Re: Help needed understanding alternative treatments for depressive illnesses

Dear Marie,

Hello! Thank you for reading and taking part in this increasingly, certainly for me, thread. I'm getting a lot of new 'leads' to further research that I can do and look over.

Directly in reply to your post, I will try and simplify the lectures that we have been getting from Dr Gard (He has written several books. The one that you may find interesting is his book called (rather catchily) 'Human Pharmacology' I think that you are posting from the USA, so the US publishers are Taylor and Francis Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001. It was published in 2001 ISBN no. 0-7484-0812-6)

Basically, it all boils down to a chicken and the egg senario.. which came first? The fact that neurotransmitter function is significantly decreased in many areas of the brain in people who have committed suicide through suffering Depression is not at question. It has been confirmed in more studies than I could count. However, is the Depression caused by this decreased neurotransmitter function, or is the decreased neurotransmitter function caused by the depression? One of the symptoms of Depression is decreased appetite, and it may be possible that the sufferer is not eating enough tryptophan (TP), which is a precursor to 5-HT. (taking 5-HTP, which is a slightly metabolised version of TP has been shown to help some sufferers).
The underlying cause of the decreased neurotransmitter function is not known, however if we give drugs to correct it, then in many people the condition is improved. It is a bit more complicated than that, but that is what it basically boils down to. The Post-mortem studies show what has happened to the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, but not what caused them.

I hope that has helped! Pharmacology books and websites such as PubMed would give a much clearer explanation, I'm not much of a writer myself I'm afraid! I must just say that I am just a Pharmacy Student at the moment so nothing I say should be treated as Gospel! Please consult your doctor and/or seek advice from a pharmacist before adding/changing/stopping any medication that you are taking, conventional, herbal or other.

Many thanks again for your interest, and please post any non-pharmacological, non-conventional treatments that you know of. Who knows where it may lead!?

Kind regards,

Chris Holman