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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

#601

Post by seba_dos1 »

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…

I wouldn't bet so eagerly on these lifestyle changes being achievable without these pills.

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

#602

Post by directevolve »

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 will say that my LMHNP ordered a blood test for me during my ADHD evaluation. I live in the Pacific Northwest and had a serious vitamin D deficiency, apparently like everyone else who doesn’t supplement. also got me started monitoring my blood pressure.

I can definitely tell that the Adderall I was prescribed had an immediate, huge benefit. Not sure about the vitamin D.

But I really appreciated that he took a wide angle look at my health.

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

#603

Post by seba_dos1 »

ivm wrote: post #349
Aurornis wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> typical "how much caffeine is in X?" tables show tea having caffeine levels similar to coffee, I have never seen a caffeine comparison table that shows tea and coffee at the same level. It’s common knowledge that typical coffee brews are in the range of 2-5X higher in caffeine content than typical tea brews. Tea is widely used as a lower caffeine alternative to coffee.

Quick search shows various infographics: green tea at 20–35 mg, black tea at 45–50 mg, espresso at 45–75 mg, and instant at 60-80 mg on average. The day I feel anything close from a cup of black tea to what I get from an instant coffee or a quarter of a pure caffeine pill, I might start trusting those numbers, but for now I see them as nonsense that tries to present as science.

There are also other ingredients in coffee and tea that may affect caffeine's effect (L-theanine in many teas for example). Same with energy drinks, these will have a different effect even when the same caffeine intake is the same due to presence of taurine.

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

#604

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

ulnarkressty wrote: post #575
Noaidi wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Made me manic. You know we make niacin in our own bodies, from tryptophan, down the kynurenine pathway. Sine many of the enzymes that are in this pathway need B6 and B2, being low in these may lower endogenous niacin in the body. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353319033/figure/fi... Many people I know, when tested, were low in B6. That is more important to me than niacin.

For others who want to try this, taking too much B6 is associated with nerve damage - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megavitamin-B6_syndrome

From your link: "The common supplemental form of vitamin B6, pyridoxine, is similar to pyridine, which can be neurotoxic."

Vitamin B6 in p5p form is cheap and widely available alternative.

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

#605

Post by directevolve »

ncasenmare wrote: post #374
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…

Hi, author of the blog post here! Thank you for writing in with your concerns. First: > Please be very careful when someone tries to tell you that supplements are miraculous and pharmaceutical drugs don’t work at all. I'll concede I unintentionally gave the tone that one should replace antidepressants with supplements, even though the conclusion specifically writes: "(Don't quit your existing antidepressants if they'…

A point I think is crucial to mention is that “effect size” is just standardized mean difference.

If a minority of patients benefit hugely and most get no benefit, then you get a modest effect size.

This is probably why this discussion always has a lot of people saying “yeah, it didn’t help me at all” and a few saying “it changed my life.”

I believe we should be focusing on more relevant statistical methods for assessing this hypothesis formally. Basically, using mean differences is GIGO if you assume you’re comparing a bimodal or highly skewed distribution to a bell curve.

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

#606

Post by greygoo222 »

anthonyrstevens wrote: post #400
raffael_de wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bessel van der Kolk also mentions in his excellent book "The Body keeps the Score" that the effect of antidepressants is correlated with the source of the depression. If the depression is a comorbidity from early childhood trauma then antidepressants are limited due to trauma-related reshaping of how the brain is organized. Cases like yours or those that a related to traumatic experiences as an adult are more the res…

>> "The Body Keeps The Score" Such a great book. Highly recommended.

[dead]

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

#607

Post by directevolve »

svara wrote: post #567
ncasenmare wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 publish…

It’s less prestigious because it doesn’t judge papers on novelty, only on technical accuracy. For incremental research like this, it is an appropriate choice. The lower prestige has no bearing on the accuracy of their findings.

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

#608

Post by ncasenmare »

keybrd-intrrpt wrote: post #600
ncasenmare wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Hello, there is another study that might be relevant to you https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768407/ > A statistical error in the estimation of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin D was recently discovered > ... This could lead to a recommendation of 1000 IU for children 1 year of age, and around 8000 IU for young adults and thereafter.

Thank you! I'll give this a read.

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

#609

Post by wolvoleo »

NoiseBert69 wrote: post #389
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Hiking has the biggest effect though. Keeping the mind busy with beautiful things and being physically exhausted can heal a lot of things. Its like surfing on a big day - you are just too tired to be depressive afterwards. It feels like a weight blanket.

It's also endorphins. Natural drugs.

I don't have the energy to do all that when I'm down though. I hate all sports though I do like hiking (there's no team or competitive bullshit) but I'm too clumsy for it.

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

#610

Post by wolvoleo »

pixl97 wrote: post #570
mrguyorama wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah in Holland too. I deeply despise our Calvinist roots. It's so depressing.
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