Placebo Effect – not antidepressants – responsible for depression improvement
placebo effect
Placebo effects and the Royal College of Psychiatrists
This twitter thread from the Royal College of Psychiatrists concerns a presentation called “The placebo effect: insights for translational research and clinical practice”. The thread includes the following: “… 50 years of drug trials for anxiety disorders. Very few have been successful…
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Do not prescribe antidepressants for mild to moderate depression or at first visit
Lancet Psychiatry: We Are Undervaluing the Placebo Effect
“A recent study of brain stimulation for depression found that the placebo group (sham treatment) showed more improvement than the group that received actual brain stimulation.“ This report by Peter Simons has been published by Mad in America. It begins: “ In a new article in Lancet Psychiatry…
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Leading Psychiatrists Unwittingly Acknowledge Psychiatry Is a Religion, Not a Science
This article by Dr. Bruce Levine has been published by Mad in America. It begins: “Since the seventeenth century, Enlightenment thinkers have distinguished science from religion, and by at least one critical distinction, leading psychiatrists have unwittingly acknowledged that major constructs…
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Most people on antidepressants don’t need them: time to wean them off
This leader-article comes from The Economist. It begins: “Almost 35 years ago American drug regulators approved Prozac, the first in a series of blockbuster antidepressants known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Prozac and its cousins were lauded by patients and…
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Antidepressants Work Better Than Sugar Pills Only 15 Percent of the Time
What Is the Importance of Nassir Ghaemi’s Conclusion that Psychiatric Drugs Do Not Provide a Long-term Benefit?
Primum non nocere: an evolutionary analysis of whether antidepressants do more harm than good
This review has been published on the PubMed website. The abstract says: “Antidepressant medications are the first-line treatment for people meeting current diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder. Most antidepressants are designed to perturb the mechanisms that regulate the neurotransmitter serotonin…
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Association between patient beliefs regarding assigned treatment and clinical response: reanalysis of data from the Hypericum Depression Trial Study Group