Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tcj_phx 1036 days ago
Strictly speaking, psychosis is more strongly related to excess serotonin, 'the molecule of stress and inflammation'. Doctors sometimes recognize 'Serotonin Syndrome' in their ER patients: "too much serotonin causes signs and symptoms that can range from mild (shivering and diarrhea) to severe (muscle rigidity, fever and seizures)." Usually the Serotonin Syndrome is caused by a combination of prescriptions, or street drugs.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/serotonin-syn...

All the effective anti-psychotics seem to have anti-serotonin properties, in addition to their anti-dopamine effects. For example: "there are also recent studies that 'stumbled upon' the 'shocking' evidence that anti-dopamine drugs commonly used for treating schizophrenia such as haloperidol are actually potent serotonin antagonists as well." - http://haidut.me/?p=1297

One of you quoted my essay Cargo Cult Psychiatry in a comment on Sunday, on a submission of Feynman's Cargo Cult Science. I responded, then thought to submit my link to the original at Mad In America again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37110874

This paragraph from that comment is essential for helping anyone diagnosed with the label of "schizophrenia":

"The good news from the mental health world is that Chris Palmer, M.D. published Brain Energy [0] last year. I haven't read more than excerpts from google books [1]. My understanding is Dr. Palmer was a conventional palliative psychiatrist, then he had a patient whose schizophrenia improved on a ketogenic diet. The patient was able to discontinue antipsychotics: Dr. Palmer's mind was blown. Then he discovered the 70+ years of research establishing that mental health conditions are metabolic problems that can be successfully treated with pro-metabolic therapies.

  Perhaps the most bold and disruptive 
  aspect of Brain Energy is understanding 
  precisely how and why medications that 
  harm metabolism might reduce mental 
  health symptoms.

  The long-term consequences are of great 
  concern and require the urgent attention 
  of the psychiatric community.
-Chris Palmer, MD - https://twitter.com/ChrisPalmerMD/status/1687850270602981376 [...]

[0] https://brainenergy.com/ / [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=FoxlEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT233&dq=B "

1 comments

pimavanserin case in point
Thanks for the tip:

  Pimavanserin has a unique mechanism 
  of action relative to other 
  antipsychotics, behaving as a 
  selective inverse agonist of the 
  serotonin 5-HT2A receptor, with 
  40-fold selectivity for this site 
  over the 5-HT2C receptor and no 
  significant affinity or activity 
  at the 5-HT2B receptor or dopamine 
  receptors.[2] 
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimavanserin