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[..redacted..]

Specialist
Mar 12, 2024
393
The chemical imbalance theory of depression is at best an outdated and over simplistic model that has been widely discredited. At worst it's been used cynically and deliberately to market antidepressants (especially SSRIs and SNRIs) that are barely better than placebo and that come with a wide range of down sides and possible side effects. Plenty of people here can attest to having been harmed by these drugs, sometimes permanently.

Studies have found a reduction in symptoms of 40% for antidepressants and 30% for placebo. As few as 43% of studies found any benefit for antidepressants at all:

"Analyzing the data we had found, we were not surprised to find a substantial placebo effect on depression. What surprised us was how small the drug effect was. Seventy-five percent of the improvement in the drug group also occurred when people were give dummy pills with no active ingredient in them."

Studies that show a stronger effect for antidepressants often have questionable selection criteria, like excluding patients with "treatment resistant" depression. In other words when the drugs don't work those patients get removed from the research.

Wikipedia states the following for the serotonin theory of depression:

The serotonin "chemical imbalance" theory of depression, proposed in the 1960s, is not supported by the available scientific evidence.

And links to the following articles supporting this claim:



The causes of depression are complex and still not well understood. The causes of suicidal thoughts and actions even more so. Research struggles to account for the many factors that can drive a person to consider ending their own life and as others have said in this thread often ignores situational factors that offer a better explanation than pseudoscientific hand-waving about "chemical imbalance".
 
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