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The Great Obesity Epidemic

I have to say that I sense in your posts a continuing reluctance to just accept that conditions such as depression and anxiety states really exist beyond what might be considered 'normal' reactions to life's challenges.

Mull,

thanks for sharing that. You have my sympathies. I feel I owe you something of an explanation.

What you sense is not what I am trying to say. My initial interjection concerned the cost implication of the huge increases in anti depressant prescriptions and the numbers of people being diagnosed as being candidates for pharmaceutical treatments.

I am not suggesting that illnesses such as depression do not exist - let alone the likes of bipolar disorders or schitzophrenia. I am however questioning the current thinking that the cause behind a depressed mind is to be found in chemical imbalances in the brain. I have yet to see any evidence that convincingly shows this to be the case - especially given the numbers being diagnosed after a cursory "examination". I'm also at a loss to understand how a psychiatrist can deduce that someone has a chemical imbalance when they have no way of detecting it save for a selection of behavioral patterns.

I don't share most people's confidence in NHS consultants' infallibility when it comes to diagnosis I'm afraid. I tend to want answers that make sense.

As you may or may not be aware, it has taken me the best part of two years to get the NHS to finally put me in front of a consultant who understands my own issue and has provided the diagnosis that I had suggested at the beginning. I have seen five separate consultants in the meantime, all of whom seemingly had far too bigger egos to consider that they were ill equipped to deal with a particular patient.

Now finally I have had it confirmed that I "suffer" from exercise induced acute autonomic failure. Admittedly I am the first non diabetic to be properly identified as such but it has taken me a year of doing my own research, consulting experts in other countries and carrying out my own tests to produce sufficient evidence for the NHS to organise the correct tests and to confirm the diagnosis.

To explain, the condition actually IS a failure of the very hormones that are at the center of the depression debate, which leads to a lack of fuel to the brain and sudden collapse. I have been unconscious 40 times this year to date, in an ambulance to A&E 15 times, and suffer the ongoing cognitive impairments as well as neural death and all kinds of fun and games in the brain department.

Obviously this leads to irrational (or possibly rational :D) anxiety and mood issues. I'm not complaining though. There are plenty of fifty somethings with worse problems than this as you see when you visit any hospital.

I am not unfamiliar however with the fields that some have suggested I am which is why I took exception to claims that my scepticism is borne out of ignorance.

With regards to psychiatry in general, I know that the autonomic failure is down to reduced levels of circulating plasma norepinephrine and I have a good idea as to why there are reduced levels in my case. The problem is psychiatrists simply don't seem to understand that so I find myself facing the same lack of attention to the cause that I saw with endocrinologists. They are seemingly uninterested in the cause, merely preoccupied with applying a big brush to go over the commonly seen symptoms.

My attitude is simply this. If Mr or Mrs Psychiatrist is saying that condition A is because of a chemical imbalance then show me the evidence. We are being told that this is the case but there is AFAIK a lack of compelling evidence to back the assertion up. The same goes for the pharmaceutical companies.

If the psychiatrists however are saying condition A is the result of past events then I need to be sure that they know more about the relevent history than they would get from a 20 question questionnaire filled out on line or with a biro. I would consider diagnosis based on such brief exposure to be very compromised at best and of questionable validity.

The real problem is that there are young people with mental illness dying every month because of shortages of beds and care facilities in the NHS. We all know these people need help. I'd like to see some evidence that the fortune being spent on SSRI's and NDRI's is a necessary cost of health care in the 21st century. Prescriptions in the UK have doubled in the past decade. Is someone going to tell us why twice as many people suddenly have chemical imblances?
 
He uses words without defining them. So I cannot follow him. And he goes really slowly, so I gave up after 10 minutes. Perhaps meditation has messed with his thought processes.

So perhaps as an advocate you could define 'Mindfulness' so that it can be discussed? Is the course Amazon tried to sell me this morning the right 'Mindfulness'?

Paul
Paul, I think you're doing your thing again where you pretend to find things difficult to read/understand in order to make some sort of point. An example being your seeming desire to challenge Mindfulness vs MCBT.

The info I linked to should give you enough opportunity to understand what Mindfulness as a set of principles and what MCBT is with regards to Mindfulness in a therapeutic context; the background to its adoption within Clinical Practise in the US and then the UK and the historical background to its principles (eg. Buddhist meditation, etc.).

I've found practising Mindfulness techniques to be very useful and effective, I'm not selling it as an idea or bothered about defining it in clinical terms. If you're genuinely interested in finding out more I am confident your Google foo is more than adequate.
 
Many expensive health problems these days seem to be self inflicted, whether it's obesity or any number of newly found psychiatric conditions like depression.

The sugar industry is behind one. The Pharmaceutical industry behind the other. Profit is everything in the 21st century.

Facebook has no obligation whatsoever to report threats of violence to interested parties. It does however feel compelled to report visits to the Waitrose On Line site to anyone who's prepared to pay them for the information.

A perfect illustration of the power of commerce over morality. Wonderful new world we live in.

Not sure it's the sugar industry, the problem is more high fructose corn syrup which is added to most every food. This became popular when the food industry started the low-fat food trend and started adding HFCS to all its products. This is when the obesity problem really started to kick in.
The most important point made in this thread lost in the usual chaff from merlin and jadisman.

The worrying trend is that the prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing in almost every country on Earth.

Overweight and obesity have become so common that in some countries they've surpassed infectious disease as the most significant causes of poor health. People with high BMI are more likely to have coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, some cancers, diabetes, osteoarthritis and gout, sleep apnea,...

I'm not labelling or stereotyping, but anyone who thinks this isn't a growing health problem with all sort of associated costs — personal and familial, public and private — is in denial.

Joe
There are a few in denial here and the sad bit is they don't want to learn anything.
 
I took exception to claims that my scepticism is borne out of ignorance.

That is the way you came across to me I have to say. Glad you put the record straight. I will look up your condition and hope you and Mull feel better in the future.

I haven't seen anything from Fox for a while and hope he is OK.
 
Paul, I think you're doing your thing again where you pretend to find things difficult to read/understand in order to make some sort of point. An example being your seeming desire to challenge Mindfulness vs MCBT.
I am very sceptical of mumbo jumbo, of which AFAICT, 'Mindfulness' seems to be an example. Especially when it is casually advised as being so vital to any discussion of depression that omitting it makes the discussion worthless.

Never mind.

Paul
 
or low-dosage tricyclic anti-depressants if particularly persistent.

Amitriptyline might well be the most effective placebo ever. It shows excellent results in all sorts of, shall we say, controversial illnesses such as IBS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, etc.

I know people with conditions like MS, Lupus, and so on get more than somewhat annoyed at these sorts of illnesses. Which is not to say they are not sympathetic on an individual basis but rather about how the profile of this class of conditions can effect policy, research and funding.

My own GP favours talking therapies (that include elements of Mindfulness and CBT) over prescribing SSRIs. The latter may be prescribed as a mid-term solution while a patient is waiting to undergo therapy.

Your GP sounds very good. SSRIs and other drugs should be short term measures to allow the patient "space" to address whatever is making them depressed and I am deeply sceptical with the view that chemical imbalances are causal and therefore can be the basis for a cure.
 
Amitriptyline is not a placebo. Try taking it.

CBT...it depends what the problem is.
 
Amitriptyline is not a placebo. Try taking it.

It's rarely used for it's original purpose now and much more common as a well tolerated drug that often has positive effects on a variety of conditions for which no model of how it might work exists other than as a combination of placebo and anxiety reduction.

At least that is my understanding.
 
You would know, old man

You are nothing if not predictable. My wife was prescribed a low dose for back pain so I looked it up on the internet. It's also prescribed inter alia for children who wet the bed. In fact it seems to be something of a universal panacea. Placebo looks about right. What dose are you on?
 
Raise the foot of your bed by 6 inches as this is scientifically proven to cure everything including cancer and wee that smells like sugar puffs.
 
You are nothing if not predictable. My wife was prescribed a low dose for back pain so I looked it up on the internet. It's also prescribed inter alia for children who wet the bed. In fact it seems to be something of a universal panacea. Placebo looks about right. What dose are you on?

You're too busy internet sniping, mate. If only you paid some attention.

Do you have any contribution to make in reply to:

Not sure it's the sugar industry, the problem is more high fructose corn syrup which is added to most every food. This became popular when the food industry started the low-fat food trend and started adding HFCS to all its products. This is when the obesity problem really started to kick in.
 
You're too busy internet sniping, mate. If only you paid some attention.

Do you have any contribution to make in reply to:

(1) I'm not your mate

(2) I just eat sensibly, mainly fresh fruit and vegetables and occasionaly a little fresh meat or fish. The sort of stuff you refer to is not added to anything I would eat, so I have no opinion on it other than to agree it is probably best avoided. It really isn't that difficult.
 
The most important thing is "what works for you" I like eating crap but I have lost about 13kgs through exercise and the 5:2 diet, during the week I eat sensibly, usually no alcohol, and have a reduced calorie intake on Tuesday and Thursday. Weekend it's beer wine and a fried breakfast, crisps and chocolate? Why not?, its the weekend.
 
The most important thing is "what works for you"

Exactly. But I'm baffled about metabolic rates. They are supposed to be the same for everyone. Yet I eat 50% (not kidding, no snacks though) more than most people I know and I'm not overweight. I exercise, but the calories burnt are not very big. It seems to annoy some people.
 


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