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A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#321

Post by dilap »

srle wrote: post #311
UncleOxidant wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar) Citation? Because isn't gout generally thought by the medical establishment to be caused by high-protein, low vegetable diets that raise uric acid?

Yes. The carnivore diet stuff is just straight up garbage fad dieting except it sounds cool or whatever so it appeals to insecure dudes. No real substance to it, and everyone I’ve ever seen promote just spits out the same bullshit claims as every other fad diet testimonial (“no more brain fog”) Unless you’ve been instructed to by an actual doctor, switching to a meme internet diet promoted by morons like Jordan Peter…

> Prospective data suggest that consumption of sugar sweetened soft drinks and fructose is strongly associated with an increased risk of gout in men. Furthermore, fructose rich fruits and fruit juices may also increase the risk

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18244959/

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#322

Post by eebynight »

srle wrote: post #311
UncleOxidant wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The biggest culprit for gout is definitely carbs (sugar) Citation? Because isn't gout generally thought by the medical establishment to be caused by high-protein, low vegetable diets that raise uric acid?

Yes. The carnivore diet stuff is just straight up garbage fad dieting except it sounds cool or whatever so it appeals to insecure dudes. No real substance to it, and everyone I’ve ever seen promote just spits out the same bullshit claims as every other fad diet testimonial (“no more brain fog”) Unless you’ve been instructed to by an actual doctor, switching to a meme internet diet promoted by morons like Jordan Peter…

I never understood why people get so worked up about what others eat. Like how does this affect you in any way?

If it works for people so what? Personally, I would never go that far but it seems like most people aren't getting enough protein and could use a bump.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#323

Post by op00to »

idoby wrote: post #263
JSavageOne wrote: post #131

As an American it's not surprising at all. Six figures of student loan debt, job insecurity, healthcare insecurity, rampant poverty / homelessness, the most despicable president to disgrace the white house (who didn't even win the popular vote), stay-at-home orders because the U.S. couldn't manage the crisis, lack of community (doesn't help that 99% of the country is sprawl), rampant obesity, and general lack of hope…

As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely? Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?

Multiple people I know have died, almost everyone I know is out of work. The shithead in the White House killed all the programs that would have helped us.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#324

Post by daseiner1 »

courtf wrote: post #309

I believe the existential crisis so many are experiencing has been caused by the pandemic, but perhaps not in the way one might expect when approaching the problem rationally. Yes, we are more isolated, and perhaps concerned for the safety of ourselves or our loved ones, or even for some abstract concept of community or society, but depression is characterized by anhedonia: the inability to feel pleasure. Are we all…

fine points up to the third paragraph. you said yourself that the pathways of meaning have been blocked - of course then things would feel meaningless! there’s doesn’t need to be a Meaning to life for life to have meaning

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#325

Post by nalllar »

bobthepanda wrote: post #213
ssivark wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important point about the role of priors — especially if one is using a statistical (correlation based) proxy for what is actually a causal question. But here’s a practical question: imagine a universal healthcare mandate which allows people to get a mental health check-up every year. What criteria should the doctors use? Would the diagnostics have to change significantly?

What do practitioners do in countries with universal healthcare?

If you really think you need it, you go privately or join a long (years) waiting list for mental health service, maybe get a group therapy session if you're lucky while you wait.

UK mental health service doesn't work currently.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#326

Post by themacguffinman »

tjs8rj wrote: post #277
idoby wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-American, why do you care about who is in the white house so much? How does it affect your life concretely? Try watching less talking heads/browsing Twitter less, maybe, and you'll feel better?

This is very true, as an American. There's almost no difference in the vast majority of daily life for most Americans if you just pretended like the president doesn't exist.

Scant comfort for immigrants whose residency and livelihood are under threat, or Americans who have lost loved ones indirectly due to bad decisions made by the president, or non-Americans who have to live in a world shaped by American action or inaction on foreign policy.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#327

Post by throw_away »

buran77 wrote: post #281
surfpel wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also relate to this. My hope for cultural change post pandemic is that the shift towards remote work will persist after it's over. I love being an engineer but I can't stand working in an open office or commuting 2 1/2 hours a day.

For a while I wondered if I'm the outlier since I feel substantially better now than I did before going into isolation. Then some of my close friends who were on anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication told me the same. They actually stopped taking the medication for months with no signs that the symptoms are coming back. It's anecdotal and I have no idea how widespread this is or why it happens, at least to peopl…

This article from late April addresses this phenomenon: https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-is-making-a-lot-of...

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#328

Post by huonpine »

rwc wrote: post #171
3pt14159 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the internet and the constant FOMO and comparisons to people at their best points in life, or the fact that the social dynamics of dating have gotten crazy. Attractive, fit, intelligent men get a completely outsized proportion of the interest on apps like Bumble and Tinder, while even median men are mostly ignored. America is in the worst shape in the West, but these trends are getting worse here in Cana…

uh “Attractive, fit, intelligent” seems like a winning combination regardless of the era.

Yes, but Attractive, fit and intelligent are different in every era.

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#329

Post by westoncb »

conistonwater wrote: post #177

Diagnostic criteria for anxiety and depression are very broad because they are necessary as tools for practicing doctors seeing patients (as opposed to applying them to a random selection of people). If you turn the process back, and just ask how many people in the population fit under them, you'll always, even in normal times, get an unexpectedly large number. That doesn't imply that anything is wrong or that anythi…

> This is approximately the same phenomenon that causes medical students to self-diagnose themselves with every disease they learn about

Could you say more about this? It seems pretty counter-intuitive that medical students could look at some diagnostic criteria—which I assume often contain some fairly straightforward things like, "green spots on armpits" or whatever—and come out convinced they have the disease.

When you say diagnostic criteria function as a "tool," what is the purpose of the tool? My only guess so far is that it's about leaving things up to the doctor's case-by-case judgement by leaving the criteria overly broad. Maybe this ties into legal concerns as well as the fuzzy nature of real instances of diseases (i.e. it's rare to be able to exactly specify the symptoms in a way that works for all cases)?

Re: A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression

#330

Post by bsanr2 »

aszantu wrote: post #169

As a person with a history of depression and social anxiety I really do feel calmer since the crisis started, as if my state of mind was made for this kind of life. Less people on the streets, it's quieter, no one breathing down my neck in the supermarket, home office, no expectations on how to pick my clothes, how to behave, no trying to hide the weird stuff I eat (carnivore, high meat, raw, cooked and aged whatever…

So much of American how society functions is going to be rethought after this - telework, hygiene, respect for healthcare and "essential" workers - but somehow, I don't think "the dignity and health of shy or introverted people" is going to be part of that. Extroverts are finally seeing what the other side looks and feels like, but rather than reconsider how their privilege might come at the expense of our health and happiness, they're clawing at their cages like rabid beasts to get out and "get back to normal."

And if you have to live with one, you know that the first few weeks were bliss, until they started getting antsy and began offloading their nervous energy on you. Can't win.

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