i love you berti!
thank you for this.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by therealblankman.

This is total, f*cking, bullsh*t. I tried a number of different medications before I found the right one for me. Some of the medications I tried did nothing, some caused unwanted side effects, only one got me where I wanted to be.

For me the difference has not been modest, but life-changing.

Friends have described the similar experiences.

Do not stop taking your anti-depressants based on this report.

That's great that you found a medication that works. Really, I mean that. I'm a big fan of "whatever works" when it comes to mental health -- although there are some extremely unethical goings on with pharmaceutical companies and the FDA, readily spelled out in this brief piece. I especially like that the FDA man has a fundamental misunderstanding of basic statistics -- and then said it was basic statistics. Facepalm!

Data are data, and anecdotes are anecdotes. And with anecdotes, there is a distinct lack of control over extraneous variables.

Also, at the end of the report, and in the companion piece, they state explicitly that you should not stop taking your anti-depressants.

I encourage you to look further into this story and the science behind it, rather than dismissing it simply because it doesn't match your experience.

>> ^DuoJet:

This is total, f cking, bullsh t. I tried a number of different medications before I found the right one for me. Some of the medications I tried did nothing, some caused unwanted side effects, only one got me where I wanted to be.
For me the difference has not been modest, but life-changing.
Friends have described the similar experiences.
Do not stop taking your anti-depressants based on this report.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Sunday, February 19th, 2012 7:18pm PST - promote requested by dag.

Berticus, I appreciate the folly of anecdotal evidence, and I'm very aware, and not skeptical of, the placebo effect.

My problem with the report is this assertion:

"oh, yes, people get better when they are taking da drug, but it's not the chemical ingredients that are making them better"

I am one of those people, and I experience genuine physiological effects from these drugs, including one or more effects that actually make life livable.

I'm inclined to believe that, as is often suggested, depression is very commonly misdiagnosed. This would surely introduce "extraneous variables" into placebo studies as well.

I'll just add some nuance to your assertion below. The issue is not so much that depression is "misdiagnosed." The issue is that depression doesn't have a known physiological cause. That is, there is no anatomical or physiological marker for depression. It's a behaviorally defined disorder. That means it is entirely possible (even likely) that multiple patients all suffering from "depression" (i.e. exhibiting the behavioral symptoms of depression, thus being properly diagnosed) could be suffering as a result of differing physiological problems.

Almost all psychiatric disorders (other than maybe Parkinson's and some other known neurological malfunctions) have this issue. The problem I have with this is our readiness to prescribe physiological interventions for conditions that can't be diagnosed physiologically. While many of these substances are relatively benign, some have the potential to cause extremely problematic side effects (e.g. acute suicidal urges). The real work is going to be in finding better mechanistic level diagnostics.

In the mean time, I think more conservative treatment protocols are warranted. If sugar pills show some efficacy, why not start with those? You could still ramp up to an SSRI or the like when the sugar pill is shown to be ineffective in that patient. Better still are behavioral therapies, e.g. exercise or sleeping schedule changes. At the very least, I think they should be prescribed along with and emphasized just as much as the pills and counseling.

Longterm, I think pharmacological interventions into the brain are somewhat misguided. Serotonin receptors, for instance, are expressed all over your brain. I think more promising are the newer treatments like deep brain stimulation. It has been shown to be extremely effective in disorders like Parkinson's, and trials are already underway in the treatment of depression. Not only do I think the treatment will ultimately be more effective, I also think research into that sort of treatment is more likely to bear fruit in understanding the mechanistic underpinnings of these disorders. Hopefully that will lead to better sub classifications of people exhibiting depressive behavior.

>> ^DuoJet:

I'm inclined to believe that, as is often suggested, depression is very commonly misdiagnosed. This would surely introduce "extraneous variables" into placebo studies as well.

>> ^DuoJet:

I am one of those people, and I experience genuine physiological effects from these drugs...


The physiological effects of a placebo are no less "genuine" than that of drugs.
Also, your own perceptual experience of your medication's effects lends no scientific credibility to your position that the chemicals are responsible.

I'm glad you found something that works though, I doubt I ever will.

I hope at some point I'm taking sugar pills that work. I'm guessing they are a hell of a lot cheaper.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Yes, but you need to pay until it hurts for the placebo effect to work.>> ^eric3579:

I hope at some point I'm taking sugar pills that work. I'm guessing they are a hell of a lot cheaper.

>> ^DuoJet:

This is total, f cking, bullsh t. I tried a number of different medications before I found the right one for me. Some of the medications I tried did nothing, some caused unwanted side effects, only one got me where I wanted to be.
For me the difference has not been modest, but life-changing.
Friends have described the similar experiences.
Do not stop taking your anti-depressants based on this report.


My experience is similar to yours but let us not dismiss these findings just because they are not what we want to hear.

Assuming these findings are correct for a moment, it could be that you and I are the sort of people who genuinely benefit from the drugs whereas the vast majority of people who are given the drugs are not and are merely benefiting from placebo.

For those of you who have found this interesting, might I recommend another video for your viewing pleasure?

http://videosift.com/video/Stanford-s-Sapolsky-On-Depression-in-U-S

It is an excellent talk about treating depression as any other disease. I thought it was well done and touches upon how complex the brain chemistry is.

I'm not sure if you're serious or not, but there was a study at MIT that showed more expensive placebos were more effective than less expensive placebos. That is, there was a reliable effect of the cost of the sugar pill. I know... depressing right? That's just what we need to tell the drug companies. "You don't even need to do research... just mark up the sugar until it starts working."

>> ^dag:

Yes, but you need to pay until it hurts for the placebo effect to work.>> ^eric3579:
I hope at some point I'm taking sugar pills that work. I'm guessing they are a hell of a lot cheaper.

Thought some of you might be interested in this video from a lecture at Johns Hopkins Medicine. It's not as glossy as 60 Minutes and it can be a little dry at times, but it gives an alternate view on Kirsch's placebo research.

http://videosift.com/video/Antidepressants-and-Placebo-Controversies-Johns-Hopkins

Just talking to someone and being conscious about changes in your feelings helps a lot. It is part of treatment for depression anyway so this all makes sense.

not being in pain really helps

and psylocibin, which tends to promote feelings of empathy and notions of harmony