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Re: Regarding the whole Chemical Imbalance thing

Posted by linkadge on July 8, 2005, at 21:26:13

In reply to Regarding the whole Chemical Imbalance thing, posted by Racer on July 8, 2005, at 19:26:04

I have some things to say. I'll try to keep it short. I think there is evidence of certain chemical imballences, but there is also a lot of information that does not seem to fit the model, a lot of inconsistancies.

Here are some things that weigh on my mind.

Tryptophan depletion does not relyably make normal people depressed. Even if it is followed for several weeks. It does not make depressed people worse unless they are on serotogenic antidepressants.

Monaminergic antidepressants *can* make some people feel better. This is especially true with the MAOIs. Infact, if they didn't make normal people better, they would never have been discovered in the first place. They were discovered when they were given to patients for TB, and doctors noticed an unusual elation. This is when they were recomended to be tested in depression. These patients were not suffering from depression. Prozac has been known to be abused by commedians and salespersons trying to
gain a different prespective on their coureers.


These drugs are also found by tests on animals. By repeatedly stressing normal animals, they can induce helplessness, any drug which reverses this behavior can go on to the next round. These animals are *not* chosen because of specific serotogenic, noradrenic abnormalities, but yet the antidepressants still reverse the behavior.

Antidepressants are effective for chemotherapy induced depression. Did the chemothereapy cause a chemical imballence, then not genetics.

My friends refer to paxil as a "chill pill", and will use it for various reasons for which it was never prescribed or intended.

The so called serotonin gene that has been discovered (short-short varient) which purportedly increases the risk of depression, actually codes for a *slower reputake* of serotonin, than those with other variants.
This is counterintuitive to why SSRIs would help at all.

A few studies showed that antidepressants protected the brain from stress induced atrophy of hippocampal neurons, the study failed to point out that only tianeptine had this effect, and that prozac offered no such protection.

Some of the studies that showed that fluoxetine increased BDNF levels, failed to report that BDNF was increased in any animal that was "handled"

Tianeptine is an effective antidepressant, and clinically it does the opposite to what SSRI's do, it increases the uptake of serotonin.

The below statement was taken from

http://biopsychiatry.com/antidepskep.htm

Two of the largest and most reputable trials found only negligible differences between tricyclic antidepressants and placebo.

Some people noted that 5-ht2a receptors were downregulated by antidepressants, this was one purported mechanism. But ECT actually upregulates 5-ht2a receptors.

Most surprisinly, antidepressants have not been shown conclusivly to reduce suicide rates. That is a fact. The only two pharmacudicals that have, are lithium, and clozapine, but not the antidepressants.


The more I read, the more hazy the picture looks.

Linkadge

Yes, monaminergic antidepressants do work for some people, but they don't work for everbody.


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poster:linkadge thread:525148
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050708/msgs/525227.html