antidepressant

A great study for a number of reasons. First, it discussed openly that in animal research circles cortisol administration is considered an official and reliable method of causing major depression. As the article states, for some reason human medical circles have been unwilling to accept the...

As many of my readers know, FDA recently approved the party drug ketamine (known as Special-K on the street) as a rapidly-acting antidepressant. The rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine have been known since the 1960s but FDA denied that those effects are relevant in humans and refused to...

What is surprising about this study is not that antidepressant drugs are addictive. We have known this (despite the vehement denials from pharma executives) even way back before those drugs got approved for human use. What is surprising in this study is that for the first time there is an...

As many of forum users know, one of the real mechanisms of action of the SSRI drugs is not the increased serotonin but the increase in brain allopregnanolone these drugs cause. As such, there has been (secret) interest from Big Pharma for years in both allpregnanolone and its synthetic...

Some people on the forum like @Wagner83 myself and a few others have tried the infamous herb TT with the hope of raising androgens and improving body composition. Despite Wikipedia bashing TT and raising doubts about its effectiveness, there is plenty of evidence from human trials shows the herb...

The patents on most SSRI drugs have either expired or are close to expiration. Lately, there have also been a number of high profile cases obtaining favorable court outcomes by blaming SSRI drugs for a host of human criminal behaviors or adverse health events. As such, Big Pharma is desperate to...

While the study is nothing new for the forum users here, what makes it important is that it is the largest study ever and includes reviewing all the available literature on the topic to date. The conclusion - not only are SSRI drugs ineffective but their risks far outweigh even the (mostly)...

This study is really good because not only it states directly that depression can be directly caused by stress, but also because it shows that environmental enrichment (EE) for just 20 days can be at least as therapeutic as drugs. The beneficial effects of EE are well-known in psychiatry and...

Peat was asked a few times about his opinion on SSRI drugs and he said that 1) he does not recommend them because they are systemically serotonergic, and 2) their mechanism of action is really not what big pharma would have us believe. Since then, SSRI drugs that have been shown to actually work...

As I mentioned in a few threads before, I have always been interested in the so-called "reproductive aging", both in males and females. There is solid evidence that gonadal function declines with age and as such the synthesis and circulating levels of protective steroids like testosterone (T)...

There is solid evidence that androgens have potent antidepressant effects in both sexes. However, the mechanism of action of that antidepressant effect has not been fully elucidated yet. On the other hand, it is also well known that chemicals that increase the levels of the so-called...

As many of you know by now, I have acquired an interest lately to research the connection between the process of saturation of various nutrients and steroids and the effects of this saturation on the properties of these substances. After doing some work on androgens such as androsterone and...

It has been shown that progesterone rapidly metabolizes into more saturated metabolites such as 5α-Dihydroprogesterone (5α-DHP) and tetrahydroprogesterone (also known as allopregnanolone or Allo). The enzyme 5-AR is the one responsible for the saturation, just as it is responsible for the...

This was an animal study but it follows a long thread of other studies and some of them with humans. Unfortunately, so far all of the human studies used aspirin only as an adjuvant but hopefully as new studies like the one below continue to appear the opinion on aspirin will change. Ray has...

I have always been suspicious of the annual reports of happiest countries around the world. I have visited quite a few of them (traditionally in Europe) and my observations are anything but positive. Yes, the people in those countries did smile more than other ones that the annual UN report...

EDIT: Since I keep getting questions about androsterone, here is Ray's response when asked about it: Ray Peat Email Advice Depository Discussion/Comment Thread "...I think it would be safe enough to try in treating cancer or brain degenerative diseases." Here is one reference that gives backing...

The neurosteroid DHEA has a well-known and studied anti-depressant effect. Several studies have been done in humans using relative high doses of DHEA (50mg - 450mg daily) and they all found positive effects of DHEA on depression. Dehydroepiandrosterone monotherapy in midlife-onset major and...

Dopaminergic mechanism of antidepressant action in depressed patients. - PubMed - NCBI Abstract Clinical studies have not yet determined a common mechanism of action for antidepressant drugs, which have primary sites of action on a variety of different neurotransmitter systems. However, a...

This study shows a number of key points central to Peat's views. Cortisol secretion is under the control of serotonin, and as such cortisol and serotonin are high in depression. Most effective antidepressants are antagonists of serotonin and lower cortisol as well. This includes some the dreaded...

I think at this point there is enough evidence to warrant putting quotes around the term "anti-depressants" since in many cases not only they do not improve mental health but may make the situation dramatically worse. This latest study adds even more weight to the evidence against the commonly...