Thanks for sharing your mom's experience with big pharma's then-new wonder-drug.
> Somehow, I doubt there is much motivation to look for economically inconvenient and unnerving side-effects in some demographics,
Robert Whitaker examined the pharmaceutical industry's ideological capture of conventional psychiatry in his third book, Psychiatry Under the Influence.
This was inspired by the old SNL skit, Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber. The article is structured around my proposal of a Theodoric’s Principle of Medical Advancement, to explain why medical progress is so glacial.
Yup. There's too much institutional inertia to adopt evidence-based approaches.
I've tried 19 antidepressants over about 15 years. Stuck with mirtazapene-induced obesity that doesn't qualify for GLP-1 coverage, so I can either be fat, broke, or crushingly catatonic.
> I've tried 19 antidepressants over about 15 years. Stuck with mirtazapene [...]
Have you tried any anti-serotonin interventions? (chatbot in comment link below)
Mirtazapene is a "tetracyclic antidepressant". I think the development of antidepressants went MAOI -> Tricyclic -> tetracyclic -> SSRI. My chatbot transcript said the SSRI's are marginal drugs, but "SSRIs are much safer in overdose" than the earlier drugs.
My understanding is that the MAOIs were reasonably-effective at bringing people out of an acute depression, but they interacted with high-tyramine foods (fine cheese, etc) to cause high blood pressure. Reversible MAOIs are less problematic than the non-reversible ones. Methylene Blue [MB] is the most ubiquitous of the reversible MAOIs. I felt a definite warming effect with my first MB microdose (a fraction of a milligram), but I've never noticed anything from larger doses.
In 2022 psychiatrist Chris Palmer MD [0] published Brain Energy [1], which shares his discovery of the 70+ years of science establishing that the behavioral/mental symptoms traditionally given 'psychiatric' labels are caused by metabolic problems. When you fix the body's metabolism the symptoms go away.
Dr. Palmer recommends the ketogenic diet, but not all people need this specific intervention to improve their metabolism. I think the best place to start for most people is simply eliminating their consumption of white flour, or at the least, fortified white flour [2].
Dr. Palmer tweeted about anemia and Vitamin B-12 deficiency [3]. Many patients are prescribed synthroid (T4) for their thyroid, but they often still have all the symptoms of hypothyrodism because their body doesn't activate T4 -> T3. Adding a source of T3 to patients' Synthroid treatment can make a big difference in their behavioral symptoms.
I have a book by some psychiatrists who were active in the 1940's -> 1950's, which is before the first 'psychiatric' medications were released. I didn't know this book was compiled by psychiatrists when I ordered it - I thought it was going to be a general book about the pro-metabolic intervention.
It's unfortunate that the prescription drug industry never figured out why some of their chemicals help with the symptoms labeled 'depression'. The MAOIs were reasonably-effective at helping acutely-depressed people out of bed. Each generation of antidepressants was less effective than the previous, until the SSRI's arrived. Now we're stuck with antidepressants that have always been known to cause people to commit suicide. At least the psychiatrists are now revisiting MAOIs as an option for people who don't respond well to the suicide pills (SSRIs).
Antipsychotics are a tragedy: anti-dopamine drugs make patients feel terrible. The one exception to the anti-treatment received by psychotics is an anti-serotonin drug approved for parkinsons psychosis [4].
[2] Flour manufacturers tend to use the cheapest fortifications possible. For example, the type of iron used for fortification is usually simply 'iron shavings', which usually becomes rust by the time it's absorbed.
There are countless examples of past doctors claiming that psychiatric disorders are caused by some simple dietary issue. You can find people claiming that everything can be fixed by ketogenic diets, vegan diets, carnivore diets, Vitamin B12, niacin, magnesium, fish oil, you name it. For any vitamin or diet there is someone out there making passionate claims that it solves everything.
None of these hold up under actual studies. It’s the domain of wishful thinking that sadly preys upon people desperate for answers. Some times the placebo effect works for a while, but usually people just end up with a cabinet full of supplement bottles and a history of fad diets with no progress on their condition.
The dietary issue is infection (usually two or more, basic shit like candida in the gut, mold exposure, EBV recurrence, Lyme, parasites, more) causing systemic malnourishment, and lack of homeostasis, causing nervous and endocrine issues/misfires,
(at which point you'll often notice immunodeficiencies, minor "unexplainable" abnormalities in bloodwork),
and indeed cognitive issues, depression, anxiety, and other more severe brain malfunctions.
I agree with you overall, but interestingly, research really has found a link between lower Vitamin B12/B6/B2 levels and ADHD. Also lower Vitamin D, and delayed circadian rhythm. You certainly can't use supplements as a replacement for stimulants but they may help.
A sizable (3-10%) part of the population can either not digest lactose or has a significantly reduced ability to absorb fructose in the gut. The resulting fermentation and low dosing of low quality alcohol can cause cognitive symptoms which can be totally alleviated by appropriate diet.
It is easy to test (drink a sugar challenge drink and measure H2 in breath) but as it is time consuming and not profitable rarely done.
I find the "autobrewery" term hilarious and great.
Imagine being able to be constantly buzzed just by eating some random fruits. it almost seems too good to be true.
In all seriousness I'm sure that people suffering from it don't appreciate it that much, but at first glance it seems like a positive problem to have!
The American Medical Association (AMA) was founded in 1847 to lobby for making competition to the Medical Doctors (M.D.) illegal. At the time, upstart approaches to medicine [0] did not believe bloodletting and calomel were effective medicine, and the doctors didn't like that their communities did not have faith in their omniscience.
Most states had AMA-approved licensing laws by the early 1900's. After outlawing competition, the Carnegie foundation (a proxy for the early pharmaceutical industry) financed the Flexner Report (1910) to help the M.D.s improve their standards for medical education. The report said, essentially, that all medical schools should be like John Hopkins.
The Doctors of Osteopathy (D.O.) was the only medical philosophy that was organized enough to secure equivalent licensing laws. Osteopathy founder A.T. Still required his students to at least be aware of pharmaceutical options as a 'last resort' for their patients. The modern D.O. license is legally equivalent to the M.D. license.
The AMA standardized on "allopathic medicine". While a lot of progess has been made at understanding and improvinghuman health, modern medicine still has sacred cows, which are quite profitable for the medical-industrial complex (Statin drugs, anti-dopamine drugs, overuse of steroids, etc).
At least modern doctors only bleed people when it's a useful treatment - for hemochromatosis (excess iron stores) and the use of leeches for limb reattachment, etc.
[0] "Herbal medicine, eclectic medicine, and homeopathic medicine were some of the pre-1850 approaches to health that, whatever faults they might have had, did not encourage practitioners to bleed their patients to death or poison them with mercury." - https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/07/theodoric-arizona/ 1444
[minor edits]
[edit 2] having finished the article, I think it’s a good take on the problems of American healthcare. Liked this quote towards the end: “There are two kinds of populist approaches to health care. [Bernie Sanders…] And the second is that of RFK Jr, who, to oversimplify, seems to think that expensive medicine itself is often a ruse by large corporations to keep Americans on an unhealthy sugar-and-seed-oil diet. Whether RFK Jr. is right or wrong is a less interesting question than why most of the powerful lobbyists in D.C. didn’t oppose him.”
Prison is mostly just warehousing people for a prescribed amount of time. I've read that people start to develop PTSD after about 7 days of confinement. Sometimes incarceration is all you can do with violent people and fraudsters. I'm sure most inmates are deteriorated by their 'correction'.
My friend would rather be in jail than in a psych ward, so that's one positive take on incarceration. [I have videos proving she was misdiagnosed. Arizona's psych wards implement an obsolete approach to 'mental health', using palliative drugs. In 2022 Chris Palmer published his book about the 80 years of science establishing that mental disorders are caused by metabolic problems, but the standard of care is still palliative treatment.]
I have a friend whose son was prescribed Adderall when he was 12-13 years old. She noticed the adverse effects right away, so she discontinued the drug, and took her son out of school for a year. He did much better getting homeschooled, and was able to return to the public school system after a year.
Most of the "mental health" diagnoses have to do with metabolic problems. Emotional stress is one of the drains on the body's energy reserves.
I follow the trail of links, but they lead to nowhere. Also the dosage of cocaine is typically orders of magnitude higher than therapeutic amphetamines/mph. Not saying that there is or is not some truth to this, but the jury is still out on this one.
This submission is about using a sharpie to 'fix' the government's final booklets for its filing in the Supreme Court of the United States [SCOTUS]. The career lawyers thought the government's right was 'plenary' ("2. unqualified; absolute"). The political head of the department didn't agree, but he couldn't get the career lawyers to remove 'plenary', so he finally fixed the final booklets himself.
When people's brains run low on energy (ATP) they start to exhibit 'mental health' symptoms - depression, psychosis, etc. Sometimes a person just needs a better diet and they'll snap out of their spiral.
Chris Palmer MD wrote a book [0] about how he discovered 70+ years of research establishing that mental health conditions are caused by metabolic deficiencies. Dr. Palmer's book documents his patients responding well to a ketogenic diet, but there are plenty of other interventions that can improve metabolism.
Emotional stress is a significant drain on the brain's metabolic outputs (more stress -> more need for ATP).
My friend has the genetic condition where she can't turn the provitamin folic acid into L-methylfolate (vitamin B9). Folate deficiency is associated with alcoholism, but not all mental health conditions are connected to substance use/abuse.
See my comment history. [1] is my somewhat recent comment about the mental health industry, but it's currently flagged/dead so you have to be logged in to see it.
When my friend overdosed on heroin she was revived with two doses of naloxone. Her drinking was under control for about 2 weeks. Naltrexone is very similar to Naloxone, and is FDA-approved to help people with opioids and alcohol use.
The Sinclair Method uses naltrexone to help people get their alcohol use under control:
Naltrexone is at the heart of the Sinclair Method (TSM)
for Alcoholism. When you take Naltrexone prior to
drinking, it blocks endorphins, the naturally occurring
opiates in the brain, from being released when alcohol
is consumed.
When the endorphins are blocked, there is no “buzz” or
rewarding experience, and the alcohol doesn’t make you
feel the pleasure that drives you to drink excessively.
Over time, your brain learns not to associate alcohol
with pleasure, resulting in reduced cravings and
improved control over alcohol use. Naltrexone must be
taken at least one hour before your first drink.
Very cool, thanks for sharing. Describing it another way:
The goal is to deassociate alcohol with pleasure. One way to do this is to abstain for a long period of time so that the association gradually weakens, but 1) this requires constant willpower and 2) takes a long time for the association to decay.
If you instead take a pill that blocks the pleasure from alcohol consumption, you can undo the association very quickly and with basically 0 willpower (it’s not like your brain currently has an association between taking the pill and experiencing pain).
I have no experience with alcohol dependence, but this is a great confirmation of the reinforcement patterns of the brain.
I don't understand at all what is this "buzz" that people talk about that causes alcoholism. When I drink too much, I feel dizzy and I hate that feeling of not being fully in control. When I do drink moderately, it's because the drink tastes good, period. Some mocktails taste just as good as the real alcoholic version so I'll opt for that. Wines have a much more complex profile so grape juice isn't a substitute, but still I enjoy the taste and aroma of wines, not that it gives me any pleasurable "buzz" (whatever it is).
Your brain has to learn how to be "buzzed", thus the experience is a function of your very complicated physiology and neurochemistry.
If you are susceptible and drink often enough, your brain will begin to associate drinking and its effects with certain activities. The addiction arises when your brain tells you it's a good idea, and you comply.
I tell younger people this, but when you're an alcoholic, you don't realize it until you're not addicted to alcohol. I went through this when I was maybe 20, and when I quit, I was often surprised when and where I suddenly felt the urge to look for a drink. After, I saw it all around me in others. As soon as a remotely stressful situation, and they began pouring themselves drinks, often maintaining a certain level until their day ended. Most of them never got drunk, and many could drink several drinks before they reached a point where they "felt" it.
It doesn't have to be overtly pleasurable to be felt. Sometimes, it's merely the removal of difficult feelings that drives someone.
> As soon as a remotely stressful situation, and they began pouring themselves drinks, often maintaining a certain level until their day ended.
Emotional and physical stress increases the brain's use of glucose.
Alcohol has 7 calories per gram. I think the main use of alcohol in the brain is as acetate (vinegar) - that is, Ethanol is transformed by the liver into acetate, which is one of the brain's alternative fuel sources.
For people with broken metabolisms, ethanol also provides calories to allow their brain to function.
It’s the same feeling you’re reporting, many of us just find it fun to be a bit dizzy. I’m not trying to argue anyone into enjoying drunkenness, but I like spinning around in my chair really fast too.
This essay is inspired by the 1978 Saturday Night Live skit, Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber.
Something I’d appreciate your comments on: allopathic psychiatry is a cargo cult [0] today, but the doctors in the trenches don’t realize it. Dissidents have spent the last 50+ years calling out allopathic psychiatry as a harm-inducing medical specialty, but progress at implementing known effective approaches to improving mental health has been glacial. What can be done to speed the retirement of obsolete medical interventions from active use?
My friend figured out (in 2018) that she's a poor methylator that can’t turn folic acid into folate. She said adding L-Methylfolate to her routine was like flipping a switch from ‘depressed’ to ‘not-depressed’. The psychiatrists only added this vitamin to the antipsychotic they forcibly injected every month. Folate deficiency is associated with chronic alcoholism…
My new girlfriend doesn’t care for my ‘crazy’ ex-girlfriend. But she ran my Supreme Court filings past some people she knows, and said I did everything right trying to prevent the State of Arizona from subjecting my friend to medical assault. I didn’t get anywhere because I didn’t have a group behind me.
There would be broad interest in revisiting one of my petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court, because of its implications for people who find themselves temporarily disabled in America’s theocratic states. (The justices denied the motion to file that petition under seal, but there’s no strict time limit for filing petitions for writ of mandamus to the US Court of Appeals.)
Nothing I’ve done online has gotten much traction. How do I get more attention for my observations of Arizona’s system of involuntary pseudo-medicine?
> Somehow, I doubt there is much motivation to look for economically inconvenient and unnerving side-effects in some demographics,
Robert Whitaker examined the pharmaceutical industry's ideological capture of conventional psychiatry in his third book, Psychiatry Under the Influence.
https://robertwhitakerbooks.com/psychiatry-under-the-influen...
I've written for the Mad in America Foundation's webzine. My latest piece was titled Theodoric of Arizona: State-Sanctioned Pharma-Based Pseudo-Doctor: https://www.madinamerica.com/2024/07/theodoric-arizona/
This was inspired by the old SNL skit, Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber. The article is structured around my proposal of a Theodoric’s Principle of Medical Advancement, to explain why medical progress is so glacial.