[Fido969]

It’s almost impossible for medical science to treat mental illness, depression, etc. So they answer is to give them, and charge them for, snake oil.

[AlmaKing]

This topic is better left to medical experts, not bloggers.

[dinoparty]

I cannot speak to longterm effects (ie longer than 10 years) but I can personally attest that SSRI’s can work wonderfully. It’s just a fact. I’m sure that this will cause lots of angry responses, but on this there is no way to sway me because I have experienced it.

[Popman]

To believe this article, you would need to buy into the fact all clinical trials for these types of drugs are manipulated or bogus...

MY guess is the data is overstated, and they do work in a small number of people...

I might add my personal experience is a lot of mental illness is a spiritual problem rather than a chemical imbalance...

[iowamark]

major psychoactive drugs are no better than placebos; the “chemical imbalance” theory of mental illness is mostly nonsense..

The first finding was buried in clinical trials of antidepressants, in which side effects of real drugs (such as dry mouth) could be emulated in an otherwise non-active agent (aka removing “unblinding bias”). In these cases, there was absolutely no difference in efficacy between the antidepressant and the placebo.

I think that this claim is very dubious and would like to see citations of this claimed research.

[trebb]

Those of us who haven't had a need for something to take the edge of pure insanity can have all the opinions we want. Many are really bad and even worse if abused/misused, but there are also many success stories. I guess the question is how many would become hopelessly impaired without them compared to how many horror stories there are.

When we get feeling low, a snort of our favorite drink or a Valium would serve to cheer us up...

[Sergio]

bkmk

[onyx]

Finding the proper anti-depressant paves the road to success.