A new study shows that depression is not due to a lack of serotonin. So are antidepressants (SSRIs) superfluous? It is not that easy.
Bremen – One in five suffers from depression at least once in their life. In Germany currently 11.3 percent of women and 5.1 percent of men are affected. Up to six percent are currently suffering from one Summer depression – especially women between 20 and 40 years. But there is help. Psychotherapy and antidepressants have been shown to help with symptoms such as sadness, emptiness and worthlessness.
Therefore, the following news may surprise people who have successfully gotten their depression under control. The most commonly prescribed antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Because scientists from Great Britain want to have found out that depression is not due to a lack of the happiness transmitter substance serotonin in the brain. But this is exactly where the SSRI therapy comes in.
So do depressed people just imagine that the medication is relieving their symptoms? Don’t antidepressants help with depression?
Symptoms of depression: new studies confuse – do antidepressants help at all?
Psychiatrists have been prescribing SSRIs for depression since the 1990s, based on the belief that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Which means: The depressive has too little serotonin in the blood. Researchers at University College London now say: their comprehensive investigation found “no clear evidence” for what is known in specialist circles as the “serotonin hypothesis”. That’s what the scientists write in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Do depressed people take the antidepressants SSRIs, even if it sounds cynical, just for fun? Are you just imagining the effect, keyword placebo effect? Is the pharmaceutical lobby behind it?
Do antidepressants (SSRIs) help with symptoms of depression? Experts disagree
One thing is certain: experts and psychiatrists do not agree on whether depression is due to a lack of serotonin in the brain. And further, whether SSRIs really help those affected.
David Nutt heads the Center for Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. He and his team examined the release of serotonin in the brain. Nutt contradicts the statements of his colleagues. “We found a reduced capacity for secreting serotonin in people with depression.” Which means: SSRIs have to help. Because SSRIs ensure that less serotonin is broken down in the brain and is therefore increasingly available to the patient as a messenger of happiness.
Scientists from Hiroshima University in Japan, on the other hand, found out in 2018 that SSRIs do not work in people who have experienced childhood trauma. The reason for this is that different circuit patterns of the brain and different regions are active for different reasons for depression. SSRIs help one person with depression, but not another. This shows how complex the serotonin system in the brain is, writes time online.
Do you have symptoms of depression? Rely on a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressants
In a guest post in the current Psychology Today writes psychiatrist Gregory Scott Brown about prescribing pills designed to solve everything at once. And that can’t work. He talks about his own depression, which antidepressants would probably have helped him with. But only “to better deal with the symptoms” – and not to cure them.
That’s probably the problem with antidepressants. The problems, ruminations and self-doubt do not go away. While SSRIs help to alleviate the symptoms of depression:
Symptoms of Depression: These are the most common signs
- Main symptoms of depression
- depressed, depressed mood
- Loss of interest and happiness
- Lack of drive and fatigability
- secondary symptoms of depression
- decreased concentration and attention
- decreased self-esteem and self-confidence
- Feelings of guilt and worthlessness
- Exaggerated fears about the future or “doom and gloom”
- suicidal thoughts
- sleep disorders
- decreased appetite
Depression: More than just drugs for the healing process
But if you really want to heal your depression, you have to do more than rely on medication. He has to take care of himself, do sports, see friends, change harmful thought patterns in the long term. There are now even apps for one mental health that health insurance pays for.
In conclusion, it can be said that even experts do not agree on whether depression is due to a lack of serotonin in the brain – and whether it can be treated well with SSRIs. And even if SSRIs help people to get out of depression, the only way to keep those affected free of symptoms in the long term is to change harmful habits. And that means you have to work on yourself. And that’s harder than swallowing a pill.
Do you have bad thoughts, are depressed and could you be depressed? You are not alone in this! Please contact the info line German Depression Aid Foundation. Tel.: 0800 / 33 44 533. You can get help here.