As the year 2022 draws to a close, it looks like the grand total of my posts for the year will reach only nine, a marked decline from my record number of posts (38) in 2021. I've written about the reasons for this decline in a post titled Heading Where? on October 24th. The future looks bleak and inevitably many people will turn to medication to assuage the reality of their bleak lives.
In this regard, I came across several articles that concern antidepressant medication. The headline for one article screams: Scientists Find No Evidence That Depression Is Caused by “Chemical Imbalance” or Low Serotonin Levels. The article goes on to say that:
After decades of research, there remains no clear evidence that serotonin levels or serotonin activity are responsible for depression, according to a comprehensive review of prior research led by University College London (UCL) scientists ...
“The popularity of the ‘chemical imbalance’ theory of depression has coincided with a huge increase in the use of antidepressants. Prescriptions for antidepressants have risen dramatically since the 1990s, with one in six adults in England and 2% of teenagers now being prescribed an antidepressant in a given year. “Many people take antidepressants because they have been led to believe their depression has a biochemical cause, but this new research suggests this belief is not grounded in evidence.”
... Professor Moncrieff said: “Our view is that patients should not be told that depression is caused by low serotonin or by a chemical imbalance, and they should not be led to believe that antidepressants work by targeting these unproven abnormalities. We do not understand what antidepressants are doing to the brain exactly, and giving people this sort of misinformation prevents them from making an informed decision about whether to take antidepressants or not.”
Such articles will be ignored by the majority of GPs who go on happily prescribing the same old medication. Even if, improbably, the general public lost faith in Serotonin-based antidepressants, BIG PHARMA will come up with new varieties of drugs to treat depression. For example, a recent article's headline touts "Scientists Have Developed a New, Better Antidepressant". It goes on to say that:
According to a recent study, a new small-molecule compound that regulates the firing of serotonergic neurons has a fast-acting antidepressant effect. The results pave the way for the development of a new class of treatments for major depressive disorder (MDD) and other difficult-to-treat mood disorders. MDD is one of the most common mental disorders, affecting hundreds of millions of individuals globally.
The majority of today’s antidepressants target the serotonin transporter (SERT). These drugs, however, are limited. SERT-targeted antidepressants not only take up to 4 weeks to take effect, but they may also have serious side effects, including suicide, and only a percentage of individuals who take them recover from depression following treatment. While ketamine has been considered as an alternative, its potentially addictive properties as well as the danger of schizophrenia have aroused concerns.
The compound is being tested on hapless mice at the moment but humans trials will surely follow. In the meantime, another article warns of the dangers of current medication: "Researchers Warn Antidepressant Use Creates Physical Dependence – “Notoriously Difficult to Quit” ". The article says:
Patients who have taken antidepressants for years should consider coming off the medication. However, researchers say they will likely face difficult and even dangerous withdrawal symptoms due to a physical dependence.
Patients who stop taking their medication often experience Antidepressant Discontinuation Syndrome (ADS), which includes flu-like symptoms, insomnia, nausea, imbalance, sensory disturbances often described as electric shocks or “brain zaps,” and hyperarousal.
Older, first-generation antidepressants often come with additional risks for more severe symptoms, including aggressiveness, catatonia, cognitive impairment, and psychosis. Discontinuing any antidepressant also carries a risk for gradual worsening or relapsing of depression and anxiety, as well as suicidal thoughts.
“I have told you that the spirits of darkness are going to inspire their human hosts, in whom they will be dwelling, to find a vaccine that will drive all inclination toward spirituality out of people’s souls when they are still very young, and this will happen in a roundabout way through the living body. Today, bodies are vaccinated against one thing and another; in future, children will be vaccinated with a substance which it will certainly be possible to produce, and this will make them immune, so that they do not develop foolish inclinations connected with spiritual life – ‘foolish’ here, or course, in the eyes of materialists. . . . “. . . a way will finally be found to vaccinate bodies so that these bodies will not allow the inclination toward spiritual ideas to develop and all their lives people will believe only in the physical world they perceive with the senses. Out of impulses which the medical profession gained from presumption – oh, I beg your pardon, from the consumption [tuberculosis] they themselves suffered – people are now vaccinated against consumption, and in the same way they will be vaccinated against any inclination toward spirituality. This is merely to give you a particularly striking example of many things which will come in the near and more distant future in this field – the aim being to bring confusion into the impulses which want to stream down to earth after the victory of the [Michaelic] spirits of light [in 1879].” ~Rudolf Steiner
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