Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat

Washington Post ^ | May 7, 2002 | Shankar Vedantam

[liberallarry]

After thousands of studies, hundreds of millions of prescriptions and tens of billions of dollars in sales, two things are certain about pills that treat depression: Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft work. And so do sugar pills.

[null and void]

would you feel the same about a new cold medicine if they couldn't seem to prove it's efficacy in trials, and had no idea how or if it worked?

Aspirin was on the market for decades before we had any idea how it worked...

[null and void]

Gee, thanks for trotting out the Scientology smear.

I have no doubt you worked for Eli Lilly.

The truth hurts???

[hinckley buzzard]

By your pseudo-intellectualoid rant you reveal in yourself the usual toxic stew of ignorance and arrogance so common among the scantily educated, even in your unawareness of the narrowness and shallowness of your competence.

If you knew anything at all about the behavioral sciences you would have known this--already.

[185JHP]

The Holy Bible tells us that "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine!" And Dr. Samuel Johnson advised using three doctors to stay healthy: "Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryheart!"

[hinckley buzzard]

A bad parent? For getting help for your child?

This is the viscious underside to the rantings of ignorant and incompetent troglodytes. They attack the judgment of conscientious and caring people, they abuse those who need medication and are mature enough to take it.

I trust you will continue to get the best help you can, and do not let the anti-medication yahoos get you down. Life can be hard enough without having to try to contend with their nasty lies and slurs.

[Timesink]

What these morons don't seem to understand is that EVERYTHING we intake affects the brain, just as it affects every other part of the body. For example, here's a study showing that that the use of aspartame (NutraSweet) can significantly increase the severity of clinical depression in those already suffering from it. We don't know WHY it works that way, we simply know it DOES. And just because a given individual - or even the whole world - doesn't understand why, doesn't matter, as long as the patient is making an informed choice.

Everyone knows that antidepressants work far far far better when combined with therapy anyway. They are NOT "happy pills."

[drlevy88]

If aspartame is this bad, why aren't diet sodas infamous for "causing the blues"? Or was the dose way higher than used for sweetening food, sodas, etc.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

(I'm a former member of that particular, ummm, organization)..

Watch out for yourself, you are going to get freepmailed by some of your former brethren on the forum. One of them demanded I provide my professional services to them for free, I sent them my billing rate, haven't heard back yet.

Good to see that there are always things that reasonable people can agree (and disagree) about.

[Timesink]

The page answers your questions.

[drlevy88]

It doesn't help to throw a broadside at those "horrible drugs" any more than to laud them as the next best thing to having been personally touched by Jesus Christ. I would argue that there are far fewer "bad drugs" than there are bad or unsuitable uses of them. Prozac is one. I took it at one time and it weirded me out even worse than what I had been suffering and was glad to be rid of it. Other people absolutely swear by it. Both experiences are equally valid. And it is not a surprise, because what we call "depression" can come from a host of different causes. Our understanding of central nervous system health today is probably where the understanding of, say, blood chemistry was in the 1800s.

[Dianna]

God bless you. I hope things continue to go well.

[drlevy88]

30 mg/kg/day. The average male adult is, say, 180 pounds or 80 kg. That's 2.5 grams daily of the stuff. A packet of nutrasweet is "1g" ... BUT as I understand, most of that is the dextrose used to make the product manageable.

You need to provide some better data, not just lean back against "the page says what you asked."

[Dianna]

I trust you will continue to get the best help you can, and do not let the anti-medication yahoos get you down. Life can be hard enough without having to try to contend with their nasty lies and slurs.

Thank you.

[drlevy88]

OOOOOOOH... I get it now!

The mood elevating effect of the dextrose (sugar pills, remember?) in the packets of NutraSweet is balancing out the mood depressing effect of the aspartame!!! Those clever, clever people at NutraSweet!!! What will they think of next!!!

[CWRWinger]

LRE: Post #164

Well said.

[Al B.]

For example, here's a study showing that that the use of aspartame (NutraSweet) can significantly increase the severity of clinical depression in those already suffering from it. We don't know WHY it works that way, we simply know it DOES.

That's a pretty bold assertion to make from a study that had a total of thirteen people.  Obviously, you've gone beyond the abstract and studied this report carefully.  A couple of questions since I haven't read the report:

1)  Of the 13 study subjects, how many were depressed and how many were in the control group?

2)  Since this is a crossover study, what happened to the depressed patients when they crossed over to placebo?  Did their symptoms immediately remit?

Just curious.

[Al B.]

One other question about the report while I'm thinking about it:

Were the depressed patients taking antidepressants concurrently with the aspartame? If so, what did the researchers say about that? Thx.

[null and void]

For example, here's a study showing that that the use of aspartame (NutraSweet) can significantly increase the severity of clinical depression in those already suffering from it. We don't know WHY it works that way, we simply know it DOES

Thanks for the link. I discovered this for myself about a year after it hit the market. Never seen a study of it though. (It's VERY annoying. The entire world has been invited to a low cal sweets party, and I can't come!)

[null and void]

One of them demanded I provide my professional services to them for free, I sent them my billing rate, haven't heard back yet.

Your rates have got to be lower than the Churches...

[null and void]

Good to see that there are always things that reasonable people can agree (and disagree) about.

Aye, after our last go around, I didn't think I'd EVER be on the same side as you on any issue...