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

blog.ncase.me

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

#651
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lexapro made me feel like I was randomly being dropped down an elevator shaft for 6 months after I stopped taking it. I’m glad it worked for you, and am not minimizing that, but these medications have a side effects profile a mile long and should be a therapy of last resort in my opinion.

They have a half life and you cannot stop taking them cold turkey without these symptoms, your psychiatrist should help you ween off of it slowly.

At the time I was unemployed and didn’t have a car, not much the psychiatrist could do about my “dirt pooritis” symptoms.

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

#652
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got it backwards, it would be more beneficial in areas with few hours of sun for darker skin folks, since they do not absorb as much Vitamin D as fair skin folk do.

absorb or create? i understand it as: absorbing is in the intestine, generating D happens in the skin when exposed to the sun

Correct, what I meant was absorbing UV light, that then as you state creates D.

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

#653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my hypothesis, but I wonder if larger sample sizes provide a more diverse population. A study with 1000 individuals is likely a poor representation of a species of 8.2 billion. I understand that studies try to their best to use a diverse population, but I often question how successful many studies are at this endeavor.

use a diverse population If that's the case, we should question whether different homogeneous population groups respond differently to the substance under test. After all, we don't want to know the "average temperature of patients in a hospital", do we?

> If that's the case, we should question whether different homogeneous population groups respond differently to the substance under test.

In terms of psychological treatments, I am honestly in support of this. Many mental illnesses can have a cultural component to them.

> After all, we don't want to know the "average temperature of patients in a hospital", do we?

No, I don't think we do. Am I understanding you correctly?

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

#654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " calling for bootstraps to solve depression et al. is wild to see. So many anecdotes and grand statements saying that it’s all nonsense. " That's not what I was doing in my other comments that you replied to. If you have a knot, and imagine all the possible things you can do with your hands and body and tools in the universe and notice that to a first approximation none of them will untie the knot. Not hitting it…

You don’t need to chase down my comments to have the same discussion in two places, and this isn’t (only) about you.

I didn't chase you down, I was reading the whole thread.

Your one-line dismissal is annoying deliberately-vague-accusatory trollbait, and I was baited.

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

#655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need to chase down my comments to have the same discussion in two places, and this isn’t (only) about you.

I didn't chase you down, I was reading the whole thread. Your one-line dismissal is annoying deliberately-vague-accusatory trollbait, and I was baited.

Have a good weekend man. Neither of us is looking particularly great here. Let’s move on.

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

#656

Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…

The side effects are suicidal ideation and brain zaps

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

#657
post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Our brain chemistry is not stable through our life! " Citation requested. Because, y'know, it's not like your leg muscles suddenly don't work from age 40-50 and then start working again and we say it's because of unstable "leg chemistry". It's not like your stomach, liver, kidneys, suddenly stop working after you lose your job or your life partner and we say it's both inexplicable and because of a deficit of "bod…

> Citation requested. Because, y'know, it's not like your leg muscles suddenly don't work from age 40-50 and then start working again and we say it's because of unstable "leg chemistry". Ohhh, leg chemistry, good choice! You know that leg "chemistry" is control by neurotransmitter release, yes? So you must have never heard of Familial Periodic Paralysis then. Let me tell you what happens with that, because it happene…

You're replying as if I said that drugs can't change neurochemistry and can't change mood or behaviour, and genetics doesn't exist and can't explain anything. I wrote quite a lot because I wanted to make it pretty clear that I wasn't saying either of those things.

If your old fashioned TV glitches and you hit it and it works, that doesn't mean it had a percussive imbalance. If you sledgehammer your brain chemistry that can change your mood and behaviour, and that doesn't mean you had a chemical imbalance and need a sledgehammer every week forever. It's the lack of supported good explanation that I'm against, especially after becoming convinced that a lot (not all) depressions and anxieties are addressable with therapy - but not just any therapy with any technique, just like a TV problem can be traced to a bad solder joint or a loose wire or a warped chassis shorting out a wire, but not by just randomly poking wires and replacing components without any training or experience and saying "I tried everything so it must need hitting". Similarly, "genetics" can be a fine explanation which is why I edited Downes Syndrome into my comment, also blue eyes, Trisomy 21, Huntington's Disease, and many others.

> "As someone who, as an armature geneticist, helped design a genetic study for Stanford, can I say that I put more energy into thinking about these things over the last 45 years than you can even imagine?"

And how do you feel about these quotes I just found on Reddit: "I think my genetics are stopping me from losing weight. I am 25F 5'2 and 145lbs and I have been having the hardest time trying to lose 20 lbs; or "I hate my genetics. I'm lifting 5~6 days a week since october last year, what means almost 10 months of consistent training, but my measureaments and bodyshape still like shit" or "Are my genetics/health screwing me over or am I just shit? r/GuitarQuestions"

Do you think those uses of 'genetics' are good explanations, that the poster should be satisfied with? Explanations that have good predictive power and a clear model of finding other people with the same problem, and suggest what to do next to compensate? Or are they (as I grumble) bad explanations which don't have any predictive power because they don't specify any particular gene or its effects, in much the same way that saying "it's fate"?

> "your solution are just as bad as the ones your are prescribing."

My solution of fix the TV electronics is just as bad as "hit the TV and accept a bad explanation for how that helped"?

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

#658

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. I remember reading that pine trees give off a chemical that is a natural human bronchodilator. One thought of why people love hiking, especially in piney woods, is that the chemical allows humans to process more oxygen which in turn helps them feel more "energized". I point this out for two reasons: 1. It's a fascinating bit of trivie 2. It highlights that there are MANY confou…

That chemical may be alpha-pinene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91-Pinene#Properties_and_u...

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

#659
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easily possible to overdose on oral Vitamin D tablets and damage your body.

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). Edit: for clarity I am not saying it is impossible to overdose on oral tablets, but rather that with most tablets 400 IU to 1000 IU and the safe limit so much higher than these, it seems like it would be extremely unli…

Here is a case study and discussion from a parathyroid surgeon:

https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-st...

"There are people out there doing just fine on 5000 units of Vitamin D daily. I only see the ones who develop high calcium levels. But I see enough of them to know that this is not an exceptionally rare occurrence. I have been to lectures in which physicians have claimed that Vitamin D toxicity almost never occurs. In my experience, this is false. I have seen many cases of Vitamin D toxicity in people who were taking the recommended dose from an over-the-counter bottle.

Unfortunately, none of those patients were warned about the potential for Vitamin D to cause high calcium. They all believed that they were taking a supplement to improve health and that there was very little risk. Supplements don’t require prescriptions, and most do not have the warning labels that accompany medications. For Vitamin D, a steroid hormone, that may need to change."

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

#660
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't always realize: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/university-fined-in-caff...

Wow that must be hell

And must have tasted like highly concentrated rat piss. XD

Even taking more than a knife point renders a complete can undrinkable. Not to speak of 30 fucking grams.

I also had to immediately think of this case.

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