Is there more to depression than meets the eye and the picture that has been painted by mainstream medicine and the pharmaceutical industry? Imagine for a moment that depression could instead be a symptom of systemic inflammation in the body, relating to gut imbalances, stress, diet and more. To illustrate this further, you’ll want to read this article from Cris Kresser:
“The idea that depression and other mental health conditions are caused by an imbalance of chemicals (particularly serotonin and norepinephrine) in the brain is so deeply ingrained in our collective psyche that it seems almost sacrilegious to question it.
Of course Big Pharma has played a role in perpetuating this idea. Antidepressant drugs, which are based on the chemical imbalance theory, represent a $10 billion dollar market in the U.S. alone. According to the CDC, 11 percent of Americans over 12 years old take antidepressants, and they are the second-most prescribed medications (after cholesterol-lowering drugs). Doctors wrote a staggering 254 million prescriptions for antidepressants in 2010.
Yet as popular as this theory has become, it is riddled with problems. For example:
- Reducing levels of norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine does not produce depression in humans, even though it appears to do so in animals.
- Although some depressed patients have low levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, the majority do not. Several studies indicate that only 25 percent of depressed patients have low levels of these neurotransmitters.
- Some depressed patients have abnormally high levels of serotonin and norepinephrine, and some patients with no history of depression have low levels of them. (2)” Keep reading…
Is Depression a Disease—or a Symptom of Inflammation?
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