[bhitov]

The problem wasn't that 'medications help to balance out those chemicals' is an oversimplification, it's that the theory doesn't have a lot of support. The evidence for the monoamine hypothesis is far from conclusive. I agree with the parent that 'chemical imbalance' is a PR line if stated as a medical truth. (I am only commenting on the class of medications mentioned in the article)

[hga]

It's a PR line because everyone wants mechanism explanations, and the truth, "If we poke at people's brains with sticks shaped in these ways, their mood improves" is unpalatable.

That "sticks shaped these ways" happen to affect neurotransmitter levels is a great guide to finding others, especially the great moves in safety from MAO inhibitors -> trycyclics and the like -> 3rd generation started with Prozac, is sort of besides the point. That they make a really significant difference for lots of people is.

[crusso]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_imbalance

Not that wikipedia is the last word, but, "[...] companies such as Pfizer continue to promote drugs like Zoloft with advertisements asserting that mental illness may be due to chemical imbalances in the brain, and that their drugs work to "correct" this imbalance. Most academics believe that the advertisements are oversimplified and don't fully explain what is happening."

Oversimplifications

[bhitov]

I didn't say it wasn't an oversimplification, I said oversimplification isn't the problem. You seemed to misunderstand the complaint of the first post you replied to.

[crusso]

You said, "it's that the theory doesn't have a lot of support"

I was simply pointing you to a reference that showed that "academics" use the exact same language regarding chemical balance of neurotransmitters as the original author.

Notice that it didn't say, "Academics disregard the chemical balance explanation because it lacks evidentiary support."

[bhitov]

They absolutely do not use the same language. Where did you see that?

>Notice that it didn't say, "Academics disregard the chemical balance explanation because it lacks evidentiary support."

A lack of explicit critique in a rephrasing on wikipedia should not be used as evidence.

The cited article for that sentence (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/516262) is from 2005 and includes the following:

> Numerous studies to identify reproducible changes in neurotransmitter levels in the cerebrospinal fluid of clinically depressed patients, or to induce or correct depression by manipulating brain serotonin levels, were inconclusive and fraught with methodological limitations.

> Gordon McCarter, PhD, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the College of Pharmacy of Touro University in Vallejo, California, agreed that the evidence for an "imbalance" in neurotransmitters causing depression is "circumstantial" and "more and more tenuous." He noted the dearth of studies showing any measurable difference in serotonin or norepinephrine between depressed patients and controls

> "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not list serotonin as a cause of any mental disorder; it is simply one neurotransmitter that continues to be investigated. And the prescribing information for the SSRIs does not claim that their mechanism of action is to correct a chemical imbalance, although this is exactly what the advertisements claim."

> "We suspect that many consumers believe the serotonin theory to be more scientifically based than it is, and that they might have chosen an alternative approach to their distress if they were fully informed.