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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

#351

Post by chubbyFIREthrwy »

bflesch wrote: post #175
mvcosta91 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“God, I see what you’re doing for others, and I want that for me.” I had a very similar experience, except it killed my libido, so I chose to endure the suffering of Winter rather than live with emotional numbness. Still, I strongly recommend it for people flirting with the abyss. It was life-changing for me while I was raising an autistic 2yo during the pandemic.

I have no experience about antidepressants myself so please excuse my stupid question. When I hear people say "it killed my libido" I always think about the fact that hyper-sexuality can be a trauma response, and if your body is healing the hyper-sexuality is most likely also reduced. It's like when you have a disease and then read the side effects of a medication and notice that a lot of the side effects are basical…

>When I hear people say "it killed my libido" I always think about the fact that hyper-sexuality can be a trauma response, and if your body is healing the hyper-sexuality is most likely also reduced.

That ... feels like an edge case, for a very narrow set of circumstances (history + one of several possible responses to that history).

Anti-depressants seem to have a clear effect on dopamine pathways that better explain what's going on here. I have been on several that have this effect very visibly (at least Cymbalta): whenever I'm close to climax (whether from sex or masturbation) there is a mental block against pushing through to that release.

Fortunately, there are many that avoid this effect now, notably Zoloft, Trintellix, and Wellbutrin.

Edit: Okay what the heck just happened? This comment went dead (flagkilled?), despite being good faith and productive, as best I can tell. I would really appreciate feedback on what I did wrong, from anyone who can still see it. I did it on a semi-throwaway account for (what should be) obvious reasons.

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

#352

Post by ibeckermayer »

nikolatt wrote: post #319
humanfromearth9 wrote: post #307

The first thing I would do in case of depression is to make sure that the patient's energy levels are good and that mitochondria and other energy-related biochem phenomena work as expected. I know first-hand that low energy-levels and lacking energy production mechanically lead to depression. Also, look at how people (children also) experience the world and their relationships and their stresses when they are tired (…

Thank you for the comment. This is not in my area of expertise, so I hope you can clarify - how does one test that "mitochondria and other energy-related biochem phenomena work as expected"?

There are tests out there like https://www.chrismasterjohn-phd.com/mitome

(No affiliation, just have been subscribed to the founder’s substack for a while)

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

#353

Post by darvid »

michaelsshaw wrote: post #168
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…

> 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? I'm not sure if it is common but I've definitely taken my fair share of my dog's trazodone.

after being prescribed Mirtazapine, then Trazadone I realized I don't think I've had restful sleep as long as I can remember. I need a sleep study done probably but until that the quality of life from taking something that has virtually no negative side effects for me is insane.

meanwhile people are like "just take magnesium or melatonin lol"

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

#354

Post by hu3 »

WarmWash wrote: post #321
hu3 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not whom you asked. But it's a resonable association for some cases. But I understand that it would have been better to ask and not associate because it's a fraction of the cases.

If I told you that I often have a fire in my fireplace, it would be incredibly strange if you suggested that pyromania can be a trauma response. Either OP is confused about what libido means, or has some kind of heavy shame around sexuality.

Yeah, I agree with your sentiment.

Sex is awesome and liberating! Should be anything but shamed.

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

#355

Post by vegancap »

Aurornis wrote: post #297
vegancap wrote: post #2

I found this to be the case. Tried Sertraline for a while, gave me headaches and made me feel sick. Then as part of a new gym plan, started taking Omega 3+VitD daily, and I just felt a sense of calm and peace after a few weeks. The massive uptick in exercise probably also helped. I also felt quite an extreme uptick because I was a vegan for 10 years, and found out I had basically zero Omega 3 in my blood. I suspect o…

> Then as part of a new gym plan, started taking Omega 3+VitD daily, and I just felt a sense of calm and peace after a few weeks. The massive uptick in exercise probably also helped I would bet that 95% of that improvement or more was due to the exercise. Your anecdote is common: People start taking Vitamin D or fish oil as part of a bigger plan to have a healthier lifestyle and then they attribute success to the pil…

Possibly, but anecdotally, I went through a period of forgetting to take them again recently, and definitely felt worse again. Sleep started suffering, felt lower energy again. But, could have been a coincidence/something else entirely

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

citrin_ru wrote: post #278
ajross wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the "people with anxiety should just stop being worried" attitude that failed to help for centuries. Whether or not you believe SSRI's are clinically effective, denying the existence of mental health disorders is not helping. No, anxiety and depression aren't simply a matter of perspective.

My point is that it's hard if not possible to objectively tell if the situation you are in is good or bad. And I'm not trying to deny anything.

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by vegancap »

dvh wrote: post #7
vegancap wrote: post #2

I found this to be the case. Tried Sertraline for a while, gave me headaches and made me feel sick. Then as part of a new gym plan, started taking Omega 3+VitD daily, and I just felt a sense of calm and peace after a few weeks. The massive uptick in exercise probably also helped. I also felt quite an extreme uptick because I was a vegan for 10 years, and found out I had basically zero Omega 3 in my blood. I suspect o…

> as part of a new gym plan There's your answer

Possibly, deffo would have been a big factor. Anecdotally though, I forgot to take these supplements for a while recently, just got out of the habit, and definitely felt worse again for a bit. But, could have been a coincidence/something else

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

#358

Post by dec0dedab0de »

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 from lack of basic health, and treating the symptoms with SSRIs that have withdrawl symptoms a million times worse than most of the problems they treat.

Now to your point, I seriously doubt that vitamin D will hold up against anti-depressants and therapy if we control for other health and quality of life issues. I just think there is a ton of misdiagnosis, and lack of root cause analysis in the mental health field, and health care in general.

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

#359

Post by moritzwarhier »

neRok wrote: post #141
moritzwarhier wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Source? There have been many articles on HN showing the RDA to be ~10x too low (something like 5,000 IU) and that the daily safety limit to be significantly higher than that (something like 30,000 IU). First: the RDA and the safety limit are not the same, and an RDA in a country being too low does not mean that the maximum safe dose is wrong. And it certainly does not mean that there is a higher risk in under-dosin…

The first link makes the problem sound like it can happen to anyone, but then when you tease out the details; * Toxicity resulting from lack of monitoring is frequently seen in patients requiring high doses to treat ailments like osteoporosis, renal osteodystrophy, psoriasis, gastric bypass surgery, celiac, or inflammatory bowel disease. * Patients who are on high doses of Vitamin D and taking inadvertently increased…

I've read the article by now and I like it. It's balanced, more so than the comment section made me think.

And my takeaway is not that everyone should be taking 10k IE, but it's a great reminder to be more consistent in taking my Vitamin capsules in winter.

I'm still standing by my point that it's "easy" to overdose on Vitamin D. Like the article already mentions, one should remember possible kidney issues and not take insane doses of it.

What the recommended daily intake should be, I don't know.

The whole reason I'm commenting on this is I used to take one of the "top" antidepressants on this list.

And I am a skeptic of antidepressants, that doesn't mean I deny all positive effects in people who are prescribed them, of course.

For what it's worth, it's also easy to overdose on Venlafaxine. It's still considered safe.

Just an example to make clear that my comment was not a critique of taking Vitamin D in general.

I don't find the article's main point surprising though. That's the reason I'm taking Vitamin D, too. Doesn't mean that it's impossible to overdose, and this point is also important, because many people still think that it would be impossible to take too much of an vitamin or mineral. Thankfully, high-dose Vitamin A / retinol supplements are not as widespread.

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

#360

Post by [deleted] »

citrin_ru wrote: post #278
ajross wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the "people with anxiety should just stop being worried" attitude that failed to help for centuries. Whether or not you believe SSRI's are clinically effective, denying the existence of mental health disorders is not helping. No, anxiety and depression aren't simply a matter of perspective.

My point is that it's hard if not possible to objectively tell if the situation you are in is good or bad. And I'm not trying to deny anything.

[deleted]
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