People randomly assigned to either a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet for one year had lower scores for anxiety and depression than people who were randomly assigned to a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet according to a 2009 study from Australia.

Both groups lost an average of 30 lbs after one year.

“In conclusion, we found that despite similar weight loss after energy-restricted [high-fat, low-carb] and [low-fat, high-carb] diets for 12 months and rapid improvements in mood during the first 8 weeks with both diets, over the long term many of the benefits regressed in the [high-fat, low-carb] diet group such that participants on the [low-fat, high-carb] diet achieved better outcomes,” the authors of the study concluded.

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The most common cause of depression and most mood disorders, including many schizophrenics, are brain allergies caused by foods that we are allergic to according to Joan Mathews-Larson, PhD, author of Depression-Free, Naturally: 7 Weeks to Eliminating Anxiety, Despair, Fatigue, and Anger from Your Life.

She notes that getting people to avoid foods that they are allergic to has provided the most amazing depression recoveries that Dr. Larson has seen in more than 30 years.

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Two hundred (200) prescription drugs used in the U.S. list depression or suicidal symptoms as possible adverse effects according to a new paper from researchers at Columbia University in New York, NY, USA.

The percentage of people reporting depression using drugs with depression as a possible side effect were:

• 4.7% of people taking no (0) risky drugs
• 6.9% of people taking one (1) risky drug
• 9.5% of people taking two (2) risky drugs
• 15.3% of people taking three (3) risky drugs

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Antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs have not caused disability rates to fall as one might expect, but instead, these drugs have caused disability rates to skyrocket according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO, and in his book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.

Number of people on government disability went from 1.25 million in 1987 to 4 million 20 years later

Whitaker notes that in 1987 when Prozac was introduced, there were 1.25 million people [ in the US ] on government disability due to mental illness.

As of 2010, twenty years later, there are 4 million people on government disability due to mental illness.

“So here we have this new embrace of a medication that is said to be a wonder drug and what do we see, we see disability rates do to depression and disability rates do to bipolar illness are skyrocketing [ because of these drugs ],” Whitaker says.

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Proton pump inhibitors (PPI’s) increase the risk of major depression according to a study from Taiwan.

People taking 31-120 doses per year were 10% more likely (1.1 times more likely) to have major depression than non-users.

(This difference did not quite reach statistical significance, but was very close—close enough for me.)

People taking 121-365 doses per year were 61% more likely (1.6 times more likely) to have major depression than non-users.

People taking more than 365 doses per year were 108% more likely (2.1 times more likely) to have major depression than non-users.

The risk of subsequent major depression after starting various PPI’s is shown below.

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Among people who had never smoked, people who drank 3.1 to 5 cups of coffee per day had a 42% lower risk of suicide over some number of years compared to people who were not coffee drinkers according to an analysis of data from 74,890 women in the Nurses’ Health Study, 93,054 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II, and 40,557 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

People who consumed more than 5 cups of coffee per day had a 46% lower risk of suicide compared to non-drinkers.

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"You can get the same benefit without drugs [if you are mildly or moderately depressed]," said Dr. Irving Kirsch on the television show "60 MInutes" on Sunday, February 19, 2012 (13-minutes into the video).

Dr. Kirsch is a psychologist from Harvard University who has been studying placebos for 36 years, who says that for mild to moderate depression, antidepressants are no better than placebo. Read the entire article | Email this article

Physical exercise is a treatment prescribed for the mildly depressed in Great Britain noted 60-Minutes correspondent, Lesley Stahl, on the television show "60 MInutes" on Sunday, February 19, 2012 (12-minutes into the video).

"By the end of 10 weeks, you get just as good a change in their depression scores as you do at the end of 10 or 12 weeks with an antidepressant," noted Dr. Tim Kendall, a practicing psychiatrist and Joint Director of the National Collaboration Centre for Mental Health who reviewed both published and unpublished studies of antidepressants for Great Britain's National Health Service. Read the entire article | Email this article

"We came to the conclusion, that for mild to moderate depression, these drugs probably weren't worth having," noted Dr Tim Kendall, a practicing psychiatrist and Joint Director of the National Collaboration Centre for Mental Health who reviewed both published and unpublished studies of antidepressants.

"Like [Dr.] Irving Kirsch, they were surprised by what they found in the drug companies unpublished data," noted 60-Minutes correspondent, Lesley Stahl.
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"With the published evidence, it's significantly overestimated the effectiveness of these drugs, and it underestimated the side effects," noted Dr. Kendall.

Great Britain's National Health Service decided to dramatically revamp the way that antidepressants are prescribed 60-Minutes correspondent, Lesley Stahl noted on the television show "60 MInutes" on Sunday, February 19, 2012 (10-minutes into the video).

It did so after doing it's own review of clinical trials, Stahl noted. Read the entire article | Email this article

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will approve an antidepressant or any other drug if only two trials show positive results, regardless of whether there are numerous other studies showing that the drugs are no more effective than a placebo. This fact was noted on the television show "60 MInutes" on Sunday, February 19, 2012 (8.5-minutes into the video).

"To approve any drug, the [US] Food and Drug Administration merely requires that companies show their pill is more effective than a placebo in two clinical trials even if many other drug trials failed," 60-Minutes correspondent, Lesley Stahl noted.

"The FDA for antidepressants has a fairly low bar. A new drug can be no better than placebo in ten trials, but if two trials show its better, it gets approved," noted Walter Brown, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Brown University’s School of Medicine.

"That's not the way I would do it if I were King," Dr. Brown noted. Read the entire article | Email this article

Walter Brown, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Brown University's School of Medicine, questions the theory that depression is caused by a deficiency of serotonin as was noted in an interview he did on "60 MInutes" on Sunday, February 19, 2012 (8-minutes into the video).

"The experts in the field now believe that that theory [of serotonin deficiency as the cause of depression] is a gross oversimplification, and is probably not correct," Dr. Brown said. Read the entire article | Email this article

“[T]here is a historical story as to why our country is deluded, our society is deluded, and believes in this chemical imbalance story [of depression]” according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

Whitaker noted that in the 1970’s, psychiatry felt like it was under siege because there were non-MD’s — social workers, counselors, psychologists — who were all competing for the same patients.

He also notes that anti-anxiety drugs were seen as addictive and harmful.

So, starting in 1980, they put out the DSM3 — [ Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ] — “which put psychiatry and psychiatric disorders into a medical model” and they touted using drugs for these conditions because social workers, counselors, psychologists [ non-MD’s ] could not prescribe drugs, so this would eliminate their competition.

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The drug industry became influential in psychiatry starting in 1980 when the American Psychiatric Association, at its annual meeting, started allowing pharmaceutical companies to sponsor symposiums according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

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People “can have some very severe withdrawal symptoms” when they stop an antidepressant according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

(Note: This happened to my mother in 1994 which I describe below.)

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Britain has recently changed its recommendations, saying that antidepressants should not be used as first-line therapy for depression, that they are just not that effective, and they have all these side effects according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

Doctors in Britain are now writing prescriptions for exercise for depression.

The number of doctors writing prescriptions for exercise was 4% in 2007, and now is 25%.

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Antipsychotic drugs cause problems by blocking dopamine receptors, which causes the body to pour out more dopamine which increases the vulnerability to psychosis according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

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“[T]here is some evidence, that really pretty consistent evidence, that the longer you’re on antidepressant medications… the harder it is to get off,” according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

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“[T]here is some evidence, that really pretty consistent evidence, that the longer you’re on antidepressant medications… the harder it is to get off,” according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

“In other words, your vulnerability to relapse when you come off it increases.”

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Long-term use of antidepressants increases recurrence of depression according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

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Long-term use of antidepressants turn a short-term illness into a chronic illness according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

He noted since most people recover from depression on their own, the initial rationale for using drugs was to see if they could help people recover faster.

However, what doctors started noticing was that when depressed patients were given antidepressants, they were relapsing more frequently.

So the question became are these drugs turning a short-term illness into a chronic illness?

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85% of people with depression who are not given drugs are well after a year according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

However, in those given antidepressants, only 15% do well long-term.

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There is evidence suggesting that long-term use of antidepressants cause cognitive decline according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

Whitaker notes that ”... as one researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital said when we look for it, we find that it’s quite common.”

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Long-term use of antidepressants increase the risk of converting depression to manic depression, that is, from unipolar depression to bipolar depression according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

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One study found that exercise-alone worked better than drugs-alone or drugs-plus-exercise, and that adding drugs hindered long-term recovery according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

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There is no scientific evidence that people with depression have a chemical imbalance. This was promoted to market the drugs, but is not based on science according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

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For mild to moderate depression, the drug-treated group doesn’t do any better in any sort of clinically significant way in terms of relieving depression in the short-term than the placebo group according to author and journalist Robert Whitaker as he noted in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

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Before antidepressants were used, people with depression, even with major depression, usually got better noted author and journalist Robert Whitaker in a 2010 interview that he did with Joseph Mercola, DO.

He noted that in 1974, Dean Skyler, head of the depression section at the National Institutes of Mental Health wrote, “Most depressive episodes will run their course and terminate with virtually complete recovery without specific intervention.”

Whitaker noted that someone else wrote, “Depression is on a whole, one of the psychiatric conditions with the best prognosis for eventual recovery with or without treatment. Most depressions are self-limited.”

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Thirty-one female patients hospitalized for depression were given from 180 to 720 mg of rubidium chloride per day.

“By week 2, at least two-thirds had improved significantly” the paper notes.

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A dose of 360 to 720 mg of rubidium chloride per day given for 60 days “showed a marked and rapid anti-depressive action” in 18 females and 2 males with major depression according to a 1993 study from Italy.

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Fifteen (15) hospitalized patients with depression were treated with 540 mg of rubidium chloride per day for three weeks according to a 1996 study.

“Speed therapeutic efficacy has been shown, with lack of side effects,” the paper, written in Italian, notes.

Rubidium causes stimulation of dopamine release which reduces depressive symptoms according to the paper.

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Here is a brief history of the use of the mineral rubidium for depression as outlined in a 2008 paper from Italy.

• “In 1891, the cardiologist Bottkin occasionally observed that cardiac patients treated with [rubidium chloride] experienced increased well-being compared to patients treated with [potassium chloride].”
• “In 1969, Dr. Meltzer discovered that the effects of rubidium in primates were the opposite of those produced by lithium.”
• “In 1976, the physiologist Mannistò observed that rubidium affects behavior in both animals and humans, as do amphetamines.”

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“If you ask me, no one should take antidepressants,” writes Prof. Peter C. Gotzsche, MD in Chapter 16 What can patients do? of his excellent book Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial.

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“The SSRIs are pretty terrible drugs and patients aren’t too happy taking them. But doctors choose to ignore how bad these pills are,” writes Prof. Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD in Chapter 3 Depression of his excellent book Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial.

“When the first best-selling SSRI, fluoxetine [Prozac], appeared in the late 1980s, there was no doubt about it. Senior management in Eli Lilly wanted to shelve it after having considered to market it for eating disorders, but Lilly was in serious financial trouble and had to make it a success,” Prof. Gøtzsche continues.

“Initially, the FDA was sceptical and noted serious flaws in Lilly’s trials.

“An FDA officer wrote in 1984 that patients who didn’t do well after two weeks had their code broken, and if they were on placebo, they were switched to fluoxeine.

“In this way, six weeks of fluoxetine was compared to two weeks on placebo, which is a hopelessly flawed comparison and, with the blinding broken, more bias was introduced.

“It also turned out that 25% of the patients had taken an additional drug, and when the FDA in 1985 removed patients on other drugs from Lilly’s trials, there was no significant effect of fluoxetine.

“By adding benzodiazepines, Lilly broke the rules for its trials but didn’t inform the FDA, and when the FDA later learned about it, the agency permitted it and thereby broke its own rules.

“The public and the doctors were never informed about this ruse.

“The FDA went to extremes to make it look like fluoxetine worked.

“Perhaps the fact that Lilly is an American company played a role.

“Fluoxetine was approved when Bush senior was president and he had been a member of the board of directors of Lilly.

“Vice President Dan Quayle was from Indiana where Lilly’s headquarters are, and he had former Lilly personnel on his own staff and sat on an FDA oversight committee.

“The German drug regulator found fluoxetine ‘totally unsuitable for the treatment of depression,’ and furthermore noted that according to the patients’ self-ratings there was little or no response, in contrast to doctors’ ratings.”

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“Allen Frances, chairman for the DSM-IV task force [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders], now believes the responsibility for defining psychiatric conditions needs to be taken away from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and argues that new diagnoses are as dangerous as new drugs: ‘We have remarkably casual procedures for defining the nature of conditions, yet they can lead to tens of millions being treated with drugs they may not need, and that may harm them,’ writes Prof. Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD in Chapter 2 What does it mean to be mentally ill? of his excellent book Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial.

“Frances noted that DSM-IV created three false epidemics because the diagnostic criteria were too wide: ADHD, autism and childhood bipolar disorder.”

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“It is clear that the risk of suicide caused by SSRIs has been grossly underestimated in the trials, and there are many reasons for this,” writes Prof. Peter C. Gotzsche, MD in Chapter 16 What can patients do? of his excellent book Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial.

• “Fraud.
• “The investigators didn’t report suicide attempts or didn’t even look for them.
• “Many suicidal events have been coded as something else.
• “By only recruiting people at very low risk of committing suicide for their trials, the drug industry has taken great care not to get in trouble.
• “The companies have urged investigators to use benzodiazepines in addition to the trial drugs, which have prevented some of the violent reactions that would otherwise have occurred.
• “Some trials have run-in periods on active drug, and patients who don’t tolerate it aren’t randomised.
• “Most patients were in antidepressant treatment before they were randomised, which leads to withdrawal symptoms in the placebo group that predispose to suicide.
• “Events occurring shortly after active treatment is stopped were rarely registered.
• “Many trials are buried in company archives and these are not the most positive ones.
• “Patients are carefully monitored in trials and drug intake is likely to be stopped before a serious problem develops.
• “Patients in trials have contact with other people and get hope, therefore the risk of suicide is less than in real life.”

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“There are likely to have been 15 times more suicides on antidepressant drugs than reported by the FDA in its meta-analysis of 100,000 patients in 2006,” writes Prof. Peter C. Gotzsche, MD in Chapter 16 What can patients do? of his excellent book Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial.

“There were only five suicides in FDA’s analysis of 52,960 patients on SSRIs (one per 10,000 patients), but an internal Lilly memo from 1990 described nine suicides in 6,993 patients on fluoxetine in the trials (13 per 10,000).

“An analysis of prescriptions written by general practitioners in the UK immediately after the drugs came on market is similarly revealing. The patients had an average age of 50 and 79% had depression, but although the follow-up was only about six months, there were 90 suicides among patients receiving fluoxetine, sertraline or paroxetine, which was 24, 17 and 27 suicides per 10,000, respectively.”

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“Virtually all trials of psychotropic agents are flawed, not only because of the unblinding problem, but also because of their design,” writes Prof. Peter C. Gotzsche, MD in Chapter 3 titled Depression of his excellent book Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial.

“This was recognised decades ago, but drug trials and reviews have continued to pretend the problem doesn’t exist, likely because the psychiatrists choose to ignore everything that threatens the myths they have built up around their profession.

“There are many tricks.

“Some studies exclude patients who improve in the placebo lead-in period; some studies use active drugs in this period and exclude people who experience troublesome side effects; and some studies have both types of ‘cleansing,’ which was the case for one of the very few trials of fluoxetine in children that purported to have shown an effect.

“But even with this extremely biased design, the children fared no better on the drug than on placebo on self-rating scales or on ratings by their parents.

“The ‘effect’ was only seen on a secondary scale filled out by the psychiatrists who were paid by Lilly to run the trial!”

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“In a survey of 1,829 patients on antidepressants in New Zealand, 62% reported sexual difficulties, 60% felt emotionally numb, 52% felt not like themselves, 39% cared less about others, 47% had experienced agitation and 39% had experienced suicidality,” writes Prof. Peter C. Gotzsche, MD in Chapter 3 titled Depression of his excellent book Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial.

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“When I – as invited speaker at large scientific meetings for psychiatrists – have pointed out how harmful screening for depression is, they didn’t pay the slightest attention,” writes Prof. Peter C. Gotzsche, MD in Chapter 3 Depression of his excellent book Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial.

“This organised denial has shocked me, particularly when the professor at my own hospital – in reply to my remark that screening leads to treatment of many healthy people with antidepressants – said that it didn’t matter because antidepressants have no side effects!

“Really?

“To a substantial extent, the “risk groups” comprise those who have lived more than five decades, and antidepressants kill many of these (see Chapter 14).”

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Drug and alcohol problems are the result of biochemical glitches. They are not caused by a lack of will power and cannot be solved with talk therapy. Prescription drugs such as Prozac cannot correct these problems either. I believe the exact same thing is true for anxiety and depression.

In this audio clip, you will hear Dr. Julian Whitaker describe the research of American biochemist, Dr. Roger Williams.

He found that "alcoholic" rats could be cured of their desire for alcohol with large doses of nutrients.

You will then hear Dr. Whitaker interview Joan Mathews Larson, PhD whose son committed suicide about 30 years ago after returning from talk therapy.

Dr. Larson committed her life to finding a better way, and came across the research of Dr. Roger Williams.

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