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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

#191

Post by smolder »

JamesBarney wrote: post #168
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…

You must be reading very different history books than the ones I've read. The idea that we're somehow way more exploited than the people who came before us does not seem compatible with any history book I've ever read.

It depends on the timespan and comparative frame you are thinking about. If we limit ourselves to post-WW2 MAD world, there are much different overall trends in quality of life than starting in the middle ages or from colonial times, where many people did not enjoy the rights or luxuries modern people would, not in small part because they couldn't, technologically speaking. It's easy to compare modern poverty to peasantry and say we have it good now, but it doesn't address modern problems in a meaningful way.

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

#192

Post by asdff »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #142
asdff wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because some people have suffered through worse doesn't mean that you can use that to invalidate someone else's suffering.

But when, for the vast majority of history, the population faced a much poorer, more monotonous, and less free existence than what the modern worker faces then you jolly well can.

That still doesn't invalidate people's mental conditions today.

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

#193

Post by nl »

emodendroket wrote: post #171
tptacek wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All sorts of non-absurd-seeming notions turn out to be wrong, which is why people train for many years to conduct medical research.

How would you "medically disprove" the notion that some people are unhappy because the circumstances of their lives are bad rather than biological defects?

Unhappy is dramatically, completely different to depression. I've been both and they don't even feel that similar.

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

#194

Post by asdff »

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.

This inflation adjustment business needs adjusting I think if you think the average worker today has more buying power than they did in decades when they were actually buying homes.

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

#195

Post by eurasiantiger »

tptacek wrote: post #162
carabiner wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IOW: Are you ready for me to diagnose your totally normal reaction to our shitty society as mental illness so I can get you addicted to mind altering drugs for the rest of your life? https://imgur.com/Jb1mJyx Or as the Unabomber said, "Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening…

It's a strange mode of persuasion, making arguments about how we should frame psychological dysfunction that quote a man who pooped into a hole in the corner of a shack while in hiding after trying to down a passenger jet.

That is the definition of an ”ad hominem” argument.

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

#196

Post by lettergram »

klodolph wrote: post #124
lettergram wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt, but this article is about how the SSRIs don’t seem to be effective. To be clear a disorder (ie depression disorder) can be caused by a variety of factors, including (but not limited to): genetics, environment, trauma, illness, etc. Given that’s the case, some drugs may help ease symptoms (depression being the symptom), but finding and correcting the root cause (if possible) is important. Unfortunately, the…

> No doubt, but this article is about how the SSRIs don’t seem to be effective. Where does the article say that? > Given that’s the case, some drugs may help ease symptoms (depression being the symptom), but finding and correcting the root cause (if possible) is important. It's not for lack of trying. > Unfortunately, the medical industry as a whole has very little reason to try and “cure” these diseases / disorders.…

> The disease is too complicated, or the cure is too difficult, or our understanding of depression is too primitive, or some combination of all three.

I don’t think we disagree in almost any of this.

I’m simply pointing out depression may be caused by environmental factors, one which can be treated. It could be why they found “nothing convincing” in the study.

I have yet to meet a depressed person or almost any person who couldn’t use more community. I suspect most peoples depression is a rational / emotional response to lack of basic needs of some kind. Whether that’s community, sleep, job, food, etc

That’s not to say all people have environmental factors or that drugs can’t help people cope. I’m merely sharing what struck me and for some reason hadn’t clicked with me prior, even seeing people get out of depression.

The people I know who overcame depression all did the following: worked out, improved sleep patterns, joined some activities. One could argue correlation (ie as depression reduced, they became more active). But it didn’t seem that way looking in. Anyway, just an observation and contemplation really.

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

#197

Post by handedness »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #144
pindab0ter wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you might have gotten a diagnosis that helped you doesn’t mean everyone has. I for one am actually interested if he can back up that claim. So when you as them to “Go on…”, please leave it at that. There’s no reason to be snarky.

You have the benefit of being casually disconnected from the topic and presenting yourself as intellectually curious. I have the experience of being alive because I was diagnosed and treated. Your curiosity about whether I get to live or die is up to you, but my place to speak to that isn’t up to you until I’m dead.

No post body was provided.

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

#198

Post by bawolff »

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…

> In different terms, maybe we have too many rich people (exploiters) in a situation where it's clearly very foolish to keep growing in number (and productivity) to support them. Maybe we just need to rebalance our economy to make it work better for those currently exploited and endemically depressed people.

Don't all those rich people also get depression? I think that rules out a marxist reading here.

If you're going to go this general direction, i'd say a better way would be, we now live in a system where work is never done, stress is pretty constant, and labour is less physical but more mental in the modern world. Perhaps our mind is just not made for continous mental labour. Being a farmer in pre modern times sucked, but at least you could turn your brain off more often.

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

#199

Post by smolder »

JamesBarney wrote: post #172
emodendroket wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard plenty of people involved in mental health care themselves lament the fact that they're often just trying to happy-talk people who genuinely have harrowing lives. I don't think the notion is absurd.

The idea that a terrible life can cause depression is not the limb he's going out on. It's the idea that somehow depression is caused by being way more exploited than our ancestors in the 1700's who were working on someone else's farms and factories as children is the limb he's going out on.

Fair criticism as usual and maybe I should have been more specific, but I didn't say anything about the 1700s or prior specifically. If we talk about trends in the lifespan of people alive today (which represents a huge number of people) the picture is much different.

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

#200

Post by barbs »

For good in-depth investigative journalist approach to the topic, I highly recommend the book "Lost Connections" by Johaan Hari.

The author himself was diagnosed with depression and prescribed SSRIs for the longest time. Through talking with experts and understanding the roots of depression (in short, a lack of connection with the world and community), he now no longer takes them.

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