Anti psychotic drugs shrink the brain

[Maleficent]

 

But do you people truly believe that thousands of researchers and doctors and pharmacists from multiple countries across the globe are ALL conspiring to swindle money out of your pockets with a nonexistent disease?

 

Funny how this would suggest paranoid schizophrenia...

[ascendotum]

BigPharma doesn't want you to know this, of course. I'm guessing the patients with shrinking brains are the ones who think the drugs are helping them.

 

I heard a commercial today asking for volunteers to test a new drug. You have to be taking antidepressants and feel you're not improving (which is most people). This drug would be taken in addition to the antidepressants. Anything to keep the money flowing to BigPharma.

 

Thankfully anti-psychotics don't feature in my life or anyone else in my family. That article was fairly disturbing. Brain shrinkage is a ****ing major side effect in my book. The thing is because it will occur slowly over a long period of time it will be able to be explained away on other things by doctors/pharma coys but these reports by someone of repute should be of serious concern by doctors and govt depts charged with overseeing the medical sector.

 

That linked article was from 2011. Has anything changed in psychiatric drug field over the past few years as a result of these reports being published?

[sweetjasmine]

Twisting my words, really?

 

No, I'm not. You said that people who think chemical imbalances are real need to go to medical school. You haven't been to medical school, yet you feel qualified to make a determination as to whether chemical imbalances exist. If medical school will teach you that chemical imbalances are a lie, please cite an actual medical text that proves it.

 

And if you want to believe psychiatry is real, that's fine with me. But it's naive to just accept something at face value.

 

Why do you assume I or anyone else accepts these things at face value? I've studied genetics, chemistry, anatomy/physiology, and cell biology. I know how neurotransmitters work. I know how inhibitors work. I know what fMRI can tell us. I know what we can learn from genetic analyses. Don't assume that people are just blindly believing everything.

 

There are no blood tests and no genetic markers to actually detect mental illnesses in the brain.

 

There are genetic links to certain mental illnesses. Certain alleles result in a higher predisposition to development of certain disorders. Just because a disorder or illness can't be diagnosed by a blood test doesn't mean it's "not real." Not every dysfunction in the body leads to changes that can be detected in blood.

 

If you can point me to research how helpful anti-psychotics are, evidence of genetic markers that say a condition like ADHD is real, I'll reconsider my disbelief in what I consider to be a total sham.

 

I actually happen to know a psychologist (not a psychiatrist!) who works on ADHD and other mental illnesses. This is just what her lab has done in recent years:

 

http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2813%2900543-6

Cambridge Journals Online - Psychological Medicine - Abstract - Inefficient cerebral recruitment as a vulnerability marker for schizophrenia

Cortical Gray Matter in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

 

That's just one lab. There's no shortage of evidence showing actual, meaningful differences between people with mental illnesses and people without.

 

To claim that mental illnesses don't exist is extremely harmful and dangerous. I think it's extremely unethical to push these kinds of views and I've said all I have to say on the subject.

[todreaminblue]

Twisting my words, really? I said, I don't need to go to med school to do my own research to form my own opinion which is that I think psychiatry is a business. And if you want to believe psychiatry is real, that's fine with me. But it's naive to just accept something at face value. There are no blood tests and no genetic markers to actually detect mental illnesses in the brain.

 

If you can point me to research how helpful anti-psychotics are, evidence of genetic markers that say a condition like ADHD is real, I'll reconsider my disbelief in what I consider to be a total sham.

 

Psychiatrists are business men in white coats, who are in cahoots with Big Pharma and Insurance companies to make money at the expense of vulnerable people. Insurance companies can pay psychiatrists 297 different ways, did you know that? The DSM is a business manual for psychiatrists, because it gives them diseases what they can use to bill insurance companies with.

 

Read Peter Breggin's book, "Toxic Psychiatry" and it will open your eyes to the truth.

 

Anti-psychotic drugs are poison. That has been proven with lab tests. No mental illness can be proven with a blood test. The only blood tests are given to patients on anti-psychotic to measure the toxicity levels of the chemical ans preservatives that bind the anti-psychotic together, in the patient's blood. But no one has invented a blood test for depression, or any other mental illness. Just for the drugs that treat those "fake diseases."

 

 

writer gal, maybe you are right, maybe its all in "our" head ...

 

maybe there are no real monsters under the bed

 

....maybe i dont suffer from depression at all......

 

and some doctor prescribed ect

made a pseudo wrong call,

 

and even though i am here typing to you, didnt save my life at all....

 

maybe i am not schizo effective...maybe i am not a multiple personality......

maybe i just suffer from anti social introverted extroverted multiples of congeniality

 

with me i dont harm anyone but myself,so if i die,

 

i only leave family and friends to mourn and cry

 

writer gal what do you think will happen to all the rest,

who think like me and think our heads know best,

what do they do and where do we go,

tell all of us writergal i really do want to know,

what herb what omni potion can you concoct,

for the millions mentally ill who you seem to mock

do we just disappear without a sound

who heals us writer gal,the ones not so mentally sound,

 

is there an island to inhabit or maybe underground

stay a week in an asylum and you will see,

lots of people are there where they need to be,

medicated and under control,

medication sucks but it does save souls......deb

Edited October 22, 2014 by todreaminblue

[ascendotum]

Okay, so you don't need to go to med school in order to understand brain chemistry, but everyone else does. And the psychiatrists who did go to med school, and the neurologists, cell biologists, geneticists, etc. who study mental illnesses are all liars. Got it.

 

I don't believe you need to go to med school to have an understanding about medicine or biology or bio-chemistry...assuming you do your own study & research for your own enlightenment. I have dealt with doctors who talked BS and when I responded back got snipped off with the 'helllllo which one of us has spent 6 yrs at med school' response (learning from 1970s textbooks). I remember one of my doctors telling me he did 1 lecture on science of sleep and 1 lecture on nutrition....so because he has Dr in front of his name that now makes him someone who cant be questioned about sleep or nutrition?? As for doctors and the science of ADs....how many people here got pathology tests beforehand to measure how much their serotonin was down or how about their gaba or their dopamine or their norepinephrine or their acetylcholine levels were down. You don't have to do a 3yr apprenticeship in mechanics or a degree in computer science to be able to have discussions with people who have on those topics from your own research & experience (on specific topics not the same breadth of knowledge). Its not like medicine should be so sacrosanct in that regard that you know jack **** unless you have Dr in front of your name.

[Hope Shimmers]

Psychiatry, along with anti-anything drugs (psychotics, depressants) is a great sham that has brainwashed much of the population. It's a pseudo-science, so it's not even a real science. It's all just based on opinion. That whole "chemical imbalance" mission statement psychiatrists use to promote the need for anti-psychotic drugs is a sham and anyone who believes that the brain can get chemically imbalanced is naive and needs to go to med school. Seriously.

 

Yes, well I did happen to go to med school (did you?) and I can tell you that you are wrong. The brain can and does get chemically imbalanced. Psychiatry is not a "pseudo-science" - and you think it's based on opinion? Where did you get that crap, and who are you to judge whether that is true or not?

 

No biochemical, neurological or genetic markers have been found to support mental illness diseases as being real. Sure, I'll catch a lot of flak for my opinion but I'm immune to the power of marketing that psychiatry uses to promote the lie that low serotonin is what causes depression and other diseases that require anti-psychotics.

 

Again, this is garbage. There are thousands of peer-reviewed studies proving a physiologic basis for mental illness. Many thousands! And lots of studies on genetic markers now too. How are you an expert on this? I'm really curious to hear your credentials.

 

Antipsychotics are POISON and they don't do anything but f*ck up the brain, and line the pockets of the psychiatrists who prescribe them, and Big Pharma sales reps who sell them.

 

If you ever have a family member or close friend with a mental illness you will see first-hand how wrong you are.

 

This kind of nonsense is dangerous to the health of people who truly have these disorders and need the medication.

[carhill]

TBH, and I don't think it was unusual, none of the brain and behavioral specialists I ever interfaced with ever 'talked down' to us. All were engaging and encouraged clearer understanding of the processes and potentials in the case and always treated both the patient and myself with respect, all the while operating out of a veritable 'shack' of a facility, since they were adjunct staff of a large teaching hospital doing research on dementing diseases. Regular MD's, like GP's or gerontologists, OTOH, varied widely. They were far more likely to rx on the fly than the specialists were. It was the specialists who ordered the CT's, PET's and MRI's and performed carefully controlled neuro-psychometric analysis over many weeks *before* ever considering rx'ing any drug cocktails.

 

No doubt nearly all human pursuits include the profiteers amongst us. Greed is a human condition and none of us escapes it in life. We're all impacted in some way. Should health care have a greater responsibility to do no harm? IDK. Their oath seems to indicate they do. However, practical application varies, as does opinion on what 'do no harm' means.

 

Funny anecdote: Best friend went in to fix a hernia in his belly from a past cancer surgery. Came out of anesthesia with an excruciating pain, not in his belly but in his shoulder. No explanation. Turned out he had ligament damage, all from laying on an operating table for a couple hours. That's how it goes!

[Hope Shimmers]

Anti-psychotics are not the same as SSRIs.

 

Good point that I forgot to make in my last post. There is indeed a huge body of research that proves without doubt that low serotonin (and norepinephrine) leads to depression - thus the SSRIs and SNRIs.

 

Antipsychotics are a completely different group of medications and treat a completely different condition (and they work very well).

[sweetjasmine]

I don't believe you need to go to med school to have an understanding about medicine or biology or bio-chemistry... [...] Its not like medicine should be so sacrosanct in that regard that you know jack **** unless you have Dr in front of your name.

 

To be clear, I agree on both points. People who aren't MDs or PhDs or scientists are perfectly capable of understanding these things. And, to be honest, the more everyone learns about science and medicine, the better. I really think everyone should be scientifically literate, especially so they can advocate on their own behalf.

 

I was just responding to the suggestion that people who think chemical imbalances are a real phenomenon need to go to med school/learn a thing or two about medicine.

[Hope Shimmers]

Peer review research IS opinion. It is research based on observation and opinion. That's all. It's not based on fact because it's analyzing what someone else wrote. That's why it's called "peer review."

 

You don't understand what "peer reviewed" means.

 

It is NOT research based on "observation and opinion". It is exactly the opposite. It is rigorous research based on OBJECTIVE criteria (ie, randomized clinical trials, in many cases) to measure outcomes/results using valid measurement criteria and statistical methods. The "peer reviewed" part means ONLY that the research articles, before being published (in journals like New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA) must be reviewed by other established researchers in the same medical field to make sure the research methods and analyses are valid.

[Hope Shimmers]

Anti-psychotic drugs are poison. That has been proven with lab tests. No mental illness can be proven with a blood test. The only blood tests are given to patients on anti-psychotic to measure the toxicity levels of the chemical ans preservatives that bind the anti-psychotic together, in the patient's blood. But no one has invented a blood test for depression, or any other mental illness. Just for the drugs that treat those "fake diseases."

 

What!?! the heck are you talking about!?!

 

Do you think all diseases need to be "proven" with blood tests in order to be diseases? Completely false. Do you think hypertension has a blood test? How about pulmonary hypertension? How about CHF? How about CAD? How about IBD? How about cancer? How about epilepsy? I could go on and on. Are those not "real" diseases?

 

And what are you talking about - "the only blood tests given to patients on anti-psychotics to measure the toxicity levels of the chemical ans preservatives that bind the anti-psychotics together"? Do you mean drug levels? Yes, we measure drug levels of some antipsychotics to guide dosing and efficacy/reduce side effects. We do that for epilepsy drugs too. So is that not a disease?

[Els]

And what are you talking about - "the only blood tests given to patients on anti-psychotics to measure the toxicity levels of the chemical ans preservatives that bind the anti-psychotics together"? Do you mean drug levels? Yes, we measure drug levels of some antipsychotics to guide dosing and efficacy/reduce side effects. We do that for epilepsy drugs too. So is that not a disease?

 

Get your atrial fibrillation patient off warfarin stat! Warfarin is clearly poisoning him, because AF wasn't 'found in his blood' and you had to measure his warfarin levels! Put him on a one-week juice detox diet and he'll be all fine and dandy.

[carhill]

It is rigorous research based on OBJECTIVE criteria (ie, randomized clinical trials, in many cases) to measure outcomes/results using valid measurement criteria and statistical methods. The "peer reviewed" part means ONLY that the research articles, before being published (in journals like New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA) must be reviewed by other established researchers in the same medical field to make sure the research methods and analyses are valid.

 

IMO, wonderful explanation and the 'feel' of it is what I came away with at conferences where all the specialists would come together and compare their own processes and debate the work and establish collaborative conclusions. The intelligence in the room was palpable. All highly educated and respected people plowing through the data, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes not, but getting through it based on established methodologies of research and statistical analysis.

 

I recall, when the patient died, the first call was from the nursing home; the second was from the research facility head doctor, on a Saturday evening, outlining how she would harvest the brain and what next steps would be taken. A number of weeks later they published their post-mortem and I received the layperson copy of it. The rest went to other research facilities. At the point of death, the brain had atrophied significantly but that was a good four years after the first atrophy was noted. The researchers didn't appear to find that to be remarkable in that particular disease process (paraphrenic dementia). They were able to positively confirm via autopsy damage which they prior believed to have happened by imaging analysis.

 

IMO, since brain science is still in its infancy, we'll likely be debating it, drugs, effects and standards for quite some time. Each case is a step along the path.

 

As a more general, and perhaps somewhat political, statement, I've been long aware of the ostensible agenda of 'big pharma' which is profit from making breakthroughs in drugs and selling them, but that is the bear we've chosen to ride as a society, since we embrace capitalism and reward wealth and success. We create the life we live. We always have choices. Perhaps, as brain science is in its infancy, so is our evolution as a species. It's what we go through to get where we're going, as of yet unknown.

[Hope Shimmers]

Get your atrial fibrillation patient off warfarin stat! Warfarin is clearly poisoning him, because AF wasn't 'found in his blood' and you had to measure his warfarin levels! Put him on a one-week juice detox diet and he'll be all fine and dandy.

 

Perfect example! I forgot about chronic A fib and coumadin levels. Probably the best example there is.

 

The kinds of posts I was replying to bother me because there is already a bias among some people that mental illnesses aren't "real", and given how many people read this forum, it concerns me that someone who is prescribed therapy might buy into that and go off treatment. Nonadherence to treatment is particularly high among patients with schizophrenia (that's why we have depot injections), and the suicide rate among untreated patients is extremely high - I don't want even one person to read such nonsense and stop their prescribed therapy when they can and do live very productive lives while on treatment. It's too important to just let go.

[Hope Shimmers]

IMO, wonderful explanation and the 'feel' of it is what I came away with at conferences where all the specialists would come together and compare their own processes and debate the work and establish collaborative conclusions. The intelligence in the room was palpable. All highly educated and respected people plowing through the data, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes not, but getting through it based on established methodologies of research and statistical analysis.

 

I recall, when the patient died, the first call was from the nursing home; the second was from the research facility head doctor, on a Saturday evening, outlining how she would harvest the brain and what next steps would be taken. A number of weeks later they published their post-mortem and I received the layperson copy of it. The rest went to other research facilities. At the point of death, the brain had atrophied significantly but that was a good four years after the first atrophy was noted. The researchers didn't appear to find that to be remarkable in that particular disease process (paraphrenic dementia). They were able to positively confirm via autopsy damage which they prior believed to have happened by imaging analysis.

 

IMO, since brain science is still in its infancy, we'll likely be debating it, drugs, effects and standards for quite some time. Each case is a step along the path.

 

As a more general, and perhaps somewhat political, statement, I've been long aware of the ostensible agenda of 'big pharma' which is profit from making breakthroughs in drugs and selling them, but that is the bear we've chosen to ride as a society, since we embrace capitalism and reward wealth and success. We create the life we live. We always have choices. Perhaps, as brain science is in its infancy, so is our evolution as a species. It's what we go through to get where we're going, as of yet unknown.

 

Thanks for your reply Carhill. I sit on a peer review committee for 2 medical journals in my area of practice and research, so I do know what I am talking about - on this topic, at least.

 

I'm not a psychiatrist but spent a lot of time in tertiary care psychiatry units during residency and fellowship. I would love to see the face of anyone who doubts that this is a real disorder after just one patient intake interview where I was at.

 

I love your last paragraph. "Big pharma" is the enemy of healthcare professionals in many ways too, but as you said, this is what we have chosen as a society. They are in it for the profit, but where would we be if they had not developed the drugs they have? The people who proclaim to "hate" them would likely change their tune if they had to take "big pharma" developed medications after getting cancer or some other serious disease. Then suddenly it would be okay. It's a tough thing to balance ethically in many ways.

 

"Perhaps, as brain science is in its infancy, so is our evolution as a species. It's what we go through to get where we're going, as of yet unknown." Interesting for sure, and definitely food for thought and discussion.

[Thegreatestthing]

I agree with you 100 percent and have read Thomas szasz book the myth of mental illness,when I had my vision and was locked away and medicated there was no medical test of any kind to determine that anything was wrong with me,I was just subject to some guys definition of what was normal and then they were permitted to change my brain chemistry,it's completely bizaare.

 

Read leonora carringtons book "down below" she was a surrealist artist subject to the same sort of thing,and now all the drugs she was given have been banned.

 

In the Peruvian Amazon the native shamans gain all their botanical knowledge of which plants cure you from their visions which the pharmaceutical companies later use,they would be all locked away under the concept of mental illness,yet strange how there are no crazies there running around maiming anyone.

 

You have to medicate a sick society.

 

Twisting my words, really? I said, I don't need to go to med school to do my own research to form my own opinion which is that I think psychiatry is a business. And if you want to believe psychiatry is real, that's fine with me. But it's naive to just accept something at face value. There are no blood tests and no genetic markers to actually detect mental illnesses in the brain.

 

If you can point me to research how helpful anti-psychotics are, evidence of genetic markers that say a condition like ADHD is real, I'll reconsider my disbelief in what I consider to be a total sham.

 

Psychiatrists are business men in white coats, who are in cahoots with Big Pharma and Insurance companies to make money at the expense of vulnerable people. Insurance companies can pay psychiatrists 297 different ways, did you know that? The DSM is a business manual for psychiatrists, because it gives them diseases what they can use to bill insurance companies with.

 

Read Peter Breggin's book, "Toxic Psychiatry" and it will open your eyes to the truth.

 

Anti-psychotic drugs are poison. That has been proven with lab tests. No mental illness can be proven with a blood test. The only blood tests are given to patients on anti-psychotic to measure the toxicity levels of the chemical ans preservatives that bind the anti-psychotic together, in the patient's blood. But no one has invented a blood test for depression, or any other mental illness. Just for the drugs that treat those "fake diseases."

Edited October 22, 2014 by Thegreatestthing

[Hope Shimmers]

I was just subject to some guys definition of what was normal

 

How long ago, and who was "some guy"?

 

The DSM criteria are not just "some guy's" definition. It is a consensus of many, and the criteria are objective.

[Allumere]

Science is a funny thing...what we deem as correct or true now, 5 years the same science may have said it was awful will kill you. Think of the simple things..eggs bad, eggs good; coffee bad, coffee good....same can be applied to medications. I would say the same applies to treatment of mental/mood disorders. With that said I support use of medications and have seen benefits when used by friends/family time and time again. I am not saying that folks have not had crap experiences, that meds can't be oversubscribed for the disorder du jour, that there is much we do not know or understand abut long term affects....BUT I think one must be careful when promoting "Big Pharma" or just negativity regard the fields of psychology/mental health...there are a lot of folks that are sick and we know how difficult it is to lead then to the damn water trough (doctors/clinics/therapist) and now we are throwing them that bit of rope they are looking for...in their mind "see, I knew it was crap, the meds don't work, they are trying to make me a sombie"...no chance of them drinking from the trough (taking the med/using the therapies).

[Maleficent]

Meanwhile (in my little corner of Canada at least) 'naturopaths' keep telling their patients to replace their meds with multi vitamins and they die.

 

If anything, the 'health food industry/organic' business is 10x the scam pharmaceutical companies.

Just look at soy milk...

[Allumere]

Science is a funny thing...what we deem as correct or true now, 5 years the same science may have said it was awful will kill you. Think of the simple things..eggs bad, eggs good; coffee bad, coffee good....same can be applied to medications. I would say the same applies to treatment of mental/mood disorders. With that said I support use of medications and have seen benefits when used by friends/family time and time again. I am not saying that folks have not had crap experiences, that meds can't be oversubscribed for the disorder du jour, that there is much we do not know or understand abut long term affects....BUT I think one must be careful when promoting "Big Pharma" or just negativity regard the fields of psychology/mental health...there are a lot of folks that are sick and we know how difficult it is to lead then to the damn water trough (doctors/clinics/therapist) and now we are throwing them that bit of rope they are looking for...in their mind "see, I knew it was crap, the meds don't work, they are trying to make me a sombie"...no chance of them drinking from the trough (taking the med/using the therapies).

 

OMG the typos...sorry folks, late night typing and grammar/ spelling is out the window.

[todreaminblue]

OMG the typos...sorry folks, late night typing and grammar/ spelling is out the window.

 

 

 

i liked your post didtn notice bad granma or bad typing....or bad anything ....just succinctness......nice post allumere...dotn knock it .....you coudl type like me that woudl eb worse.......see...dyslexic typist with ocd ellipses.....deb

[writergal]

Show me a blood test that proves a mental illness exists in the brain, and I will retract my opinion that mental illness diagnoses are created by unscrupulous, money-hungry, pseudo-psychiatrists (who are NOT real doctors due to their fraud and manipulation of data), who dole out anti-psychotics to people based on the DSM which is not a scientific product, but a book of fake diagnoses founded on unscrupulous politics and bureaucracy (all in the name of big bucks).

 

 

Peer-reviewed studies are not factual, for the millionth time. Peer reviewed studies are when group A reads articles by group B, analyzes them and then points out the validity or invalidity of group B's thesis. I read peer-reviewed articles for 3 years during grad school so I think I know what I'm talking about.

 

 

I'll say it again, my opinion stands that every single "mental illness" listed in the DSM is a based on an opinion, and not a scientific, biological fact. There are no blood tests to prove the existence of mental illnesses. None. No brain scans either. The function of blood tests for patients on anti-psychotics or any medication prescribed for mental illness, is to measure the toxicity levels in the blood stream. That's it.

 

 

When a blood test is invented to detect the genetic markers in the brain that someone has a mental illness, give me a call because then I will stand corrected. But until that day comes, I stand by what I believe: psychiatry is a fake science, a business, and millions upon millions of people have their lives RUINED by these quacks.

 

 

Just look at how over-medicated society is. Psychiatry creates white collar drug addicts. Psychiatry fear mongers society into believing the myth of mental illness, the myth of the "chemical imbalance." And that to me is really unfortunate.

 

 

To diagnose someone, psychiatry relies on paper tests (!!) and some person's opinion that has an M.D. behind their name (which doesn't mean they are qualified. It just means they studied something for a long period of time.)That to me is shaky science at best. Um, excuse me but a paper test is about as reliable as a pathological liar. Those sorts of tests are biased and unethical.

 

 

It's obvious I'm in the minority in this thread, with my belief that psychiatry is a booming "business," that dupes millions of people into believing lies that aren't even based on biological evidence or blood tests, but just opinions motivated by making money.

 

 

And I'm not fear mongering either, by stating my opposing view. I just disagree with the majority of people in this thread, who believe that psychiatry and the anti-psychotics and other medications prescribed is a real science.

 

 

To accuse me of fear mongering is way off base and offensive to me because it couldn't be farther from the truth.

Edited October 22, 2014 by writergal

[Thegreatestthing]

Society changes it's mind about what is normal all the time and I don't think a bunch of old rich white men who write the DSM should decide what's normal,they are not objective they are influenced by societal norms,a hundred years ago it was perfectly acceptable to have visions,as society has moved from the spiritual to the atheistic it has become unacceptable.

 

 

I feel terribly sad that I live in a time where Joan of arc would have been put in a psychiatric ward and had her brain shrunk.

 

 

How long ago, and who was "some guy"?

 

The DSM criteria are not just "some guy's" definition. It is a consensus of many, and the criteria are objective.

[sweetjasmine]

I feel terribly sad that I live in a time where Joan of arc would have been put in a psychiatric ward and had her brain shrunk.

 

You'd prefer the time when she was literally burned alive at the stake at the ripe old age of 19? Do you think we should be executing people who hear voices?

[Thegreatestthing]

On the contrary they took her revelations very very seriously,personally I'd rather be dead than be locked up and have my brain tampered with.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Thegreatestthing