The Glade 4.0

http://www.newsweek.com/id/232781

I read this in Newsweek and found it online to post here. I find it mind-boggling that an entire industry can be founded on anti-depressants when they don't do anything, or have minimal effects.

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"The map is not the territory."

In order for a drug to be considered effective it just has to beat the placebo.

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/maga ... ntPage=all


If memory serves this includes statistically insignificant bestings.

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Interesting.

In many respects it doesn't surprise me. People want a silver bullet. They want the comfort of a magic answer. Rarely are they interested in the truth.

Na. P must be less than .05.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Anti-depressants work, at least for some people with some conditions. Absolutely, without question. I've seen this in action and it is night and day.

Indeed.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Sure, the article doesn't question that.

However, it also shows that Placebo's work just as well.

This doesn't really surprise me, and as I think about it, depression is an illness that more than anything is affected by what you think. Mental attitude is the core of both the illness and the cure. So if you think you'll get better, you will.

If you gave those people placebos, then the placebos would probably work as well. Especially if the placebos give nasty side-effects (because then you really think it's doing something).

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"The map is not the territory."

First of all, Newsweek fails to link source.

Here it is, at least in abstract.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/303/1/47

Second, the researcher's abstracted conclusion is not what Newsweek says it is.

Third, this is a meta-analysis.

Fourth, known issues with meta-analyses are widespread and varied.

Two abstracts about the topic:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/309/6957/789

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/337/8/559


In other words, not only is the Newsweek reporter not citing sources and misinterpreting the results, the study itself is a meta-analysis, which have many, many problems.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

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Holy shitsnacks!

Anti-depressants are all placebos or all anti-depressants are placebos?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

A quick read of the original source actually supports Arathain quite well:

The more severe the depression, the more effect the anti-depressants help as opposed to the placebo.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Anti-depressants are used for a variety of ailments.

In particular, my experience is with obsessive compulsive disorder. With the medication, you are not trying to get the individual to feel better, you're trying to get them to be able to control their actions and thoughts. Giving someone a placebo for this would not help in the least. Anti depressants reduce the anxiety in the individual and provide enough calm for them to function as they know they logically should.

In my experience, I can tell when this person has forgotten to take their pill with 100% accuracy. The **** works.

Not to pick on your post Raf, but I wonder how prayer fits into this. There was a study a few years back that people who are prayed for when ill or depressed get better too. Or even that HR Study by... Drucker(?) where observed workers work faster and produce better goods because someone is paying attention to them.

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It doesn't. The interaction of prayer with God is not observable in any scientific fashion unless God were to actually make it so (show up and say He is answering it, or whatever).

From a strictly scientific standpoint therefore, prayer has a placebo effect because the causal connection between the prayer and the positive effect can't be observed. The aspect of prayer and how it works with God isn't in the purview of science. From a scientifc standpoint, prayer's usefulness could be evidence of God's work, and could be just a placebo effect. There is no observational way to tell, so science really shouldn't concern itself with that aspect. That's up to individual belief.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Isn't that the same thing? The placebo works based on an individual's belief that they are being treated (at least in theory) and prayer works because people believe that God is interceding on their behalf.

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No. Prayer doesn't necessarily work because people believe God is doing something; it may be that He actually IS doing something.

Whether or not He actually is, however, is not scientifically determinable, so for strictly scientific purposes (i.e. leaving out the unobservable question of God's existance), it's a placebo effect. Whether the person's faith in God is causing God to respond with help, or whether the person's belief that is the case is causing the body to respond by repairing itself is not something we can determine.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Lol I love your technicalities and precision DE (seriously, not tongue in cheek). Here we are trying to say the same thing but with one key distinction between the two. I don't believe God intervenes directly in the world (like some hit-or-miss moderation {that is tongue in cheek}) but you leave the door open to the possibility.

Either way I think we are both saying that yes scientifically the effect of prayer is uncannily similar to the placebo effect which is itself on par with actual treatment.

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Well, to hit on another "technicality" (and really, the willingness to gloss over technicalities is usually how these issues get distorted into shitfests because minor details can make major differences) that's exactly the point. You don't believe God intervenes directly in the world. Whether I do or not, there is no distinction, you just think it's less likely God is intervening than I do. Neither of us can know.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And yet another view on it, is that to me it's a very obvious pacebo affect and another bit of evidence that there isn't a God.

It doesn't prove or disprove God. Just because I don't believe God intervenes in the world doesn't mean I don't whole-heartedly believe in Him. I just feel He is not a waiter floating above in Heaven taking orders in the forms of prayers.

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Of course He is not. But as a Father that loves you, He listens, and sometimes, because He knows all and knows best, He tells us "No" when we ask for something. When we ask our parents for things that they know is bad for us, they say "No", too. Sometimes.

I agree it doesn't by itself prove or disprove God. For me it's just another thing in a long list that in my eyes discredits the concept.

LOL! This is one of the things I love about the Glade. I read the OP, which was about the efficacy of anti-depressants, then skipped down to the last post, and found it was about the likelihood of there being a God. *chuckle* Meandering conversations ftw!

Pfft, staying on topic is for sissies...