Without some sources, I remain a bit skeptical that any old cocktail of chemicals will interact in a way to cause the whole spectrum of mental or mood disorders

Without some sources, I remain a bit skeptical that any old cocktail of chemicals will interact in a way to cause the whole spectrum of mental or mood disorders we are seeing. It is hard to refute with authority as this is just such a sweeping statement that encompasses most everything around us. I believe there are some indications that it is not that accurate: firstly, depression and anxiety disorders as well as schizophrenia have probably been described in ancient times (of course with a very different wording) and in different regions of the world. Second: if you look at this chart (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Share_of_the_population_reporting_that_they_had_chronic_depression,_2014_(%25)_HLTH18_II.png https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...), and squint a bit, you can see depression tends to be more frequent in rich, northern European countries like Ireland, Germany, Finland, Sweden than poor, southern countries like Greece or Cyprus. Public awareness is a probable confounding factor, but it could still be that the amount of daylight and outdoor activity is helping in the South, even though living conditions are objectively worse as are environmental standards. It could also be related to social media use (correlation with this: https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm) but this is a very recent phenomenon, so I doubt it is the causal reason.