Is clinical depression caused by a serotonin imbalance?

[scotty]

http://chemicalimbalance.org/?p=6

Leo and Lacasse!

[INFP]

I found this article very interesting. I especially noted:

In the words of Ross Baldessarini, professor of psychiatry, “Almost any psychotropic drug that’s given for more than a few weeks leads to changes in brain function such that when you stop, the brain has to reset its thermostat.”

It took me a while to grasp that someone who only took paxil for a short time would have to endure a such a long healing period.

I remember also that when I heard they finally discovered the gene for depression, I was even more sold on the idea that I was doing the right thing by taking prozac. But this article states:

“Caspi et al. found that 5-HTTTLPR predicted depression only in association with defined life stresses” (p. 56). However, this needs to be qualified by pointing out two important points: 1) Just the presence of the short form of the gene did not predict depression - after all following major life stressors only 35% of the short form carriers developed depression (If 65% of the carriers do not develop depression, it seems hard to characterize it as predictive).

Also of note with the Caspi study is that the marker in question is not a rare mutation found in only a small percentage of the population. Approximately 70% of the population carries this “susceptibility” gene. One possible conclusion is that they have not discovered something unique about the subset of people diagnosed with depression, but have discovered something about human nature in general. Of course there are mechanisms in the makeup of the human brain that respond to environmental stressors. But finding these mechanisms does not mean that we have found a marker for a disease. If 70% of us have a gene that plays a role in our response to stress should this be considered “normal” or “pathological?” Complicating interpretation of this data, while some studies have found similar results to Caspi, other groups have not (Gillespie, 2005).[/b]

But 70% means a lot of $$$ to the pharmaceutical companies.

I believe depression is not a disease, but simply a symptom, a message from your body that something in your life needs to be addressed.

(I will read the rest of the article later - it's kind of heavy reading, but thanks for posting it).

[safarigal]

That's the best article I've read so far to debunk research into SSRIs and chemical imbalance.

Again one has to question how these drugs got on the market with such little evidence of being effective and how the advertising of them can be legal.

[scotty]

Leo and Lacasse are amazing!

[silence4now]

Originally Posted by INFP

I believe depression is not a disease, but simply a symptom, a message from your body that something in your life needs to be addressed.

I think this is true. As far as I'm concerned this issue is right up there with what came first, the chicken or the egg? As long as we have a society of people who don't want to work at staying well, they want to be "cured" then there will be an audience for this kind of marketing. Hopefully someday there will be a revolt against these drugs, and I hope I live to see it happen.