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Comment by narrator | Hacker News Reader

What a poorly researched article. More Americans than ever are taking anti-depressants. The trend markedly increases with age.

https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi...

"Among both males and females, the study found that people aged 40 and older are more likely to take antidepressants than younger people."

"The study also found that women are two and a half times more likely to take antidepressant medication as males, while 23 percent of women ages 40 to 59 take antidepressants, more than in any other age or sex group."

https://psychcentral.com/news/2011/10/25/antidepressant-use-...

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The Economist article includes wide-ranging information on the relationship between age and happiness in various parts of the world. The information you've provided addresses a small portion of that (the percentage of the population on anti-depressants as they age).

A population can be both more happy with age and (as a percentage) on more anti-depressants. Some potential explanations:

1. As we age, we have greater access to healthcare (money/quality employment/government), so those needing anti-depressants are able to get them more regularly

2. Even with access to healthcare, there may be greater willingness to make changes in life and confront unhappiness as we age

3. Perhaps those who age are happier overall because they're on anti-depressants. The Economist article doesn't address this possibility.

I feel like the flaw in your argument may be that increased anti-depressant usage among older adults indicates increased depression as a person ages. That doesn't take into account other factors that might cause anti-depressant usage to rise with age.

That brings up an interesting philosophical question. If drugs are what causes "happiness", are you really happy?

If you are sad and depressed and have to take medication to be "happy", can we really say you are happy?

If my car can go 200 mph, I wouldn't say I can move 200 mph. But then again drugs change you in a way that cars don't.

Of course there is the question of what is happiness and how can we objectively and empirically qualify it. So the entire question could be moot.

I'm going to liken your question to a similar but slightly different example: If I have diabetes, and I need insulin to be "healthy", can I ever truly be healthy?

You can swap that for any condition and any requirement of a substance, or even a requirement not to consume a substance. I personally feel like all your question does is invalidate the use of often needed medications, treatments, or other potentially stigmatized practices by people who need those things.

If I had depression, or anxiety, and someone was basically asking if I can ever be the same as others because I need medication, I think that would hit me incredibly hard. It doesn't feel like accepting or supportive language to me.

I'm not trying to be or not to be accepting or supporting. I was just trying to have a philosophical debate on what I felt was an interesting topic. So people's feelings weren't really a consideration of mine.

Your diabetes/insulin example is even more interesting than mine. As a person of color with higher risk of diabetes, I have family members who are diabetic and need insulin. Would I consider my diabetic family members healthy? Do they consider themselves to be healthy? If they were healthy, they wouldn't be diabetic or need insulin. But taking insulin makes them healthy. But then if they were healthy, they wouldn't need insulin, which they do. You really gave me something to think about and maybe even talk to my family members about. Thanks.

Even more, if there is a pill to cure diabetes, is a person who takes the pill more healthy than the person taking insulin?

Antidepressant medications do not "cause happiness". They make it somewhat more possible (when they work at all, which is not a guarantee for a given drug in any individual) for a person to find ways of becoming less depressed. These are not performance-enhancing drugs; it is wildly inaccurate to compare antidepressant meds to steroids or stimulants (both of which _also_ have legitimate medical uses, but that's another topic). Taking an antidepressant when you are clinically depressed is much more comparable to taking anti-seizure medication if you are epileptic.

I would argue yes. Happiness is just a chemical reaction in your brain, whether it's through natural environmental factors or drugs, it's the same reaction. The issue is that we've yet to find a drug that can provide unlimited happiness without side effects that make taking the drug not worth it. If there is no tangible difference in the result what is the point in the distinction between how you got there?

That doesn't necessarily mean they're less happy.

It could be that the antidepressants are working. Or it could be that people over 40 have had enough time to accept that they have an issue that needs treatment. Or it could be that this subset of unhappy people is real but other trends outweigh it.

That the prevalence of a chronic illness increases with age is completely unsurprising. The fact that depression is (incorrectly) thought to be the opposite of happiness is a coincidence. I'm not sure that people get happier with age, but I am sure that depression statistics cannot disprove it (within reasonable bounds. Obviously it would if it turned out everyone over 40 were clinically depressed.)

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