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Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

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Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#561

Post by Nevermark »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #358
Aurornis wrote: post #325

Vitamin D and Omega-3 are the two supplements that consistently appear to be super powerful in small studies and then fail to do anything significant at all in larger studies. Pause for a moment and consider the mere plausibility of the claims in the first few paragraphs: The effect size for antidepressants is 0.4, but the effect size for Vitamin D is 1.8? Are we to believe that Vitamin D supplements have an effect s…

Anecdotally, Vitamin D and B12 had more of a positive effect on my mental health than therapy or any of the half dozen prescription meds I tried. Hiking has the biggest effect though. I think maybe the problem is that therapists are diagnosing people, and psychiatrists are prescribing pills based on those diagnoses, but neither are ordering bloodwork to check for deficiencies. Which leads to a lot of people suffering…

I go on regular long walks and it is a huge help.

A few months ago I tried walking with a weighted vest, and my body and brain got completely shocked in a really good way. Wakes up everything. So that is in my mix now.

Walking with 20 then 40 lbs was a lot easier than I expected, and the results were much greater.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#563

Post by kadushka »

lamename wrote: post #558
kadushka wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the larger the trial size, the smaller the outcome I find this a bit surprising. Could there be something else affecting the accuracy of larger trials? Perhaps they are not as careful, or cutting corners somewhere?

Maybe. Those could be the case. But ignoring all confounding factors, this phenomenon is possible with numerical experiments alone. One of the meanings of "the Law of Small Numbers". Basically, the possibility that the small study was underpowered, and just lucky...then the large studies with more power are closer to the truth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization

Sure, could be just lucky. But if there are several successful small studies, and several unsuccessful large ones (no idea if this is the case here), we should probably look for a better explanation.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#564

Post by pixl97 »

arghwhat wrote: post #318
paufernandez wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. But sometimes there is no "root cause", the brain is still a mystery. If you had been depressed even when you knew there was nothing to worry about, you would see it differently, because then you deduce that the black cloud is produced within. Chemistry trumps psychology. Good enough chemistry enables cognitive treatments. But to fix the wrong chemistry you need chemistry.

> Chemistry trumps psychology To nitpick: The mind is applied biochemistry. Psychology intervenes in the chemistry, like many other activities do. The goal of that is to solve the root cause so that your future levels will be maintained at the right level, instead of just forcing the level by sourcing the respective chemicals externally. A good rule of thumb in biology and particular any kind of hormone production an…

>A good rule of thumb in biology and particular any kind of hormone production and balance is "use it or lose it" -

Very basic and very often wrong rule, so take it with a grain of salt.

Insulin for example is the opposite. "lose it then use it" would be a general rule for type 2 diabetics where insulin resistance commonly due to weight gain is the primary problem. Losing the weight leads to better uptake and usage. For a type 1 "lose it then use it" you typically lose the ability to produce insulin to an an autoimmune disorder, then are stuck using insulin for the rest of your life.

The body itself typically attempts to main homeostasis, but at population scales this is something that is going to have a massive range of ways it shows up. Evolution, at grand scales, doesn't care if you survive as long as enough of your population survives and breeds. At the end of the day you might just be one of those people that was born broken and to work properly you need replacement parts/chemicals. A working medical system should be there to figure out which case is which.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#565

Post by pixl97 »

braiamp wrote: post #212
ghusto wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hate on antidepressants is not because they're not effective, but rather that they're abused by psychiatrists. Ideally, a professional will prescribe them as a necessary helper to becoming (more) mentally healthy whilst tackling the root cause. Most of the time however, it's more of a "here, take these indefinitely". It's like if we took sleeping pills every time we had trouble sleeping. Having said that, I just…

> but rather that they're abused by psychiatrists Doctors of all countries have been under a lot of pressure by patients and health administrators to "fix the issue and quick". The last thing that your doctor wants is giving you pills so you go away, but that's what the context very strongly incentivize. You want doctors to stop abusing pills, stop asking them for immediate fix. Give them less patients, more time and…

>Also, prevention.

Prevention is one of those things that when we actually attempt to fix it would have to completely change the world you live in.

Humans are social creatures and a huge part of our mental health is dependant on the society around us. If the actual problem is "wow capitalism is really broken and showing us ads 24/7 that say were not good enough is killing us", then taking a pill is a valid solution because changing the system will take generations or very violent wars.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#566

Post by citrin_ru »

16bitvoid wrote: post #267
citrin_ru wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you view a world at a certain angle there is always something to worry about: 1. World in not perfect, it doesn't confirm to how we want it to be (and could not even in theory given that different people want it to be different) 2. The future cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy so even if all is perfect today you can worry that it will turn bad in the future. When looking at the same reality one persons sees th…

That's incredibly reductive. I'm sure some people's depression can boil down to a matter of perspective, but it's naive to extrapolate that to everyone with depression. I'm incredibly optimistic and am content with my position in life. My default state is being mindful of the present and I don't think about things too far into the future. I very rarely ever feel stressed out over things in life. However, none of that…

I'm not telling it's a matter of perspective, my point is that I see no objective metrics to tell apart if the situation is bad so it's one expected to be depressed and when the situation is good (so only medication / therapy would help). And it makes discussions around this topic harder.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#567

Post by svara »

ncasenmare wrote: post #401
Aurornis wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Researchers have noticed it for 13 years! From the linked Ghaemi et al 2024 meta-analysis You’re cherry picking papers. Others have already shared other studies showing no significant effects of Vitamin D intervention. For any popular supplement you can find someone publishing papers with miraculous results, showing huge effect sizes and significant outcomes. This has been going on for decades. With Omega-3s the la…

> You’re cherry picking papers. I just picked the most recent meta-analysis I could find, which also specifically estimates the dose-response curve. (Since averaging the effect at 400 IU and 4000 IU doesn't make sense.) > Others have already shared other studies showing no significant effects of Vitamin D intervention. Yes, and the Ghaemi et al 2024 meta-analysis addresses the methodological problems in those earlier…

> They're from a major peer-reviewed study published in Nature, the highest-impact journal.

No, the domain name is nature.com because it's in a Nature Publishing Group journal, Scientific Reports, which is their least prestigious journal.

It's a common mistake, and they do that on purpose, of course, to leverage the Nature brand.

It's also a mistake that implies a complete lack of familiarity with scientific publishing, unfortunately, which makes it a bit difficult to take your judgements regarding plausibility very seriously.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#568

Post by pixl97 »

pluralmonad wrote: post #258
ghusto wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hate on antidepressants is not because they're not effective, but rather that they're abused by psychiatrists. Ideally, a professional will prescribe them as a necessary helper to becoming (more) mentally healthy whilst tackling the root cause. Most of the time however, it's more of a "here, take these indefinitely". It's like if we took sleeping pills every time we had trouble sleeping. Having said that, I just…

The US is heavily over-medicated, for sure. The pharma reps are very intimate with our doctors and it expresses as one might expect. If you go to the doc with nearly any significant complaint, you will very likely come away with some drugs. But it is not all doctors; people want easy fixes that do not require any change in habits. Not an easy problem to solve, systemically.

>people want easy fixes that do not require any change in habits

Because it's easy to say change your habits when the problems are systematic as you say. Cutting yourself off social media, or stopping watching the news isn't easy. Being bullied/stressed about work and not having other work options isn't easily dealt with. Being bombarded with advertising telling you that you suck is not something you can personally deal with.

The US especially has this idea that we're all rugged individualists and any problem we have is our own and not one created by the larger society around us and therefor communal solutions are bad, and you should toughen up.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#569

Post by isoprophlex »

graemep wrote: post #409
isoprophlex wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I have an extremely bright lamp designed to tread SAD that I sit, or well used to sit, in front of every morning. Daylight responsive led strip in my home office. And a pair of glasses with blue LEDs for on the go. It did... 10%? of what citalopram eventually did for me.

Thanks for the reply. Does the citalopram completely obviate the need for the extra lighting or do you find there is still a benefit to having the daylight lighting too?

I've stopped caring for my various lamps. I turn on the bright panel out of habit while working at my desk... but I don't feel "drawn" to it as before. I'd, for example, set my phone to the highest brightness in a dark room to motivate myself to get out of bed, or at least get to the light switch. Now I don't care, I just get up.

And I can look at the dark world outside the kitchen windows in the morning and not feel oppressed. It's just a lack of light, no menacing presence.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#570

Post by pixl97 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #542
Aurornis wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hate on antidepressants is not because they're not effective, But that’s exactly what many claim. Even this article is trying to claim that Vitamin D has 4.5X higher effect size than antidepressants (e.g. that they don’t work) > It's like if we took sleeping pills every time we had trouble sleeping. Having said that, I just realised I have the impression that's exactly what people do in the USA? USA is actually…

The "hate" on antidepressants is mostly from a place of "The kids are taking pills for things that aren't diseases and just need to get out more" and other stupid takes about how "back in my day we didn't have this much mental illness", which is why the hate is maintained even for things like ADHD medications which are so thoroughly proven scientifically that they are one of the best proven treatments humans have acc…

>The "hate" is not based in science

The lingering roots of Calvinism in the US cause us all kinds of problems.

"You were born broken because god made you that way, don't make yourself better, and hurry up and die" permeates huge parts of our culture. It's why lots of other cultures look at us and what we do with relative confusion.

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