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Depression’s Upside

nytimes.com

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Re: Depression’s Upside

#11

Post by bilch »

jvdh wrote: post #7

How prevalent are anti-depressants? I get the impression that a large percentage of the american youth are on Prozac or others, and/or even medication for ADD. And also that the normal response for depression is medication. In the Netherlands this is quite the reverse. Anti-depressants (AFAIK) are only used as a last resort, or as a kick-start for the healing process when it is a very deep depression. Kids in highsch…

This seems rather untrue. "In Nederland worden steeds vaker antidepressiva voorgeschreven. In 2007 kregen 937.000 mensen in totaal 6,7 miljoen recepten tegen depressie voorgeschreven. Het aantal mensen dat antidepressiva gebruikt is sinds 1999 elk jaar met 6 procent gegroeid." (Wikipedia) 937.000 people out of 16 million (5.8%) isn't quite the "11% of women and 5% of men in the non-institutionalized population" Wikipedia has for the US, but it's certainly not "quite the reverse", either.

Re: Depression’s Upside

#13

Post by Estragon »

The implicit assumption of this article is that tendency to depression is a heritable genetic trait which is preserved in the population by selection pressure. It goes on to seek an explanation for the prevalence of depression in terms of greater reproductive fitness. The risk is that by not examining this assumption, it may be laboring under a misapprehension. Depression might be a learned behavior: more "software" than "hardware." The near-total failure to validate anti-depressants as an effective treatment for depression[1] suggests that we don't have a clue as to its actual etiology.

[1] E.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...

  "Given these results, there seems to be little reason to 
  prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most 
  severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments 
  have failed to provide a benefit. This study raises
  serious issues that need to be addressed surrounding drug
  licensing and how drug trial data is reported."
Update after reading the whole thing: I like the practical developments this research has led to in Thomson's own practice. E.g. (page 6)

  “What you’re trying to do is speed along the rumination 
  process,” Thomson says. “Once you show people the dilemma
  they need to solve, they almost always start feeling 
  better.”
But he seems to have really been reaching with his scientific conclusions.

Re: Depression’s Upside

#14

Post by alextp »

RevRal wrote: post #6

There's productive depression and unproductive depression. Some people aren't compelled into productive depression. Productive depression is a dignified depression¸ where the person realizes that the object of the angst is a little elusive. They know what the problem isn't , and it is never the most obvious thing. They do their best to manage it and figure out what the real problem is. Unproductive depression is simp…

> Productive depression is a dignified depression¸ where the person realizes that the object of the angst is a little elusive

I think their theory is that this state (realizing what is the object and why it is elusive) is the healthy outcome of a depression, and it can either happen naturally or with the help of therapy. Using their metaphor, what you call "unproductive depression" is like a person hallucinating or dying with a 40º+ fever.

Re: Depression’s Upside

#15

Post by chipsy »

I'd blame vitamin D deficiency for the bulk of depression cases in the modern world. Indoors culture, heavy clothing, an aversion to organ meats - which the biology tells us are the most nutrient-rich parts. It adds up to a massive nutrition gap, one only slightly offset by the tiny amounts added to dairy.

Re: Depression’s Upside

#16

Post by msluyter »

chipsy wrote: post #15

I'd blame vitamin D deficiency for the bulk of depression cases in the modern world. Indoors culture, heavy clothing, an aversion to organ meats - which the biology tells us are the most nutrient-rich parts. It adds up to a massive nutrition gap, one only slightly offset by the tiny amounts added to dairy.

I recently started taking vitamin D and I feel great. I'm more energetic, sleep better, and, yes, feel happier. So that's one data point in favor of your thesis.

Re: Depression’s Upside

#17

Post by robg »

msluyter wrote: post #16
chipsy wrote: post #15

I'd blame vitamin D deficiency for the bulk of depression cases in the modern world. Indoors culture, heavy clothing, an aversion to organ meats - which the biology tells us are the most nutrient-rich parts. It adds up to a massive nutrition gap, one only slightly offset by the tiny amounts added to dairy.

I recently started taking vitamin D and I feel great. I'm more energetic, sleep better, and, yes, feel happier. So that's one data point in favor of your thesis.

I'll add a second one where I also experienced all of those positive symptoms. Plus, I had trouble for years staying awake in the the mid-afternoon. During grad school it got so bad I had to put a futon in my office. A few days of Vitamin D supplements later, the problem completely went away.

I've continued to take D as I've had my levels tested six times in the last year and they're still low. But the positive symptoms remain.

Re: Depression’s Upside

#18

Post by anr »

RevRal wrote: post #6

There's productive depression and unproductive depression. Some people aren't compelled into productive depression. Productive depression is a dignified depression¸ where the person realizes that the object of the angst is a little elusive. They know what the problem isn't , and it is never the most obvious thing. They do their best to manage it and figure out what the real problem is. Unproductive depression is simp…

As the article says, malfunctioning isn't a privilege of the body, minds can do it too.

So the word "pathetic" is uncalled for. William Styron wrote a fantastic book about what it is like to be depressed: "Darkness Visible". Well worth a read.

Re: Depression’s Upside

#19

Post by Retric »

Estragon wrote: post #13

The implicit assumption of this article is that tendency to depression is a heritable genetic trait which is preserved in the population by selection pressure. It goes on to seek an explanation for the prevalence of depression in terms of greater reproductive fitness. The risk is that by not examining this assumption, it may be laboring under a misapprehension. Depression might be a learned behavior: more "software"…

I think the increase in depression may be a result of changes in the human environment over time. Depression may be an evolutionary acceptable downside to some other useful trait, which is simply more common now.

This is pure BS, but an example might be: People respond to rewards with mild addictive behavior, which a useful adaption. However, in our day to day lives there are few short term rewards which messes with the reward pathways in our brain leading to depression. So the an effective treatment might be playing games with a specific type of reward structure.

PS: Depression is a vary generic problem, so there might be hundreds of different failures that all result in the same symptoms.

Re: Depression’s Upside

#20

Post by gruseom »

pyre wrote: post #10
jvdh wrote: post #7

How prevalent are anti-depressants? I get the impression that a large percentage of the american youth are on Prozac or others, and/or even medication for ADD. And also that the normal response for depression is medication. In the Netherlands this is quite the reverse. Anti-depressants (AFAIK) are only used as a last resort, or as a kick-start for the healing process when it is a very deep depression. Kids in highsch…

I suspect that reports of this are highly exaggerated by the people that think that every problem is solvable through 'putting your nose to the grindstone' and that everything else is just 'weakness.'

I disagree. The idea that our society hyper-medicalizes and therefore overmedicates human problems is, to my mind, very sensible. It by no means follows that all emotional problems are "just weakness" and that the solution is to pull oneself up by the bootstraps. Indeed, given that the latter is the ultimate in crude ideas of how to approach the psyche, it actually goes hand-in-hand with the hypermedical approach: if that's the only alternative, it's no wonder that people resort to drugs.
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