YippeeKi YOW !!
Senior Member
- Messages
- 16,000
- Location
- Second star to the right ...
Once upon a time, a long long time ago in that wayback realm (well OK, only about 14 or 15 years ago, but it seems much longer, and much further away) before I became deeply acquainted with either the medical professsion or this wheedling little whackadoodle weasel of an illness, I read an article on the profound and dangerous and deeply cynical fallacious fairy tale that BigPharma had concocted to sell anti-d’s, both to patients and to the Drs who prescribed them.
The article stated unapologetically that it was all horse puckey, tho the authors used more polite and technical terms, and went on to state if you asked 10 Drs about serotonin and depression, every one of them would parrot the only thing they really knew about it : that depression was caused by abnormally low serotonin levels. When asked for a fuller explanation, not one of them would have been able to provide one.
So it was with particular interest and, I have to admit, a certain sense of triumph, that I stumbled across this very readable, very direct and unembellished article.
I highly recommend it, and the more complex research report below it …. here are a few excerpts:
“Thousands of people suffer from side effects of antidepressants, including the severe withdrawal effects that can occur when people try to stop them, yet prescription rates continue to rise. We believe this situation has been driven partly by the false belief that depression is due to a chemical imbalance. It is high time to inform the public that this belief is not grounded in science.”
"Lead author Professor Joanna Moncrieff, a Professor of Psychiatry at UCL and a consultant psychiatrist at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), said: “It is always difficult to prove a negative, but I think we can safely say that after a vast amount of research conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence that depression is caused by serotonin abnormalities, particularly by lower levels or reduced activity of serotonin."
"There is also evidence that believing that low mood is caused by a chemical imbalance leads people to have a pessimistic outlook on the likelihood of recovery, and the possibility of managing moods without medical help. This is important because most people will meet criteria for anxiety or depression at some point in their lives."
No Evidence That Depression Is Caused by Low Serotonin Levels
https://neurosciencenews.com/serotonin-depression-21074/
The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0
EDIT ... for a correction of facts ....
The article stated unapologetically that it was all horse puckey, tho the authors used more polite and technical terms, and went on to state if you asked 10 Drs about serotonin and depression, every one of them would parrot the only thing they really knew about it : that depression was caused by abnormally low serotonin levels. When asked for a fuller explanation, not one of them would have been able to provide one.
So it was with particular interest and, I have to admit, a certain sense of triumph, that I stumbled across this very readable, very direct and unembellished article.
I highly recommend it, and the more complex research report below it …. here are a few excerpts:
“Thousands of people suffer from side effects of antidepressants, including the severe withdrawal effects that can occur when people try to stop them, yet prescription rates continue to rise. We believe this situation has been driven partly by the false belief that depression is due to a chemical imbalance. It is high time to inform the public that this belief is not grounded in science.”
"Lead author Professor Joanna Moncrieff, a Professor of Psychiatry at UCL and a consultant psychiatrist at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), said: “It is always difficult to prove a negative, but I think we can safely say that after a vast amount of research conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence that depression is caused by serotonin abnormalities, particularly by lower levels or reduced activity of serotonin."
"There is also evidence that believing that low mood is caused by a chemical imbalance leads people to have a pessimistic outlook on the likelihood of recovery, and the possibility of managing moods without medical help. This is important because most people will meet criteria for anxiety or depression at some point in their lives."
No Evidence That Depression Is Caused by Low Serotonin Levels
https://neurosciencenews.com/serotonin-depression-21074/
The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0
EDIT ... for a correction of facts ....
Last edited: