Posted by seldomseen on January 21, 2009, at 8:35:53
In reply to Re: Risk of sudden death? » yxibow, posted by Trans-Human on January 21, 2009, at 7:45:34
In reality, you may be exactly right. A chemical imbalance may NOT be the *cause* of ANY mental illness.
However, IMO that unknown does not preclude a chemical-based *treatment* of it.
I'm not trying to convince you in any way, but would ask that you consider, as an example, angina and its treatment with nitroglycerine.
Nitroglycerine is converted to nitric oxide in the blood. This nitric oxide is an extremely potent vaso-dilator, so it dilates the blood vessels in the heart (and elsewhere), helps to restore blood flow and relieves the symptoms of angina.
Now, IMO there is very little convincing direct evidence that nitric oxide levels are lower in the blood vessels of patients with angina. Nitric Oxide is a very transiently formed gas that is metabolized almost immediately upon its formation. At present there is no standardized measure of nitric oxide levels directly in patients. In fact, most of the nitric oxide literature is based on inference, yet, clearly this gas has therapeutic benefit.
Nitric Oxide may or may not target the *cause* of angina, but it certainly treats the symptoms and has saved many many lives.
It may be that mental illness follows a similar paradigm and that all these drugs are treating the symptoms and not the cause of mental illness.
So I guess the questions we should be asking are (1) "do these psychiatric medications have therapeutic benefit?" In some patients they clearly do and (2) Do they target the underlying cause of mental illenss? Don't know.
Seldom.
poster:seldomseen
thread:874659
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/875262.html