In a New York Times book review, Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, talks about how a shocking 46 percent of Americans now fit a diagnosis for some form of mental illness.
"What is going on here? Is the prevalence of mental illness really that high and still climbing?" she asks. The authors of three books she's reviewed have posed some interesting -- and alarming -- answers.
Most of you have probably heard that depression is caused by too little serotonin in your brain, which antidepressants are designed to correct.
Likewise, schizophrenia is said to be related to too much dopamine, which other psychiatric drugs help lower. Unfortunately for anyone who has ever swallowed these marketing ploys, this is actually NOT a scientific statement.
Instead, these explanations for the "causes" of mental illness were created only after the drugs were found to have these effects.
Unfortunately, the idea that mental illness is the result of chemical balance is a popular one that is now firmly rooted in the conventional psychiatric profession. Not only does it take away the stigma of mental illness, but it gives psychiatrists a solution, one that fits neatly on their prescription pads.
The trouble is, not only do the drugs not work, they may actually cause your brain to function abnormally.
Medical journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker, whom I interviewed in the video above, explains it this way, as Angell reported:
"Prior to treatment, patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression, and other psychiatric disorders do not suffer from any known "chemical imbalance."
However, once a person is put on a psychiatric medication, which, in one manner or another, throws a wrench into the usual mechanics of a neuronal pathway, his or her brain begins to function … abnormally."
Something has changed in the field of diagnosing and treating psychiatric disorders in the last few decades, and that something has led to a 600 percent increase in persons on government (Social Security) disability due to mental illness!
According to Whitaker, it used to be that depression was typically a self-limiting illness. Even in cases severe enough to require hospitalization, people would get better in six or eight months; they would recover and often never relapse, or if they did it would be years down the road and, again, self-limiting.
When antidepressants were introduced, it was with the intent that they would help people recover from depression more quickly.
Long-term studies now indicate that of people with major depression, only about 15 percent that are treated with an antidepressant go into remission and stay well for a long period of time. The remaining 85 percent start having continuing relapses and become chronically depressed.
"By the 1990s, this change in the long term course of depression was so pronounced that finally it was addressed by researchers," says Whitaker. "Giovanni Fava from Italy said, "Hey, listen, the course is changing with antidepressants. We're changing it from an episodic illness to a chronic illness, and we really need to address this."
Not only that, but the depression is sinking into people [on antidepressants] in a deeper way than before."
According to Whitaker's research, this tendency to sensitize the brain to long-term depression appears to be the same both for the earlier tricyclic antidepressants and the newer SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors).
Another famous psycho pharmacologist named Ross Baldessarini at Harvard Medical School also began asking whether or not these drugs may in fact be depressogenic (causing depression).
Unfortunately, the evidence points that way, and the long-term prognosis when taking antidepressants is quite bleak, as this type of drug treatment has a whopping 85 percent chronic relapse rate.
How Did it Ever Get this Bad?
Part of the puzzle explaining why we now have a pill for every emotion and psychological trait is that psychiatrists were originally not considered "real" doctors—they couldn't actually "do" much to help their patients, and they certainly couldn't cure them.
They realized that to increase their status, they had to make the field more scientific, and it was this decision that gave birth to the medicalizing and drugging of every conceivable behavioral tendency.
Part of the problem is that the criteria for diagnosis has expanded exponentially—you can now be diagnosed as being "ill" if you have trouble controlling your shopping habits, and a child who often argues with adults can be labeled according to the diagnostic code 313.81 -- Oppositional Defiant Disorder. A staggering array of normal human experiences now masquerade as "disorders," for which there is a drug treatment available.
Another factor is the fact that psychiatric drugs CREATE more serious forms of mental illness...
The Truth about the "Chemical Imbalance" Theory
As a family physician I have treated many thousands of depressed patients. Depression was actually one of my primary concerns in the mid 80s when I first started practicing, however at that time my primary tool was using antidepressants. I put thousands of people on these drugs and acquired a fair level of experience in this area.
Thankfully I learned more and was able to stop using all these drugs. It was my experience that the chemical imbalance was merely a massive marketing gimmick to support the use of expensive and toxic antidepressants.
Most of you have probably heard that depression is due to a "chemical imbalance in your brain," which these drugs are designed to correct. As mentioned previously, this is not a scientific statement.. So where did it come from?
The low serotonin theory arose because they understood how the drugs acted on the brain; it was a hypothesis that tried to explain how the drug might be fixing something. However, that hypothesis didn't hold up to further investigation.
Investigations were done to see whether or not depressed people actually had lower serotonin levels, and in 1983 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) concluded that:
"There is no evidence that there is anything wrong in the serotonergic system of depressed patients."
The serotonin theory is simply not a scientific statement. It's a botched theory—a hypothesis that was proven incorrect.
The fact that this fallacy continues to thrive is destroying the health of millions, because if you take an SSRI drug that blocks the normal reuptake of serotonin, you end up with the very physiological problem the drug is designed to treat–low serotonin levels.
Which, ironically, is the state hypothesized to bring on depression in the first place.
In 1996, neuroscientist Steven Hyman, who was head of the NIMH at the time, and is today Provost of Harvard University, published the paper Initiation and Adaptation: A Paradigm for Understanding Psychotropic Drugs, in which he explains this chain of events.
According to Dr. Hyman, once your brain has undergone a series of compensatory adaptations to the drug, your brain operates in a manner that is "both qualitatively and quantitatively different than normal."
So, it's important to understand that these drugs are NOT normalizing agents. They're abnormalizing agents, and once you understand that, you can understand how they might provoke a manic episode, or why they might be associated with sexual dysfunction or violence and suicide, for example.
What Does the Science Really Say about the Effectiveness of Psychiatric Drugs?
As you know, all drugs have benefit-to-risk ratios, so if a drug is as effective as a placebo in relieving symptoms, it really doesn't make sense to use them as a first line of defense.
And yet doctors all over America prescribe them as if they were indeed sugar pills!
However, it gets worse. Research into the long-term effects of antidepressants shows that patients are no longer really recuperating from their depressive episodes as was the general norm prior to the advent of modern antidepressants.
The depression appears to be lifting faster, but patients tend to relapse more frequently, turning what ought to have been a passing phase into an increasingly chronic state of depression.
Long-term studies now indicate that of people with major depression, only about 15 percent that are treated with an antidepressant go into remission and stay well for a long period of time. The remaining 85 percent start having continuing relapses and become chronically depressed.
According to Whitaker's research, this tendency to sensitize your brain to long-term depression appears to be the same both for the earlier tricyclic antidepressants and the newer SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors).
In addition, SSRI's have been shown to increase your risk of developing bipolar depression, according to Whitaker.
Anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of children who take an antidepressant for five years convert to bipolar illness. In adults, about 25 percent of long term users convert from a diagnosis of unipolar depression to bipolar.
This is a serious concern because once you're categorized as bipolar, you're often treated with a potent cocktail of medications including an antipsychotic medication, and long-term bipolar outcomes are grim in the United States. For starters, only about 35 percent of bipolar patients are employed, so the risk of permanent disability is great.
Another risk inherent with long-term use is that of cognitive decline.
What Really Works for Depression and Other Mental Illness?
There are five important strategies to consider if you are facing depression or another mental condition. These strategies have nothing but positive effects and are generally very inexpensive to implement.
- Exercise – If you have depression, or even if you just feel down from time to time, exercise is a MUST. The research is overwhelmingly positive in this area, with studies confirming that physical exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed. One of the primary ways it does this is by increasing the level of endorphins, the "feel good" hormones, in your brain.
- Address your stress -- Depression is a very serious condition, however it is not a "disease." Rather, it's a sign that your body and your life are out of balance. This is so important to remember, because as soon as you start to view depression as an "illness," you think you need to take a drug to fix it. In reality, all you need to do is return balance to your life, and one of the key ways to doing this is addressing stress. Meditation or yoga can help. Sometimes all you need to do is get outside for a walk. But in addition to that, I also recommend using a solid support system composed of friends, family and, if necessary, professional counselors, who can help you work through your emotional stress.
- Eat a healthy diet -- Another factor that cannot be overlooked is your diet. Foods have an immense impact on your mood and ability to cope and be happy, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental health. Avoiding fructose, sugar and grains will help normalize your insulin and leptin levels, which is another powerful tool in addressing depression.
- Support optimal brain functioning with essential fats -- I also strongly recommend supplementing your diet with a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. Omega-3 fats are essential for your optimal brain function, and that includes regulating your mood and fighting depression. In fact, the evidence has become so compelling that some experts in the field encourage all mental health professionals to ensure that their patients suffering from depression have an adequate intake of omega-3 fats.
- Get plenty of sunshine – Making sure you're getting enough sunlight exposure to have healthy vitamin D levels is also a crucial factor in treating depression or keeping it at bay. One previous study found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who had normal levels. Vitamin D deficiency is actually more the norm than the exception, and has previously been implicated in both psychiatric and neurological disorders.
I've personally witnessed the struggles of two people near and dear to me who suffered from deep chronic depression for a number of years that actually resulted in multiple suicide attempts, so I am very familiar with its devastating effects.
Excerpts from Dr. Mercola's article were entered in this post. To read the entire article click here.
Images submitted by M-B-S
Images submitted by M-B-S