Hacker News Reader

> The truth about antidepressants is that the majority of people with depression that respond to an antidepressant would also have responded to a placebo.

^ citation needed

What does "would have responded" mean? Are you saying that >50% of people with depression that are "helped" by antidepressant, would have been helped _to a similar extend_ with a placebo?

View on HN

I believe that is indeed what they meant. The perception of being given a remedy is very powerful indeed, especially for issues ultimately linked to the mind.

That placebos can work should not be seen as undermining the severity or pain of the depression, but rather underline the power of tricking the mind into improvement.

Two papers that might be of interest to people regarding this topic would be Kirsch 2014 and Cipriani 2018.

And yes, agreed with argwhat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com