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Antidepressants Work No Better Than a Placebo
Matthew Whalley writes "Researchers got hold of published and unpublished data from drug companies regarding the effectiveness of the most common antidepressant drugs. Previously, when meta-analyses have been conducted on only the published data, the drugs were shown to have a clinically significant effect. However, when the unpublished data is taken into account the difference between the effects of drug and placebo becomes clinically meaningless — just a 1 or 2 point difference on a 30-point depression rating scale — except for the most severely depressed patients. Doctors do not recommend that patients come off antidepressant drugs without support, but this study is likely to lead to a rethink regarding how the drugs are licensed and prescribed."
Spoken by someone who's obviously never suffered from depression.
As its been widely noted this study does not take into consideration as a variable those patients that talked about their depression with a psych or councilor and those that didn't.
Anti-dep medication allows you to handle your current situation enough so that you can go and talk to someone about your wider issues.
Its a band aid. The real fix is to find the thing making you depressed and fix that. And you need to talk to someone for that.
I think you're confusing depression as in "Man, I'm pissed off today" and depression as in the medical condition. "Real" depression is a horrible thing and needs treatment. It's as if you're saying cancer neends no treatment, since the cells grow very naturally.
The point is not that antidepressants don't work - the point is that diagnosis criteria for depression has been to lax for too long. "Everybody gets depressed, not everyone needs antidepressants" It makes sense that the only people who respond to antidepressants designed to fix chemical imbalance are the ones with severe depression.... who are likely to have a real chemical imbalance. These are not "happy pills" they are formulated to fix an insufficiency. Normal, mild depression from events (death, divorce, etc) has always been treated best by cognitive behavioral therapy (aka psych visits), unless you just want to zonk someone out. But, in our society, if you have a problem you get a pill. No one wants to hear "go talk to someone and get over it," so doctors write the scripts and the generally malcontent get them filled.
No, seriously, he's right. It's not so simply like you can just say, "I'm not going to be depressed" but just being depressed is itself a real downer than sucks you in deeper. Antidepressants, even if they only work through placebo affect, provide a patient with hope, which could help the roller coaster move gradually upward.
The best days are usually the days you've made a plan of action and convinced yourself it will change everything and you'll be better--you're thinking positively and not fixated on your depression. The worst days are when you realize you plan of action didn't do shit and everything still the same.
Seriously, Slashdot editors: be a bit more responsible when you are dealing with potentially serious and life-threatening medical conditions. The study did not find that "Antidepressants work no better than a placebo". What it seems to have found is that there is an indication that antidepressants do work for people who do have a serious depression, while there is little indication it works better than a placebo for lighter (possibly misdiagnosed) cases.
Here's the thing: a clinical depression is a serious, crippling condition. Recent research has tied its physical underpinning to a slowdown in neurogenesis in certain areas of the brain. Most likely, this slowdown is caused by the bad quality of sleep caused by continuous and prolonged stress. But whatever the cause, the end result is a brain that is physically different. Yes, this is a physical condition, one whose recovery is progressive and takes a fair amount of time. And it's precisely in this condition that antidepressants have been shown to be of help. Moreover, you cannot magically cure someone with a clinical depression by having them "snap out of it". (Would you say "snap out of it" to someone with a broken leg?)
Part of the reason why depression is so wildly misunderstood is because everyone gets the blues every now and then. That is not the same as a clinical depression. And if a misinformed doctor prescribes antidepressants to someone who just has this "pseudo-depression", then it's no surprise that antidepressants won't really make much of a difference. However, this does not invalidate that antidepressants are valuable tools in fighting real clinical depressions.
Amongst the side affects of the many drugs that are prescribed, he has become overweight and now suffers from sleep apnea further complicating the depression. If anything I have learned from observation is that people suffering from depression need the support of people close to them, for the condition is like a downward spiral of physical, mental and spiritual decay. Contact, phone calls conversations, anything you can do to help unravel the root cause of the depression, like challenging the paranoid feelings all help to take power away from the disease.
For the fist time in a long time, I think I see him finally come out of it because he is starting to excercise. I don't know if the drugs helped, perhaps leveled things out and maintained the status quo. They were probably required as on several occasions I was physically attacked by him (and he is a big guy), fortunately for me (and him) I also am a big guy and have trained physical combat for most of my life. I say that because there was a strong responsibility on my part to not hurt him any more than it was required to control and disarm him. You have to realise it's not the person attacking you, it's the disease and for this reason I think that it is also can become contagious (so to speak) who do not have this capability.
I can't say whether the drugs are good or bad (just that there is a lot of them and he takes them e-v-e-r-y--d-a-y) but I do know the drugs have changed his brain chemistry forever, I often wonder if the person I grew up with is still in there, occasionally I see a glimpse. I have studied all I can about depression to learn everything I could to help him and I look forward to reading about other peoples experiences in this discussion. What I learned is that the medications are a commitment for all the people around to be aware that the critical time is when they are coming off the medication and they finally lose their apathy towards self harm, i.e they finally have enough energy to do it, signs that must be watched for if you want someone you care about to actually survive depression.
I also learned that regardless of the drugs there are two core issues that every person who suffers depression will have to face;
1) Rigorous physical excercise is that path back to mental well-being, the sooner the better and something fun and positive that helps self esteem and confidence.
2) The issues that triggered the depression will eventually have to be faced.
I hope one day it will be gone, because I don't want my family member to die from it or with it. I call it the black dog because it chases and hunts you down and occasionally I sense it coming after me, but I fight it and you have to fight it. Perhaps if people who were susceptible to depression were made to excercise it would disappear, but then the drug companies wouldn't get to sell all that expensive medication and I definitely think it is a factor in the diagnosis of this modern curse. I also think that good spinal care is a factor as I also noticed an improvement in his demeanor when this was done. Additionally I think that depression is a natural consequence to some overload of emotional stress, alas IANAP, that triggers a change to the brain chemistry.
I suspect the Metalica song Until it sleeps was written about depression as it aptly describes what is truly the modern plague of our time.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Just like you can decide not to feel pain when someone hits you, right? I mean all the beating did was send a bunch of electrical signals into your brain. Pain itself is all in your head.
He said "real severe clinical depression". That's the 1/3 you're talking about where the drugs work. Many people are diagnosed with depression based on just the most general definition (feeling "down" for longer than 2 weeks). And most people should only be treated with therapy. Today the drugs are handed out like candy. If they were only handed to the people that genuinely need them you'd find anti-depressants work quite well, which seems to be what TFA is saying.
Developers: We can use your help.
It's the fair world bias.
/.ers are true believers in fair world and meritocracy.
Many
So the idea that bad things happen to people for no reason at all, through no fault of their own, makes people who believe that they're 100% responsible for the state of their life profoundly uncomfortable. So you get this 'blame the victim' mentality.
Comfortable, well educated, middle class white guys don't like being told that they didn't get where they are solely on their own strength of character.
I submit that anybody who says you can 'decide' to not be depressed has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".