Comments on: Treating Depression: Is there a placebo effect?
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- Dr Kirsch's analysis is skewed as well. He looks at data from trials that test one medication at a time.No one medication works for everybody. As group of medications, anti depressants do work. Most often the problem is finding the right one with the least amount of side effects.
Chronic depression is a serious illness. It is painful and debilitating. Medication is not the cure. It is only a part of the treatment. Much like what is advertised for weight loss, it involves a lifestyle change as well. The real purpose of medications is to make people well enough to pursue these changes.
People with mental illness' do get better. They go on to lead happy, productive and successful lives. - Reply to this comment
- I would like CBS to investigate a nutritional supplement for depression and Bipolar called True Hope Empower Plus. They are a NON PROFIT company in Canada trying to get FDA approved as a medical treatment. I have taken their supplement for 5 years and it helped me get off of antidepressants and overcome depression, anxiety, bi-polar, fibromyalgia and an eating disorder. I have never been so happy and productive in my life. It couldn't be the placebo effect because it has never quit working. I haven't had to up my dose or try a different one and it has no side effects. See their story at www.truehope.com
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- Depression is very much (but not solely) a Western World phenomenon. So is our diet, our lack of exercise and obsession with our emotions. I would love to see 60 Minutes do a program on ALL the NON-CHEMICAL methods to dealing with depression (again, with the understanding that this is NOT an endorsement to toss out the medication) covering cognitive therapy, counseling, exercise,volunteering etc. Yes, a large portion of people will still need to keep taking their medication. HOWEVER, I am convinced that mild depression can be treated with a change in lifestyle. It is also known that anti-depressants CAN CAUSE depression, and also that going off ant-depressants CAN CAUSE depression. Is this all logical? Not really, but looking at the big picture, these statements are true for varying individuals.
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- These studies come and they go, many are replaced at a later date with the exact oposite finding from the first study. This study was probably funded, as many are, by drug companies, or other financially involved companies.
Kirsch does not address why a first prescription of an anti-depressant does not work at all, or has a negative effect on a patiient, and a different medication is given until the right medication is found. This fact alone questions the accurracy of his study. In all cases a placebo effect does not in fact occur. This study will likely be replaced with a different theory, and rightly so. - Reply to this comment
- The idea that big pharma cares about anything but profit is ridiculous.
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- After being on anti-depressants and mood stabilizers for 16 years, I talked my doctor into getting me off one of my three prescriptions.
When I weened off of 60mg/day of Cymbalta, I felt better. Not only did the side effects (blunted emotions, anxiety, etc) disappear, but I felt happier than I had in a long time. This has lasted 7 months so far, albeit with some periods of sadness and other reasonable negative emotions. It has been unbelievable! Odd, though, that it was me, not my doctor to suggest this.
I look forward to discussing with my doctor, who I see as a very competent psychiatrist, the withdrawing from 600mg/day of Lithium and 400mg/day Lamictal. - Reply to this comment
- Very easy way to eliminate placebo effect & prove drugs cure depression:
many patients are given one or a combination of drugs that do NOT help; they are then switched to another one or combination; this continues until something clearly works..
So there was no placebo effect in the first case -- how could it show up later in the same patient, Dr. Irving Kirsh?? - Reply to this comment
- Dr. Kirsch is just wrong. I started an in my SSRI not expecting anything, but of course hoping something good would happen. I was in my mid 40's and had suffered depression since my teens. After one month I woke up and out of the blue my depression was gone. I had NEVER in my life experienced the feeling of joy and freedom that had come over me. I could not have "made this up" or imagined this or willed it to happen because of some placebo effect. How could I make up a feeling that I had no idea even existed! After another month I was even happier. Over 15 years have passed and I am still free of depression.
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- People would be well served to read Robert Whitaker's award-winning book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. There is much to corroborate Irving Kirsch's science and much to discredit a psychiatric industry suffering from acute psychosis--and a concerted denial of science by the industry that permeates our culture.
We live in a mad world, with mad mental-health care providers indoctrinated by the enormous propaganda machine--spearheaded by Big Pharma. - Reply to this comment
- You've all had a beer buzz before right? You've ingested a chemical substance that has temporarily altered the function of your brain and thus your cognitive perceptions.
Alcohol also slows the heart rate and effects coordination.
People with severe cardiovascular disease can have slow heart rates. People with Lou Gehrigs disease have muscle coordination problems.
The point is that people can be afflicted with diseases that cause symptoms because of a disfunction of a part of the body or system of the body. But people can also have these symptoms temporarily if an ingested substance has that effect on the body.
In the mentally ill the brain is not functioning properly. This can be due to a variety of causes. Physical trauma. Environmental trauma ie Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. And inherited diseases like schizophrenia.
In these people, the brain is malfunctioning for one reason or another. Cognition is altered and a variety of other symptoms are seen.
When you drink a beer you are effecting your brain also. Intoxication is a temporary state of brain malfunction. - Reply to this comment
