Major New Study Confirms Antidepressants Really Do Work (theguardian.com) 234
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 The study published in the Lancet took six years, Cipriani said, and included all the published and unpublished data that the scientists could find.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.
a distinction needs to be made - (Score:5, Interesting)
- 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.
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But is it a meaningful distinction? If you can't deal with your life circumstances because they induce a depression that disrupts your coping skills is it really that much different than a neurochemical imbalance which disrupts your life circumstances?
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Meaningful distinction in what way? SItuational depression might have the exact same effects as neurochemical imbalance depression, but it has to be treated in different ways.
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Actually, taking pill *helps* you to address the circumstances. It gives you the motivation to make changes in your life that depressed-you would never have gotten around to do. That is why professionals recommend a combination of pills and therapy as the most effective treatment for depression.
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That would seem to me to be time to change meds and see how that works. My experience is a little old here, but my doctors' first approaches were to try me on what was cheapest and might help and change as indicated.
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- between chronic depression, caused by imbalances in neurotransmitter production or reuptake, and depression caused by living in depressing circumstances.
This distinction is not as clear-cut as you would like. Either can cause the other. Being persistently unhappy for valid reasons develops emotional habits which are encoded in neurotransmitter patterns, while neurological malfunctions can easily cause your life to fall apart. Many patients will need treatment for both.
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I'm personally more worried about the people who don't take their prescribed medication and then decide that it's a good idea to go shoot up a school. We seem to be having a lot of those incidents lately.
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Or, in my case, a good friend who refused antidepressants and killed himself.
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Couldn't agree more!
I've been through a lot of difficult times in my life, and spent many years in a depressed "funk". But still, I think I realized there were legitimate reasons behind all of it. I dealt with bullies and just being a general outcast in school, from grade-school until changing schools half way through high-school. I was always introverted so tended to dwell on the "why?" questions, if someone looked at me funny or made a comment that bothered me. Even years after the fact, I might remember
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Re:a distinction needs to be made - (Score:5, Insightful)
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Perhaps not. It would depend on the job though.
I know people who would be depressed if they had to work in certain jobs, and I know people who's job doesn't define them, and they are perfectly happy doing the jobs that depress others. You can blame chemical imbalance all you want (in some cases it is true), but the reality is, outlook shapes how you feel. AND it can be taught. There are people who when trapped in life circumstances, get all depressed and die, and then there are people who will cut their own
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Which is, basically, cognitive therapy. It's very useful. So are the antidepressants. Having been seriously depressed, I'm in favor of attacking it from more than one direction.
(It was very discouraging to go to a therapist and have him compliment me on my cognitive therapy ability and say he didn't have anything more to teach me. Good thing I was still on the antidepressants.)
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People don't generally find themselves in depressing circumstances. A news media that itself feeds on money needs to promote the idea of misery in order to generate ad revenue.
People will quickly screech about profit driven drug development and never consider the problem of profit driven journalism.
Laying off the media narrative might help as much as the mind altering drugs.
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Except for the unpublished studies (Score:5, Insightful)
Only 2% of studies showing antidepressants aren't effective get published:
https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe
This is a meta-analysis. Back when I was in grad school, we'd throw these in the garbage. You cannot account for controls across tens of studies, much less hundreds of studies. Unless the authors legitimately did a replication study writing before the meta-analysis, they're next to useless.
Beware of things that say things are confirmed without a doubt. Doubt is essential in all things involving science and research. You must continually doubt your axioms and question things; replication the true you think you know to be true.
https://khanism.org/science/doubt/
I know for me personally, anti-depressants were awful. The side effects were bad and I never liked taking them. I feel like regular behavioral therapy and talking with a good psychologist who'd help me see my options and my negative ways of thinking helped significantly more than anything else.
That being said, I know they help some people too, either real of placebo, with major depression. Doctor's are afraid to try therapy without drugs because of the liability if the patient harms themselves. I think this is really sad and that these drugs are way over prescribed. It's a tough issue to balance, but claiming crap like this study does (which is probably funded by the industry anyway) just leads to more confirmation bias and less incentive to come up with more effective treatments.
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The drug cartels that want to promote their new generation drugs that are under patent protection?
Then why is an old generic drug shown to be the most efficient?
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Re:Except for the unpublished studies (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Excercise and talk therapy (Score:2, Insightful)
What I rarely see in these studies is comparing the outcomes with other things, like aerobic exercise. There have a been a couple of studies that showed at least for mild depression, aerobic exercise was just as effective as an anti-depressant or talk therapy. Even more so for folks who joined groups.
So, for the price of a pair of great running shoes ($150) you saved a lot of money and time. One session with a therapist will cost you the price of a pair of running shoes and running doesn't have those pesk
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All you need to exercise is the willingness to actually go do it. You don't even need "equipment". That's just another excuse. All you really need is to just go outside and walk.
Depending on your age and history regarding exercise, that may actually be what your local sports medicine expert recommends.
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Which means you have to get yourself up and go do it. And again tomorrow. And tomorrow.
That's hard when you;re depressed. One problem with depression is that the lifestyle changes that will help are really hard to do because of the depression.
Read the summary... if not the article. Or study. (Score:2)
Only 2% of studies showing antidepressants aren't effective get published:
From TFS:
We did a systematic review and network meta-analysis. We searched Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, CINAHL, Embase, LILACS database, MEDLINE, MEDLINE In-Process, PsycINFO, the websites of regulatory agencies, and international registers for published and unpublished, double-blind, randomised controlled trials from their inception to Jan 8, 2016.
I know for me personally, anti-depressants were awful.
Study is not about antidepressants being good or bad - it's about them being effective. It's about antidepressants not being placebos.
The side effects were bad and I never liked taking them.
That WAS a part of the study.
Primary outcomes were efficacy (response rate) and acceptability (treatment discontinuations due to any cause).
As for...
Beware of things that say things are confirmed without a doubt. Doubt is essential in all things involving science and research.
...they know that.
We assessed the studies' risk of bias in accordance to the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions, and certainty of evidence using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation framework.
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There's lots of antidepressants around. My doctors would change meds if I had bad side effects or they didn't seem to be working.
There are forms of psychotherapy that are very useful, also. One problem is that they're a lot more expensive than a prescription, so some people can't get decent psychotherapy. I found a psychotherapist I could talk to, studied cognitive therapy, and took the pills. I'm a lot better now, but it's still there.
Meh (Score:5, Funny)
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> Yeah, you nailed it. A healthy society is for pussies.
A medicated society is by definition the OPPOSITE of healthy.
If you are on drugs, you are by definition broken.
I take about 20 pills a day myself. I don't kid myself about that being in any way, shape, or form... "healthy".
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Could be, but I'm alive, reasonably happy, and mostly functioning. There's a lot to be said for anything that helps that.
Rich World? (Score:2, Interesting)
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?
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> Fooling people into believing America is still rich?
Lay off the liberal media narrative.
American trailer trash live better than most of the world (including Europe).
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Lay off the conservative fake news narrative.
Europe isn't a country, but many European countries are a lot better off than we are by objective measurements.
Sure (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org] and re-regulate your HPA axis [wikipedia.org]. 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.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking a pill *helps* you to "face the pain". It gives you the motivation to make changes in your life that depressed-you would never have gotten around to do. That is why professionals recommend a combination of pills and therapy as the most effective treatment for depression.
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Taking a pill *helps* you to "face the pain". It gives you the motivation to make changes in your life that depressed-you would never have gotten around to do. That is why professionals recommend a combination of pills and therapy as the most effective treatment for depression.
I hope so. However if that person is around the source of their depression, how can they heal when they are constantly being psychologically damaged? All that does is allow them to sustain more damage. It also enables them to damage others and I have seen it.
The real question is for those people who do take the pill, do they face the pain? In my personal experience it is extremely unpleasant and you will be in a very alien emotional state until you come out the other side, where you finally feel free
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I hope so. However if that person is around the source of their depression, how can they heal when they are constantly being psychologically damaged?
Everyone has negative experiences in their life.
Those who truly suffer from clinical depression have a lack of resilience to handle and bounce back from them.
Depression doesn't have a "source"; it's not caused by negative experiences. It's a syndrome that makes it difficult to deal with and bounce back from negative experiences.
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Taking a pill *helps* you to "face the pain". It gives you the motivation to make changes in your life that depressed-you would never have gotten around to do. That is why professionals recommend a combination of pills and therapy as the most effective treatment for depression.
Precisely.
One way to look at depression is as a syndrome causing a lack of resilience. It's a physical syndrome that affects your brain and nervous system (you know, which are physical things in your body). It is affected by medication, like your other body systems are.
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If it were just lack of resilience, it would have gone away when things were going well for me. It didn't. It does cause impaired resilience.
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I forgot to mention. A cluster B personality type is one that seeks a reaction from you to feel better about themselves, you feel a lot worse so they can feel a little better. From what I understand it causes a release of dopamine and peptides in their brain. In other words, they're loser junkies addicted to their own brain endomorphins.
It completely destroys your ability to map reality and causes your ability to detect threats to constantly generate false positives. That's why you become hypersensiti
amitriptyline (Score:3)
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Yes tricyclics in general have many potential side effects. They are more poisonous than most more modern drugs and so should not be used for people that willingly or otherwise are likely to overdose.
But they are still used and for good reasons.
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Amitriptyline can have side effects for people with urinary problems and should be used with caution as with any drug. For example, if you have a swollen prostate it could make urination much more difficult.
Most/all meds have side effects. You need to work with your doctor to weight the risks and benefits.
Mental Illness is not something you 'just get over (Score:5, Insightful)
For anyone reading the comments, you should listen to your doctor and trust your experiences. There are different types of depression, and the stigma that you can see prevalent in these comments that you should 'just stop being sad' is a plague in of itself. I am bipolar, and spent the majority of my life being a useless piece of shit who would wake up one day and start training to be an engineer and fall asleep that night alone under a bridge trying to kill myself. I would miss a bus and decide that was a sign that I was a failure in life. None of this is normal, and none of it was my fault. It is a genetic condition, and I spent years telling myself the medication would be a crutch that would make it worse, and that I was strong enough to 'do it on my own'. I didn't want to be one of these pathetic people that everyone talks about.
But then I found a job I loved, and I didn't want to ruin it like I had so many times before. I decided to get help. I saw a doctor. I started seeing a therapist. I started taking my medications. I wake up now and take my pills and sometimes I forget how hard life used to be, and I can never say enough how amazing it is to be in that position. Not everyone will find the right combination of medications. Maybe your therapist or doctor sucks. Keep fighting. Get a new one. Ignore these trolls who don't struggle the way we struggle and keep pushing yourself.
There are communities out there to support, help, and guide you. Become a part of those communities and don't let the ignorance of the masses tell you that you can't get better. If you are still reading this, the odds are that you have a voice in the back of your mind that keeps tell you that, anyway.
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As someone who's been on antidepressants for nearly 20 years, had talk therapy for about as long, I thought I could leave the stuff behind. I was in a good place in my life - things were going very well, both personally and professionally.
About two years ago, I asked my Doctor if I could try going off my antidepressants. I wanted to stop taking them. I thought that 20 years of therapy had helped, and that I'd be able to cope, because my life was so much better than when I started antidepressant use.
I tapere
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You know what happened to me a few years ago? I felt unhappy for the first time in maybe twenty years. Something unpleasant happened, I was unable to help, and I just felt sad and unhappy. It was an unfamiliar feeling at first, because for decades I'd been depressed instead of feeling when things like that happened. "Depressed" and :"sad" are two different things.
A study of studies (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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To translate this into plain English: "This study irritates me, so I'll make stupid assumptions about the authors without bothering to see if they might be true or not. I'll also assume that the authors were dumb, and didn't think of obvious things."
More studies would be nice. Who's going to pay for them?
Our Latest MASS SHOOTER Agrees.... (Score:2)
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Actually, we're going to call schools "uteruses", for those people who believe in protecting fetuses before they're born and not one second after.
One Pill Is Good, Three Pills Are Better (Score:3)
"Study A", referenced in the article notes that only one in six Americans are treated for depression. And here "Study B" observes that one in six Americans already take anti-depressants [nbcnews.com]. Therefore we can conclude that the authors of Study A will be satisfied when 100% of Americans take anti-depressents.
Yet I say that's not going far enough. Something that I learned in college is that if one pill is good, three pills are better, and that American Society will only reach its potential when 300% of its members are taking anti-depressents.
They really DO work... (Score:2, Insightful)
At creating basket-cases who like to go on mass-murdering sprees, that's for sure.
Antidepressants should be banned.
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Re:They really DO work... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of all those under treatment a small fraction end up being in that category.
And we don't know if that figure would have been higher or lower without treatment.
The burden to society? (Score:2)
Certainly it does cost society, but what about the burden to the people suffering? Should not that be the paramount factor in treatment rather than profits for Pharmas?
sadness (Score:2)
Mass Shootings (Score:2, Informative)
The majority of mass shooters have been under the influence of - or withdrawing from - SSRI based anti-depressants.
One of the (side) effects of SSRI's is "emotional blunting" which, in essence, causes sociopathy.
While SSRI's may not directly cause people to become mass murderers (there would be thousands of mass shootings as opposed to dozens), there is certainly a link here.
It is also interesting to note that stated side effects of SSRI based anti-depressants are "violent and/or suicidal behavio
change (Score:2)
SSRIs without frequent monitoring are DANGEROUS. (Score:2)
NO! NO! NO! NO!!!
They're already handing out SSRIs like candy for everything imaginable. People with PTSD do not need anti depressants. Also, MANY people who are put on these things are NOT monitored for behavioral and mental changes. The more we hand these things out without FREQUENT monitoring, the more problems we're going to have with grandiose suicides. According to things I keep reading, nearly ALL of the mass murderers (especially the ones that suicide) are on SSRIs.
I have a friend that was put o
SSRI is fraud (Score:2)
Several studies have associated paroxetine with suicidal thinking and behavior in children and adolescents.[10]
and
GlaxoSmithKline has paid substantial fines, paid settlements in class-action lawsuits, and become the subject of several highly critical books about its marketing of paroxetine, in particular the off-label marketing of paroxetine for children, the suppression of negative research results relating to its use in children, and allegations that it failed to warn consumers of substan
Sleep deprivation therapy is effective (Score:2)
The point (Score:2)
No true Scotsman (Score:4, Insightful)
Quote from the actual study:
"We excluded quasi-randomised trials and trials that were incomplete or included 20% or more of participants with bipolar disorder, psychotic depression, or treatment-resistant depression". (emphasis mine)
So yeah, it works, unless it doesn't, in which case we'll exclude those instances. No true Scotsman indeed.
Cognitive therapy being medicated (Score:2)
READ EVERY WORD CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU COMMENT.
Cognitive therapy, and learning how to deal with the shit that life hands you, is a better long-term strategy than taking pills.
Furthermore: the pharmaceutical industry dearly loves people buying medication from them forever. They've been pushing antidepressants for decades now, and HMOs would rather give you a bottle of pills than have you sit down with an expensive counselor or psychiatri
antidepressants also get a bad rap on violence (Score:2)
Another issue with antidepressants is that they get an undeserved bad reputation for promoting violent behavior - because some people committing horrendous crimes turn out to have recently been put on a course of them.
What's happening there is that psychopathy and depression are separate issues and a few people have both. So you have this handful of psychopaths who'd commit atrocities but are too bummed out to get around to it. Treat their depression and you have a fully functional psychopath. Oops! (Th
Many people don't understand (Score:2)
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You don't think drug companies try to improve the state of the art?
But even if you don't I like to point out that amitriptylin is an old tricyclic drug and as such have many associated problems. Patents aren't one of those.
Re:Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:5, Informative)
Read the article, or even the linked Lancet article, which says:
Funding
National Institute for Health Research Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
Which I think means 100% government funding. It also gives the exact methology -- a systematic search for, and integration of data from, all published studies that met stated criteria.
Re:Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:5, Informative)
Last line in the abstract gives the funding — National Institute for Health Research Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. it’s independent.
The authors are heavy hitters in the evidence synthesis field, with names on key articles. John Ioannidis, author of the famous paper “Why most published research findings are false”, and numerous other articles pointing out the pitfalls and limitations of evidence based medicine. Higgins is a co-author of the Cochrane Collaboration Handbook (the bible for systematic reviews), Cipriani and Salanti are key players in the development of the methods for network meta-analysis.
This is as good as it gets for medical evidence synthesis. A large dataset, expert authors, and findings that will come under scrutiny. Haven’t read the paper yet, but I’d expect the major limitations to be publication bias — the constant concern that negative studies don’t get published — risk of bias in individual studies, since many of those are pharma-funded, and whether the pooled papers fulfil the assumptions needed for network meta-analysis. There are formal methods for assessing the potential impact, and the discussion will get to grips with those questions. So will the commentary around it in other journals. See PLoS Medicine, for instance.
Re:Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:4)
I'd like to think that they can be used appropriately to help people get out of a rut so that they can start fixing the underlying problems in their lives, and there are probably some people who are born with some condition that might necessitate using antidepressants their whole life much like some people need insulin, but I have a sneaking suspicion that in reality we'll just throw loads of pills at people with great abandon or no care to fix the underlying problems that would allow them to function without that medication. I think this is true for a lot of things, not just antidepressants.
Re:Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, we stop our worship of the false God Nature, and start realizing that our bodies are no longer adequate to the task at hand. Instead of punishing ourselves for living how we want to live, we start figuring out how to live how we want to live without the consequences (or alternately, change the instinct driving our motivation). Chemicals are one such help.
We don't go outside because obviously we don't want to. It's dirty, the weather is unpredictable, there are animals & insects carrying disease, too hot/too cold, too bright/to dim. Etc. Wherein we have a plethora of technologies to fix these problems in small space indoors. We may have created some problems in so doing, we need to determine what they are and design them out. If we need more UV exposure, we have product for that. If indoor air quality is low, we have product for that.
We eat poorly primarily due to what our body is telling us about food, and why it is telling us these things. The drive for more fat and more starches is not surprising if you consider that starvation was a major concern in our evolution, and managing it was key to survival. Fat and starch cravings push the unformed mind to make good survival choices. We're well past that now in most of the world, and what our bodies are demanding is no longer optimal for our health. We either need to suppress these instincts or deal with the symptoms. It seems like suppression is probably the way to go, the other side is mostly whack-a-mole.
Sleep is a tougher nut to crack. Losing 33% of our day (or more, depending on who you talk to) is a huge imposition. It seems unlikely that we're soon going to turn in to a society that can simply sleep when it wants, nor that we will actually want it if given the choice. We probably should be focusing on ways to get the most out of what little sleep we get. It seems we understand all of this very little right now. Other choices might be that since we are no longer held to a farmer's schedule, maybe work schedules based on rising with the sun are not necessary or ideal.
In the meantime, while we bake actual solutions up, things that treat the symptoms seem fine. Provide the side-effects are known and the users are free to do the cost benefit analysis. I personally stay away from anti-depressants, not because I do not need them (I am fairly certain I do), but the side effects are sketchy.
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we start figuring out how to live how we want to live without the consequences
There are always consequences. That is the real lesson of nature. We get sick and develop antibiotics, the germs get resistant, and we get sicker and in the end, we all still die. To live without consequence is the biggest lie of all.
re: false god nature (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes I get afraid that people thinks science is magic. It isn't. That people think there are wast conspiracies everywhere. There aren't.
You say you want a vaccine. That indicates you have no idea what a vaccine is. And you want it for something we still don't know how it works _but_ we know is a spectra of different symptoms that require a spectra of drugs to be chosen for a certain individual/patient. You don't realize how medical science works instead claiming things that
This is beyond stupid. You are requesting something that wouldn't work (vaccine) for something we still don't know enough about (depression) to do something magical (become real) and the fact magic doesn't work is an indication of a major conspiracy.
I don't think you need antidepressants, your condition requires another kind of medication.
Re:Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:4, Funny)
This is beyond stupid.
There should be a vaccine for stupidity.
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However, with the proper applicator for the 9mm anti-stupidity pill, it doesn't matter that much if they resist.
I'm mostly non-violent, but some things are just too satisfying not to daydream about.
Re:Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been a pharmacist for many years.
Pharmaceutical companies funding fake scientific journals to create the "look and feel of a peer-reviewed publication to serve as a marketing tool" or to elicit favorable study results is a far more common problem then you think...
https://www.the-scientist.com/... [the-scientist.com]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Physicians prescribing medications because they are getting kickbacks from the pharmaceutics companies is nothing new either...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/... [chicagotribune.com]
And hell, your prescription coverage employs a formulary that is driven just as choosing drugs because they provide cost savings as it is by scientific data showing greater efficacy.
Science isn't magic but neither are scientists omnipotent grand wizards fighting for the side of good. They are just as corruptible as anyone else on this planet. Corporations are still driven by profit above all other concerns, even ones that are staffed by research scientists.
Blind faith in "science" (technology) is just as dangerous, if not more so, then blind faith in religion. Skepticism is a cornerstone of scientific inquiry. If you aren't practicing it, your doing it wrong.
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Yeah, all that Profit which drives innovation is really bad idea. It is like we can't do two things at once, make money and be altruistic, right? Nobody was able to make that work out right.
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I wonder how many of these people whining work for free themselves.
The evil guy in "Big Pharma" who saved my life can buy all the yachts he wants. My particular overpriced wonder drug is not without it's drawbacks and limitations but it is most certainly preferable to the alternative.
People have no fucking perspective.
They will see the whole world burn and people die just so they can avoid personal responsibility.
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Re: Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Anyone suspect this was funded by Drug Co (Score:4, Insightful)
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Show me on this doll where science touched you.
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Kurt Cobain?
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That looks fine and dandy but you fail to recognize that some people have a genetic predisposition for depression.
What you suggest may increase the amount of suicides because the sufferers will feel even more miserable and worthless.
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Anyone else have a problem with studies that simply study the results of other studies? It would be like a news channel that only reports the news stories that other news channels provide, then based on analysis of trends seen offers an opinion on what is fact or fiction. While convenient, as one does not have to get out and do actual reporting, (or research in this case), I find it leaves much to be desired. It would be better in my opinion to research available data, summarize it, offer an opinion as to its cause, develop a methodology to test this opinion, and perform a carefully thought out study to test if this opinion is supported or refuted by this study.
Obviously you need primary data, but, if done carefully and well, this type of metastudy can be very powerful. Note that they are taking raw data from the previous studies, not just recording their conclusions. For one thing, any study in this area is at risk of statistical error, and the metastudy effectively has a much larger sample size, making this much less severe. Since the studies were performed by many different groups with different funding and at different times, they also reduce the risk of many
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Doctors generally won't comment on this particular side-effect of some anti-depressants, because nobody wants to admit that it could actually cause other types of problems... but some anti-depressants could be more accurately described as "anti-emotion" pills. This means that they actually cause you to feel less emotion than you would otherwise, both negative and positive. I've personally observed the impact that this can have; someone that I used to know who was incredibly empathetic, selfless and loving, but also prone to occasional bouts of depression, was put on a pill... which essentially eliminated all of those things. It certainly eliminated her depression, but it also quite literally changed her entire personality, and I would argue that it wasn't all for the better, for her or for those around her.
Always be careful, when substituting pills for real problem solving. Sometimes, you will end up losing the person you loved, in the process.
These kind of comments is what really matters. Only anti-science crowd would think antidepressants does not "work". What matters is whether the result of those pills is what we truly desire.
Aside from the effect of the pills, another matter is do we want ourselves or who we love be drug dependent.
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100% Convincing Point! Excellent and Rational. Well done sir, you've convinced me!
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