Posted by med_empowered on November 28, 2005, at 2:57:21
In reply to Re: hehe that was funny., posted by rjlockhart on November 27, 2005, at 21:40:47
I read something that was interesting..about how, since psychiatry is so mixed up with Big Pharma now, psychiatry's "theories" often jive with Big Pharma's marketing ploys. So...look at it in the case of depression :
TCA era--depression is caused by low levels of certain chemicals. Tofrani (elavil, whatever) helps elevate these.
SSRIs--depression+anxiety are largely due to low-levels of serotonin. Prozac (or whatever) boosts these to a normal level, resotring functioning.
Cymbalta (effexor, new ones)--depression is caused by low levels of **several** neurotransmitters, Cymbalta increases levels of--- (triple-reuptake indibitors may soon hit the market).
Basically, the idea is that there was a swing towards "clean" drugs--drugs that just hit serotonin, for instance--and now there's a swing back to what would have been called "dirty" drugs but are now called "multi-target" drugs, or whatever. Same thing with the atypical antipsychotics--one of their selling points is that they tend to hit LOTS of stuff, not just the D2 like the old drugs...but they're not called "dirty" drugs, like TCAs are...no, they're called "multi-targeted" drugs, or whatever term is being used now.
Interesting theory.
poster:med_empowered
thread:582599
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051126/msgs/582907.html