Fascinating, but not incredibly surprising considering that many commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs fail to beat a placebo.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4592645/pdf/wps...

(Compare the black bar under ‘antidepressants’ to the placebo bar.)

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t take antidepressants if you have MDD; it’s worth a shot. However, it should make us curious as intelligent consumers of research of what the actual remediation of depressive symptoms is caused by(in both placebo and AD groups).

Personally, I’d say it’s likely that the individual is the one making a difference in recovery from MDD, not the chemical.

All that said, this post is absolutely not meant to shame antidepressant use: Depression is a potentially life threatening illness. I’m very happy for those who have over come it and I am not against antidepressant use in any way. It’s the best we’ve got (and they works quite well in conjunction with therapy btw! Far above placebo).

But from a scientific perspective, it’s experimentally unclear if antidepressant drugs are anywhere near as efficacious as major pharmaceutical companies (with major financial incentives) say they are.

It’s worth noting this is being currently debated in the field. There does seem to be a somewhat consistent effect of AD drugs performing slightly above placebo (see study linked above). However, it’s not clear if that effect is due to recognizable side effects that antidepressants have (allowing participants to ‘unblind’ themselves), or if antidepressants are indeed slightly more effective than a place I. Due to the nature of the illness, it’s been assumed that it’s worth it to keep prescribing these drugs to those who suffer from depression.

Edit: If you are dealing with depression, please seek help. Doing so will improve your life, and the lives of those around you. Life is too short to suffer without help.