Exploding the Antidepressant Myth

Check out the Ultramind Solution by Dr. Mark Hymen. The book goes over how our American Standard Diet, exposure to environmental toxins, lack of exercise, and lack of certain nutrients can affect how our brains work.

There is a huge connection between the body and the mind, and both affect each other. What you eat can have a huge affect on your brain.

The book has been a huge help to me.

Eating healthy + Exercise + meditation + proper supplementation = A brain that is far more focused, productive, calm, and happier. If you have any form of depression you should take a look at your diet, exercise habits, and attempt to include meditation into your daily routine.

I can't overstate the importance of meditation, its incredibly crucial in terms of keeping me calm, relaxed, and focused.
 


Dated a chick in college - always bubbly as fuck, pro volleyball, other sports, really smart top of the class kinda chick. Felt proud!

One day she asks what I think of depression, not even hesitating I'm all "I don't really believe in it, I think it's self-manifested, we all get sadz, I definitely don't believe in getting on doctor pills to cure it lolol" and we laughed.

A week later there was an issue with my boyz and I going up to Wasaga Beach (big yearly party here for Canucks) and she was cruising up with her girls. Her girls ditched her or some shit, and my car was full, last minute she asks me to boot one of my friends so she can come with...

... crazy argument, crazy behavior I've never seen, I tell her to chill and I'll come over to talk. When I got there it was a whole new person, one lil' conflict and it destroyed her, she pulls out pills, admits she's been 'diagnosed' with depression and the Dr. had her hooked for 5 months at this point.

She hid that shit really well until it was too much to hide - I'm a caring person and was raised morally sound by a strict euro mom so I tried to help but it was too fukt after that we drifted fast.

Her body was sound, diet was awesome, home life was awesome, shit seemed easy for her, perhaps too easy and or it was hard to keep up the act for minimal soulful returns and she broke.

/random memories.
 
Exercise and a great diet helps a lot. With that said, their are still mental problems people have that can't be overcome by dieting, exercising, etc.

Some stuff is snakeoil but do your research and find the legit stuff. I would never say depression is nothing but a state of mind or say its something people dream up in their minds because I've never experienced it. If you never experienced something you can't knock the people who have it.
 
ncmedia said:
Dated a chick in college - always bubbly as fuck, pro volleyball, other sports, really smart top of the class kinda chick. Felt proud!

One day she asks what I think of depression, not even hesitating I'm all "I don't really believe in it, I think it's self-manifested, we all get sadz, I definitely don't believe in getting on doctor pills to cure it lolol" and we laughed.

A week later there was an issue with my boyz and I going up to Wasaga Beach (big yearly party here for Canucks) and she was cruising up with her girls. Her girls ditched her or some shit, and my car was full, last minute she asks me to boot one of my friends so she can come with...

... crazy argument, crazy behavior I've never seen, I tell her to chill and I'll come over to talk. When I got there it was a whole new person, one lil' conflict and it destroyed her, she pulls out pills, admits she's been 'diagnosed' with depression and the Dr. had her hooked for 5 months at this point.

She hid that shit really well until it was too much to hide - I'm a caring person and was raised morally sound by a strict euro mom so I tried to help but it was too fukt after that we drifted fast.

Her body was sound, diet was awesome, home life was awesome, shit seemed easy for her, perhaps too easy and or it was hard to keep up the act for minimal soulful returns and she broke.

/random memories.
Click to expand...

Makes me wonder how often being a woman is misdiagnosed as depression.
 
I'm going to lecture for a minute about something tangentially related to the OP.

One of the biggest flaws in medical thinking right now is that there ought to be a cure-all for syndromes which have multiple distinct and often unknown causes.

Take IBS. Irritable bowel syndrome. It's a diagnosis by exclusion. That means if you have digestive issues, but don't have colon cancer, etc., then you have 'IBS'. In effect 'IBS' means nothing.

So they do a study on whether supplementing L-Glutamine reduces IBS symptoms and find it does no better than placebo. 5% of the time it works but 95% of the time it doesn't. So then they throw it out and call the study a waste of time.

But if you Google "IBS" "Glutamine" You'll find threads on self-treatment forums full of people praising god for helping them find Glutamine, the savior of their years of suffering with IBS symptoms. These threads will also be full of people who try it and disparagingly cast it aside as useless.

Ever see Anchorman? "60% of the time, it works 100% of the time." This makes a lot more sense than the writers of that movie ever intended. If 5% of cases of IBS are caused by an issue which can be resolved via glutamine supplementation, than 5% of the time, it works 100% of the time. But a study which pulls 100 people from the population of IBS sufferers and tests for efficacy will disregard the result as useless because it doesn't fit nicely into a pill that can be prescribed to everyone after a 3 minute consultation.

We are fortunate; widespread internet use is providing the masses with the ability to perform data collection and analysis on their own, which is great because ultimately no one will ever care as much about your health as you or your loved ones, and 3 minutes is not enough time to deal with a complexity such as your health.

Doctors and scientists won't stop confusing cats for washing machines until they get their egos in check and understand the limits of their knowledge.

Yes, pharma companies are evil. Yes, a survey of doctors would probably reveal that they believe depression is caused by antidepressant-deficiency; antidepressants rarely work and are massively over-prescribed and depression is massively over-diagnosed, like so many other drugs and diseases.

But sometimes they do work, even if/as a bandaid, and the guy who wakes up every day feeling happy knows that with far higher confidence than some Phd who is as arrogant as one must be to believe they know they are right about the solidity of a structure they have built on a foundation of sand.
 
I think it's also important to realize (especially for people who have no experience with depression) that the cure to depression isn't something that creates happiness, and being depressed isn't synonymous with feeling sad. A lot of people think that depressed people take drugs because the drugs make them happy, but the goal of the drug is to make the patient capable of being happy on their own.
 
productionhead said:
If you are depressed, take a high dose of shrooms.
Click to expand...

Not sure if this can cure depression but can definitely help you have some amazing "aha" moments that last well after you come down.

If I remember correctly the author of prometheus rising witnessd some shroom sessions where they basically gave the users a "new person" to model themselves after and they were able to really become the person.

Really crazy shit to think about. I used to think it was all BS and just for hippies who want to get high, but when you experience something like the above it can really change your thinking for better or worse.

I remember being convinced that I had a vibration and was sending signals up to some point in the universe that was relaying advice back to me.

/highschool memories
 
There are many antidepressants that work far better than placebo for a variety of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, panic disorders and much more.

Investigate the evidence for yourself: Home - The Cochrane Library - the Cochrane Collaboration and their systematic reviews are the best collection of unbiased, hard-studied evidence out there. And once you start looking, you'll see things like:

TCAs, SSRIs and MAOIs are effective in the treatment of older community patients and inpatients likely to have severe physical illness. At least six weeks of antidepressant treatment is recommended to achieve optimal therapeutic effect.
Click to expand...
Antidepressants versus placebo for the depressed elderly - The Cochrane Library - Wilson - Wiley Online Library

Pooled estimates of efficacy data showed an RR of 1.24, 95% CI 1.11-1.38 in favour of TCAs against placebo. For SSRIs this was 1.28, 95% CI 1.15 to 1.43.. The numbers needed to treat (NNT) for TCAs ranged from 7 to 16 {median NNT 9} patient expected event rate ranged from 63% to 26% respectively) and for SSRIs from 7 to 8 {median NNT 7} (patient expected event rate ranged from 48% to 42% respectively) . The numbers needed to harm (NNH for withdrawal due to side effects) ranged from 4 to 30 for TCAs (excluding three studies with no harmful events leading to withdrawal) and 20 to 90 for SSRIs.
Click to expand...
Antidepressants versus placebo for depression in primary care - The Cochrane Library - Arroll - Wiley Online Library

Fifty-one studies including 3603 participants were included in the review. Forty-four studies including 3372 participants contributed data towards the efficacy analyses. Pooled efficacy data for the primary outcome provided an OR of 2.33, CI 1.80-3.00, p<0.00001 (25 studies, 1674 patients) favouring antidepressants. Antidepressants were also more efficacious than placebo at the other time-points. At 6-8 weeks, fewer patients receiving placebo dropped out compared to patients treated with an antidepressant.
Click to expand...
Antidepressants for depression in physically ill people - The Cochrane Library - Rayner - Wiley Online Library

Are there pharmaceutical interventions that have questionable efficacy? Yes - for nearly every disease state - and treating disorders of the human brain is one of the most complicated challenges out there. However, making blanket statements that "antidepressants are a myth" is complete and utter bullshit and is the words of one man trying to sell his book.
 
tangy said:
Are there pharmaceutical interventions that have questionable efficacy? Yes - for nearly every disease state - and treating disorders of the human brain is one of the most complicated challenges out there. However, making blanket statements that "antidepressants are a myth" is complete and utter bullshit and is the words of one man trying to sell his book.
Click to expand...

The guy isn't an idiot. He's a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. Read the book. It's only a couple hundred pages. He actually goes through the drug studies that most scientists/doctors have never seen. That's because they were previously unpublished and he had to use FOIA to get them.
 
charlesmartel said:
The guy isn't an idiot. He's a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. Read the book. It's only a couple hundred pages. He actually goes through the drug studies that most scientists/doctors have never seen. That's because they were previously unpublished and he had to use FOIA to get them.
Click to expand...

Irving Kirsch (born March 7, 1943) is Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies

That's all I needed to see. I'm not saying he's an idiot, but this is clearly agenda-driven material and he's coming from a biased background.

Again: given that I'm a fourth-year student in pharmaceutical sciences, I would be the first to admit to you that there are many medications (and even more "natural health supplements", many of which are peddled by people reading this post) with questionable efficacy. But until you've tried everything to help someone who is suffering from depression or any other illness, all options are at least an option.
 
tangy said:
(and even more "natural health supplements", many of which are peddled by people reading this post) with questionable efficacy.
Click to expand...


tumblr_m589kvJZxe1ry10fwo1_500.gif
 
JoseArmando said:
I don't know if you know any truly depressed people but I dealt with a couple in the past and it's NOT a simple issue to resolve. Doesn't matter what caused it or if it's 1st world problem, the struggle is in pulling that person out of that state.

I looked at depression exactly like you prior to talking in depth to people who were deep in depression. Honestly I'm scared shitless if anything like that hit me because from what I've seen your mind just goes crazy and it's almost impossible to function.

Maybe do some more research to understand it better.
Click to expand...
How many truly depressed people have actually tried to do what he just said? Take a heavy dose of 5-10 grams of dry magic mushrooms. See what happens to you. There won't be YOU left to be depressed. It works. Like a miracle. You might shit your pants along the way. But it is all good. The worst that can happen you will return to being the same dumbass you always have been. Maybe do some research and actually have a direct experience before posting.
 
On a serious note, depression is only negative because of negative interpretation society has given it. What depression usually means is that an individual cannot find meaning in anything. Is that a bad thing? It is the best thing that can happen to you, if you know not to react negatively to it. It means that nothing external can bring you happiness. So search of happiness has to turn within. Trying to exercise or w/e is all band-aids. Trying to make a person "normal" to be motivated to do stupid shit that society tells you to do.

Depression is body-mind's longing for a deep rest that is long overdue.
 
The biggest group influencing Big Pharma has the same background and supremacist mindset as the communists who killed 50 million +

If you want to raise your serotonin and cure your depression, take some st. john's wort or 5-htp.

Fuck the meds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom