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==But my friend got better?== | ==But my friend got better?== | ||
The placebo effect is extremely powerful. Sham surgeries have in some cases beaten real surgeries in double-blind trials. Mental states are profoundly influenced by the placebo effect, especially those characterized by a lack of hope. You or your friend may have noticed though that the *actual* clinically meaningful effects of psychotropic drugs (what are usually labeled "side effects") are profound and often extremely damaging. Best to just take sugar pill, as those have been proven to work via placebo, *even if you know it's a placebo*. | The placebo effect is extremely powerful. Sham surgeries have in some cases beaten real surgeries in double-blind trials. Mental states are profoundly influenced by the placebo effect, especially those characterized by a lack of hope. You or your friend may have noticed though that the *actual* clinically meaningful effects of psychotropic drugs (what are usually labeled "side effects") are profound and often extremely damaging. Best to just take sugar pill, as those have been proven to work via placebo, *even if you know it's a placebo*. | ||
===Antidepressants fail to meet clinical significance in reducing depression=== | |||
In metastudies of antidepressant effectiveness, according to the NICE criteria of clinical significance (more than 4+ points on the HAM-D depression rating scale, or HRDS). | |||
The latest meta-analysis of anti-depressants, here [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5889788/], shows that when compiling the results of many different studies, antidepressants did not produce more than an equivalent of a 4 point improvement on the HRDS, meaning the antidepressants were not clinically meaningful in treating depression beyond placebo. | |||
A look at Irving Kirsches dataset reveals only clinical significance at the tail end of the '''very''' severely depressed (about 10% of patients). Which only yields a 4.28 HRDS decrease. Fournier et. al 2010 also only found about 10% of patients pass the NICE criteria for a clinically significant response to antidepressants [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20051569]. Just 30 half an hour of treadmill walking for 10 consecutive days is sufficient to produce a clinically relevant and statistically significant reduction in depression (reduction of 6.5 points from baseline on HRDS).[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11273973/]. The exercise part aside, my point is the meta-analyses do not show a clinically significant response to antidepressants with the exception of maybe the top 10% most severely depressed patients. [[User:Neiltyson1fan|Neiltyson1fan]] ([[User talk:Neiltyson1fan|talk]]) 22:07, 28 December 2018 (UTC) | |||