Depression
It is good that these facts are explained!
August 16th, 2018
By Kelly Brogan, M.D.
Guest writer for Wake Up World
What you think you know about depression is probably a myth.
It is good that these facts are explained!
7 Facts About Depression That Will Blow You Away
August 16th, 2018
By Kelly Brogan, M.D.
Guest writer for Wake Up World
What you think you know about depression is probably a myth.
A silent tragedy in the history of
modern health care is happening right now in America, but no one is
talking about it. We have been told a story of depression: that it is
caused by a chemical imbalance and cured by a chemical fix — a
prescription. More than 30 million of us take antidepressants, including
one in seven women (one in four women of reproductive age). Millions
more are tempted to try them to end chronic, unyielding distress,
irritability, and emotional “offness” — trapped by an exhausting inner
agitation they can’t shake.
It is time, even according to leaders in
the field, to let go of this false narrative and take a fresh look at
where science is leading us. The human body interacts in its environment
with deep intelligence. Your body creates symptoms for a reason. Depression is a meaningful symptom of
a mismatch, biologically, with lifestyle — we eat a poor diet, harbor
too much stress, lack sufficient physical movement, deprive ourselves of
natural sunlight, expose ourselves to environmental toxicants, and take
too many drugs.[1] Inflammation is
the language that the body speaks, expressing imbalance, inviting
change. We usually suppress these symptoms with medication but that is
like turning off the smoke alarm when you have a fire going on. Let’s
get the facts straight:
1. Depression is often an inflammatory condition
Depression is often a manifestation of
irregularities in the body that often starts far away from the brain and
is not associated with so-called “chemical imbalances.” The medical
literature has emphasized the role of inflammation in mental illness for more than twenty years (unfortunately, it takes an average of 17 years for
the data that exposes inefficacy and/or a signal of harm, to trickle
down into your doctor’s daily routine; a time lag problem that makes
medicine’s standard of care “evidence-based” only in theory and not
practice). Not a single study has proven that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. That’s right:
there has never been a human study that successfully links low
serotonin levels and depression. Imaging studies, blood and urine tests,
post-mortem suicide assessments, and even animal research have never
validated the link between neurotransmitter levels and depression. In
other words, the serotonin theory of depression is a total myth that has
been unjustly supported by the manipulation of data. Much to the
contrary, high serotonin levels have been linked to a range of problems,
including schizophrenia and autism.
So if you think a chemical pill can save, cure, or “correct” you,
you’re dead wrong. That is about as misguided as putting a bandage over a
nail stuck in your foot and taking aspirin. It’s absolutely missing an
opportunity to “remove the splinter” and resolve the problem from the
source.
2. Antidepressants have the potential to irreversibly disable the body’s natural healing mechanisms
Despite what you’ve been led to believe,
antidepressants have repeatedly been shown in long-term scientific
studies to worsen the course of mental illness — to say nothing of the
risks of liver damage, bleeding, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, and
reduced cognitive function they entail. The dirtiest little secret of
all is the fact that antidepressants are among the most difficult drugs
to taper from, more so than alcohol and opiates. While you might call it
“going through withdrawal,” we medical professionals have been
instructed to call it “discontinuation syndrome,”
which can be characterized by fiercely debilitating physical and
psychological reactions. Moreover, antidepressants have a
well-established history of causing violent side effects, including
suicide and homicide. In fact, five of the top 10 most violence-inducing
drugs have been found to be antidepressants.
3. The effect of antidepressants is not a cure
Even if we accepted the proposition that these drugs are helpful for some people (82% of which is due to the placebo effect, according to Dr. Irving Kirsch),
extrapolating a medical cause from this observation would be akin to
saying that shyness is caused by a deficiency of alcohol, or that
headaches are caused by a lack of codeine. And what about a genetic
vulnerability? Is there such thing as a depression gene? In 2003, a study published
in Science suggested that those with genetic variation in their
serotonin transporter were three times more likely to be depressed. But
six years later this idea was wiped out by a meta-analysis of 14,000 patients published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that denied such an association.
4. Most prescriptions for antidepressants are doled out by family doctors — not psychiatrists
Seven percent of all visits to a primary care doctor end with an antidepressan[2] and almost three-quarters of the prescriptions are written without a specific diagnosis[3].
What’s more, when the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health did its own examination into the
prevalence of mental disorders, it found that most people who take
antidepressants never meet the medical criteria for a bona fide
diagnosis of major depression, and many who are given antidepressants
for things like OCD, panic disorder, social phobia, and anxiety also
don’t qualify as actually having these conditions.
5. Many physical conditions mimic psychiatric symptoms
Many different physical conditions create psychiatric symptoms but aren’t themselves “psychiatric.” Two prime examples: dysfunctioning thyroid and blood sugar chaos.
We think (because our doctors think) that we need to “cure” the brain,
but in reality we need to look at the whole body’s ecosystem: intestinal
health, hormonal interactions, the immune system and autoimmune
disorders, blood sugar balance, and toxicant exposure.
6. Basic lifestyle interventions can facilitate the body’s powerful self-healing mechanisms to end depression
Dietary modifications (more healthy fats and less sugar, dairy, and gluten); natural supplements like B vitamins and probiotics that
don’t require a prescription and can even be delivered through certain
foods; minimizing exposures to biology-disrupting toxicants like fluoride in tap water, chemicals in common drugs like Tylenol and statins, and fragrances in cosmetics; harnessing the power of sufficient sleep and physical movement; and behavioral techniques aimed at promoting the relaxation response.
7. Depression is a message and an opportunity
It’s a sign for us to stop and figure
out what’s causing our imbalance rather than just masking, suppressing,
or rerouting the symptoms. It’s a chance to choose a new story, to
engage in radical transformation, to say yes to a different life
experience.
Also by Kelly Brogan, M.D.- Psych Meds Put 49 Million Americans at Risk for Cancer
- Depression: It’s Not Your Serotonin
- Are You Fluoridated?
- 5 Rules for Eating Away Your Depression
- Fear Is The Sickness
- Confessions of a Renegade Psychiatrist
Dr. Kelly Brogan is
boarded in Psychiatry / Psychosomatic Medicine / Reproductive
Psychiatry and Integrative Holistic Medicine, and practices Functional
Medicine, a root-cause approach to illness as a manifestation of
multiple-interrelated systems. After studying Cognitive Neuroscience at
M.I.T., and receiving her M.D. from Cornell University, she completed
her residency and fellowship at Bellevue/NYU. She is one of the nation’s
only physicians with perinatal psychiatric training who takes a
holistic evidence-based approach in the care of patients with a focus on
environmental medicine and nutrition. She is also a mom of two, and an
active supporter of women’s birth experience. She is the Medical
Director for FearlessParent.org, and an advisory board member for GreenMedInfo.com. You can visit her website at kellybroganmd.com.
