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Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

theguardian.com

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Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#151

Post by robertakarobin »

jacobgkau wrote: post #133
potatocoffee wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because 7 years old is borderline too young to even make a depression diagnosis, and that kid's going to have his brain chemistry altered and essentially be addicted to a drug that he'll have to pay for for the rest of his life.

According to our pediatrician there are no known long-term effects of juvenile Prozac use. The effects may exist, but if they do they are of sufficiently low significance as to not have been detected yet. Interestingly the one possible effect she's aware of is that there may be a correlation with not growing as tall physically as one might otherwise. The data is not conclusive, but it gives me something to blame for topping out at 5'10" and never hitting 6' like my dad. :)

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#152

Post by Modified3019 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #91
DANmode wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets even more interesting when you realize many SSRIs are antibacterials.

It gets less interesting when one notices that social animals are much more prone to depression. Inflammation and depression are linked. Infection causes inflammation. It doesn’t follow that depression is caused by infection.

I’m not quite following the previous conversation here, but your comment brings to mind that one theory of a possible “function” of depression, is as a “sickness behavior” to help isolate a sick animal from others to protect the group. A sheep or cow getting sick and going off on its own is a common thing.

I’m not sure if it has a technical name or if it’s been rigorously studied, but it’s a common observation which even I’ve seen (and reported to growers I work for).

A casual mention here: http://www.sheep101.info/201/behavior.html

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#153

Post by pyth0 »

jacobgkau wrote: post #142
pyth0 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you believe it's both "no better than placebo" but also that it's "going to have his brain chemistry altered and essentially be addicted to a drug". SSRIs are not considered addictive, though people can develop a dependence if it provides them significant improvement.

A drug can have real effects while being no better than a placebo for doing something specific (what they're supposed to do).

Okay, so what makes you believe that about prozac (or SSRIs) then?

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#154

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

area51org wrote: post #115
Razengan wrote: post #111

> treating depression Most of the "treatment" is apparently just telling people to stop feeling sad [0], or giving them drugs [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/thanksimcured but no one bothers to take the time out to sit down and figure out WHY they feel sad and FIX THAT FOR THEM. That takes too much work. Sometimes depression is this vague feeling that this world is just wrong. That Damocles' sword of mortality. The nagg…

Depression isn't just feeling sad. It's not necessarily caused by anything external. You cannot necessarily just "figure out why" you feel bad; that's really not how it usually works.

>It's not necessarily caused by anything external. Y

Then how could a drug fix it? We're positing that there is not only a mechanism causing it, but that this mechanism can be manipulated external to their own self/agency/whatever.

I think that it is at least as absurd to posit that you can come up with one chemical substance or another that will alleviate their depression when you dismiss the idea of coming up with a sequence of words spoken to them that might alleviate their depression. It's the conceit that we have a better idea of how their brains work chemically than we do of how their brains work cognitively.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#155

Post by DANmode »

purple_turtle wrote: post #117
DANmode wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/glymphatic-system PS Thanks for keeping this a good place to be! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html More for the avid reader: 1.) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7698404/ 2.) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40012567/ 3.) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36498538/

Your first linked page has no word "depression" on it

It wasn’t intended to.

It was just the best “every man” link I could provide for understanding how efficacy of toxin-clearing (toxicity) could be related to depression, other struggles with homeostasis.

Did you grasp the connection?

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#156

Post by [deleted] »

robertakarobin wrote: post #147
jacobgkau wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be more interested in where your 7-year-old even learned phrases like "I feel like I shouldn't be on Earth anymore."

Yes, us too. Beats us. Sure wasn't around our house, and we can't imagine any family/friends/TV/whatever he may have learned it from.

[deleted]

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#157

Post by DANmode »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #100
DANmode wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. It’s caused by inflammation, one of the causes being: detox inefficiency.

> It’s caused by inflammation No, it’s not. Depression can be influenced by inflammation. This thread is a good example of the GIGO pitfalls that researching with chatbots entails.

Yeah, “linked to” is better than “caused by” here, for sure.

Not often this kind of thing comes up on HN, so I was replying in haste at a stoplight!

I’ll ignore the slight, which you should know better than.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#158

Post by Modified3019 »

DANmode wrote: post #110
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really have to unpack "detox inefficiency" because even a google search comes back with nothing.

When your normal lymphatic processes (and glymphatic processes) are slowed, or near-halted.

Calling it lymphatic impairment would be more straightforward.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#159

Post by slantedview »

My understanding with SSRIs and other depression meds is that they are hit and miss for anyone. I have a family member who, as a teen, suffered from severe depression and didn't want to live. Therapy wasn't able to help - it was actually the therapist who recommended more drastic measures such as medication. And so they tried Prozac and that worked. Having seen the reversal myself, it's hard to understand how this is placebo.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#160

Post by dekhn »

jacobgkau wrote: post #130
kstrauser wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If a kid has diabetes, would it be horrifying to treat it? Why would it be different for a neurochemistry issue that makes the same kid tired and sad all the time?

Because the problem's not a "neurochemistry issue" (that theory's been debunked and the "chemicals" in play have never been known), and the solution is "no better than placebo."

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