Antidepressants have a role in clinical practice but they are grossly over-utilized. As a certified psychopharmacologist, practitioner of The Center for Whole Psychiatry + Brain Recovery (Functional Medicine and traditional psychiatry) and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown School of Medicine, I prescribe antidepressants, but only after a thorough multi-faceted evaluation of the patient.
We rely on drugs as a solution rather than deal with root causes of illness, and the pills generally are not as effective as we would be led to believe by the pharmaceutical companies (publically acknowledged as distorted in peer reviewed journals such as New England Journal of Medicine, Eric Turner, 2008). Nor are these drugs without financial costs and side effects. I suggest that the solution is to develop better assessments of the metabolic factors leading to the syndrome of depression. The psycho-social-spiritual risk factors are reasonably well spelled out, and we have excellent targeted psychotherapeutic techniques available now.
The fact that the head and brain are connected to the body by something called the neck may be relevant. In fact, there is a great deal of basic science and a good deal of clinical science indicating the very significant role played in subjective and objective mental health by at least six metabolic systems: nutrition, gastrointestinal physiology, immune/inflammatory/infectious processes, methylation processes, oxidative stress, and all hormonal systems. This list excludes other factors such as circulatory problems, physical-structural problems, age, gender, and lifestyle factors.
Assessing these metabolic systems, and their mediators in a careful comprehensive manner, and re-establishing multi-system reserves not only helps depression with less medication, but at the same time reduces the side effect burden imposed by medication, and reduces the incidence of known co-morbidities such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, sexual dysfunction. Psychopharmacology is only one small tool in our toolbox. As Confucius once said, “To do good work, one must first have good tools.” Anti-depressants are somewhat useful tools; they are just not the best or the only ones. We have other tools at our disposal. Why not use them?