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"The standardized United States Product Insert says Abilify's method of action is "unknown" but it likely "balances" brain's neurotransmitters." The whole neur
by joesmo 12y ago
"The standardized United States Product Insert says Abilify's method of action is "unknown" but it likely "balances" brain's neurotransmitters."
The whole neurotransmitter imbalance hypothesis is itself not proven for Abilify or any other anti-depression drug (like SSRIs). At best, it is a guess since there is no way to measure levels of neurotransmitters in live subjects. At worst it is a lie. Regardless, the method of action is irrelevant if medicines work, but considering the efficacy of such drugs (not very good) and their frequency of prescription (very high) it's not surprising that the medical industry would work so hard to push an unproven theory as fact simply to sell more drugs.
- ajarmst 12y agoNot only is it not proven for <insert drug here>, it's not even a useful hypothesis in the scientific sense. No one has ever proposed a useful model of the "chemical balance" that is hypothesized to be "imbalanced", so the whole theory is a non-sequitur. It is proposed because the more accurate explanation of "this is a powerful drug that introduces long-term changes to the structure of your brain. A few cherry-picked studies funded by pharmaceutical companies seem to show that there might be some short term amelioration of your symptoms. We have no idea how it works, but that's not surprising, as we have no idea why you have your disorder, or what it is other than a particular constellation of symptoms. We won't find out in the near future, because there's really no money being invested in finding out the ultimate causes for mental illness or in studying the long term effects of these treatments." doesn't get you invited to the really nice pharma-sponsored conferences.