Beware of dinosaurs
Time to let go of a dinosaur-sized erroneous hypothesis, i.e. that depression is caused by an imbalance in brain chemicals that can be managed by psycho-pharmaceuticals. It was simply a hypothesis pushed by Big Pharma to make billions. As many practitioners have been saying for decades, it just ain’t true. Yes, anti-depressants sometimes work to allay symptoms—though science doesn’t know why—but have been clearly shown to be connected dementia later in life by huge statistical margins. Also, we don’t know why. To err on the side of caution, I’d check out alternatives before taking a weird chemical that no one knows what it does to my brain.—MR
The chemical imbalance theory of depression is dead, but that doesn’t mean antidepressants don’t work
by Christopher Davey, The Guardian US, August 2, 2022
The chemical imbalance theory of depression is well and truly dead. A paper by Joanna Moncrieff and colleagues, longtime critics of the effectiveness of antidepressants, has caused a splash. The paper provides a summary of other summaries that confirm there is no evidence to support the idea that depression is caused by disturbance of the brain’s serotonin system.
