Dr Weeks’ Comment: Big Pharma tells doctors to tell patients that the typical antidepressant medication (SSRI, triclcylic, SNRI) takes 3-4 weeks to “kick in”. No doctor I know ever found that strange. A 304 week delay of benefit makes no sense pharmacologically. Think of other medications. How would you feel if your doctor told you: “Take this anti-biotic and this pain reduction drug but they will not have an effect for 3-4 weeks…” And now we know why this delay in onset of biological effect: because anti-depressants are mostly placebo! Read the article below from Harvard doctor: “But analyses of the published data and the unpublished data that were hidden by drug companies reveals that most (if not all) of the benefits are due to the placebo effect.”
And in addition, prescribing these drugs violates the first rule of medicine “Primum non Nocere” (First do no harm). Why I say this? Because “Instead of curing depression, popular antidepressants may induce a biological vulnerability making people more likely to become depressed in the future.“
Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect
SOURCE: https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1027/2151-2604/a000176
Author: Irving Kirsch
Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA
Published online: February 28, 2015 https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000176
“Antidepressants are supposed to work by fixing a chemical imbalance, specifically, a lack of serotonin in the brain. Indeed, their supposed effectiveness is the primary evidence for the chemical imbalance theory. But analyses of the published data and the unpublished data that were hidden by drug companies reveals that most (if not all) of the benefits are due to the placebo effect. Some antidepressants increase serotonin levels, some decrease it, and some have no effect at all on serotonin. Nevertheless, they all show the same therapeutic benefit. Even the small statistical difference between antidepressants and placebos may be an enhanced placebo effect, due to the fact that most patients and doctors in clinical trials successfully break blind. The serotonin theory is as close as any theory in the history of science to having been proved wrong. Instead of curing depression, popular antidepressants may induce a biological vulnerability making people more likely to become depressed in the future.