placebo treatment). [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3992936/

I see. But this seems to cast even more doubt onto the use of general anaesthesia as an active placebo. I mean, usually people waking from it don't feel great because they're very ill or had major surgery. Maybe in the abscence of things like that it could have some antidepressant effect.

Things similar to this have been used as treatment in the distant past of psychiatry as well, when ethics was nowhere to be found. Induced comas and such.

Post reply on HN