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Major New Study Confirms Antidepressants Really Do Work (theguardian.com)
According to authors of a groundbreaking study, antidepressants really do work in treating depression, though some are more effective than others. "Millions more people around the world should be prescribed pills or offered talking therapies, which work equally well for moderate to severe depression, say the doctors, noting that just one in six people receive proper treatment in the rich world -- and one in 27 in the developing world," reports The Guardian. From the report: "Antidepressants are an effective tool for depression. Untreated depression is a huge problem because of the burden to society," said Andrea Cipriani of the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre, who led the study. The debate over antidepressants has unfortunately often been ideological, said Cipriani. Some doctors and patients have doubts over whether they work at all and point to the big placebo effect -- in trials, those given dummy pills also improve to some degree. Some people suspect drug companies of fiddling trial results. Some patients simply do not want to take pills for a mental health condition. The study published in the Lancet took six years, Cipriani said, and included all the published and unpublished data that the scientists could find. It was carried out by a team of international experts. They looked at results after eight weeks of more than 500 trials involving either a drug versus placebo or comparing two different medicines. The most famous antidepressant of them all, Prozac -- now out of patent and known by its generic name, fluoxetine -- was one of the least effective but best tolerated, measured by a low drop-out rate in the trials or fewer side-effects reported. The most effective of the drugs was amitriptyline, which was the sixth best tolerated.
It might seem like the one that is out of patent is the most useless (and least profitable) but don't worry, no actually worry and then we will medicate you to stop.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
- between chronic depression, caused by imbalances in neurotransmitter production or reuptake, and depression caused by living in depressing circumstances. Antidepressants are routinely prescribed for both cases.
I guess if your life sucks, it's easier to take pills so you won't bother anyone with suicide attempts, rather than address the problems of your circumstances. I'm glad I stopped taking them; my life sucks, but I can acknowledge that, and I'd rather deal with that knowledge than be a po-faced zombie again.
The counter to Developing World isn't "Rich". There's a vast middle ground between rich and developing. So, what's the agenda behind calling what's not developing rich, other than giving those living there a guilt trip?
Just another day in Paradise
Anti-depressants are like being told oh, you're sad, here's a pil, now shut the fuck up and get back to work.
After having to tolerate a sibling on antidepressants for over 25 years, I'm in the camp who's experiences differ from what the study says, I see no difference and in reality deterioration. Having also had to deal with a somatic and a cerebral narcissist, I can also tell you no matter how strong you think you are, other peoples mental illness *will* cause you to have a mental illness. In my case PTSD, which made me somewhat dangerous.
In other words, mental illness is contagious.
What I learned is it is essential for your sovereign individuality to minimise contact with mentally ill people in your life before you can begin to recover your own sanity. Then you do the last thing you want to do, face the pain. Face what the deceitful actions of what others did to you and write it all down event by troubling event. What this does is help you process the emotions in a controllable way, this is difficult if you are living with an abuser. What this helps with is state control, preventing Amygdala hijack and re-regulate your HPA axis. You can die if you end up in a state of adrenal failure.
I was on the receiving end of two narcissists because of the child abuse I endured. When I claim that, I'm refering to the DSM and mean they both exhibited 5 of the nine traits of a cluster B abuser and are probably diagnosable by a trained professional. Trouble is, they don't think anything is wrong with them and they lie lie lie all the time. One was a covert narcissist and destroyed my life twice before I figured it out.
Worst thing about it though is realising that it made me attracted to these type of people and opened me up for further abuse by other anti-social people and one probable occupational psychopath. I was part of the problem. In writing it all down I processed the emotions and that made me a lot harder to manipulate because it is the unprocessed emotions that 'Those people' can detect in you and use to manipulate you. Once you clear that, you are less prone to abuse and you can start to develop boundaries and coping strategies. If you are depressed, check to see if you have too many assholes in your life. Chances are there are more than one. You know the ones who constantly stoke anger in you - "Those People" who get their thrills by trying to put you into a state of Amygdala hyjack. That want to show everyone how crazy you are so they can indulge in being right. That's all they have and they are usually losers - no you can't fix them.
So, what I am saying here is it's all too easy to just take a pill, it's bullshit. Face the pain and become a fully functional human being before you become as damaged as I was. You will feel fucking terrible while you do it, however a few weeks afterwards you will be amazed at the good things that start happening to you. The narcissists will still be losers.
If you are hurting and you are reading this, please know, it's possible to escape. It's not easy but you owe it to yourself.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Doctor's are afraid to try therapy without drugs because of the liability if the patient harms themselves.
Doctors would LOVE to try therapy without drugs, but it's too damned expensive. $200/hr or a 20 cent pill? Insurance only covers one of those.
So a study of a bunch of studies (run by industry insiders) that showed antidepressants work showed that after analyzing these studies that antidepressants work.
So studies that individually come to a positive result also collectively come to a positive result? I think this is a phenomenon we need to study!
How about a novel approach. Have people who understand statistics, medicine and psychology (but have no links to drug companies or reason for bias) try to recreate the results of past studies or run large-scale, carefully controlled new studies. And don't use drug company money to fund the study.
You know? I've always been such an advocate for technology and science that I would have immediately been on-board 100% with everything you said there. But as I've gotten older, I've experienced things that make me question some of that. For example, I've never been a "morning person", always preferring to sleep in until my body wants to get up (usually by 11AM or thereabouts), and like to stay up until 1AM or so. But I recently visited with some friends of mine who have a small house on a bunch of land out in the country, and live a pretty "simple" lifestyle compared to what I've designed for myself. Sure, they have "Internet" -- but their only connection consists of a Sprint LTE hotspot. For them, most of their Internet usage is Facebook on their cellphones or small games or apps downloaded onto them. They own exactly 1 Windows laptop, that sits on a small desk in the living room and gets used randomly by whoever needs it for something. (Typically - they seem to use it to download photos off their digital cameras.)
They spend most of their free time doing outdoorsy things. They have a swimming pool, 4-wheelers they can drive around on all the land out there, etc. They build bonfires when it's cool and invite neighbors and friends over for meals, to drink and just to have conversations. The guy's wife likes to do a lot of arts and crafts using "found" materials from a local junk yard they visit and scour through regularly.
It's the type of lifestyle I always said was "NOT for me!" ... but I found within hours of spending time with them, my stress levels just dropped off. They went to bed earlier than I would have normally called it a night, but I had no problem getting right to sleep since we had done a lot of more physical activity with all the outdoors stuff that day. They woke up bright and early and I found it just felt "right" to be up with the sun like that.
I guess what I found more enlightening was how quickly I adapted to that "farmer's schedule" they kept, even though it had NOTHING to do with farming!
Don't get me wrong.... When I got back home from that trip, I was content to fall right back into my usual patterns and was happy to have all my technology back. But it made me ask myself if a lot of our struggles are just the result of our choices -- and not so much a case of "worshiping that false god, nature"? The more things you own, the more the things begin to own you. That's a quote I read someplace and I see a lot of truth to it. How much additional stress and hassle is in my life because I have "to do" lists filled with errands to runs or items to buy to maintain my stuff? And how often are we eating poorly because time has become such a precious commodity for us, with our artificially busy schedules we've created? I'm not really ready to throw it all away and become the next Luddite, living in a secluded log cabin. But I'm realizing we're paying the price, in many ways, for trying to enhance our lives with all the tech we surround ourselves with. It gives but it takes away too. Maybe it's more of a "wash" than we think, compared to not living this way?