Mikah wrote:
The decisive blow if any was struck in 2010 by Irvine Kirsch. He showed that a drug that increased serotonin uptake had statistically the same measurable effect on depression as a drug that lowered uptake - meaning the whole theory was nonsense and the pills were placebos at best. Since then we've had a re-examination of the serotonin theory and worrying correlations with increased suicide with SSRIs pop up.
Now the cowardly foot soldiers of science and medicine are just starting to catch up and the pharma companies will soon decide that hiding the truth is more expensive than just admitting it and will take yet another fine for faking medical studies. They should be off the shelves by 2030 and then everyone will pretend they were skeptical of the pills all along, or at least ever since that relative killed themselves shortly after taking them. It's all so tiresome. I can expect to be vindicated in my skepticism of the Covid vaccine... around 2045 at this rate.
I am skeptical of the Covid vaccine also. I never had one! You are not alone, brother.
As for SSRI's - my personal experience has been that they are actually helpful, but the low serotonin theory seems empirically incorrect and implausible, even without much scrutiny due to its ridiculous simplicity versus the complexity of the human brain.
Like you point out, there are examples of lowering serotonin making no difference at all in healthy volunteers.
Depression is a complex mental health problem, with probably many different causes for different people - not a "push this serotonin lever to increase serotonin" kind of thing (figuratively speaking).
02 Aug 2023, 5:13 pm
