Posted by Francesco on January 19, 2004, at 8:07:02
In reply to Re: Meds and Your Body: TRUST YOURSELF » Francesco, posted by nobodyz on January 19, 2004, at 7:16:17
I have read some month ago a meta-analysis about SAM-E. These were the conclusions of the article:
1. Anafranil is more effective than SAM-E for major depressions.
2. SAM-E is as affective as SSRIs and Anafranil (the golden standard) in mild and moderate depressions.
before saying "wow" let's read also the following statement:
3. Placebo is as affective as SSRIs and Anafranil in mild and moderate depression.
!!!
Even if depression, or mental illness in general, are dued to some imbalance in our biochemistry, we should reflect over the fact that there are many ways to change biochemistry. One of them is taking something believing it will be helpful for us. Hopes and beliefs actually change our brain.
When they say that, let's say 40 percent of people respond to placebo, while 60 percent of people respond to prozac they conclude that prozac is a *real* antidepressant and they put it on the market. But there are other conclusions that can be drawn:
1. placebo works fairly good as an antidepressant. let's put it on the market !
2. two thirds of the effects of prozac (40/60 in my example) are dued to the placebo effect !
Confutations are welcome.I can't say I'm against the use of meds (I've tried at least a dozen of them) but I'm wondering insistently how much of my progresses and regresses can be attributed to meds and how much I could have experienced also taking a sugar pill.
poster:Francesco
thread:296708
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040118/msgs/302643.html