I hate these articles because they imply that anti-depressants aren’t useful (“just excercise more!”). In my personal experience, having had about 20 years of depression and suicidal ideation since I was a child, nothing worked until I finally was on venlafaxine. That drug seriously saved and transformed my life, and I hate that there are people that will read this article for whom it might be the only treatment that will work for them, but they’ll try excercise, not get better, and blame themselves because they always could have exercised more.
Depression is a symptom of likely different hidden diseases, and some treatments will only work for some of them. That’s why it’s not uncommon for patients to need to try multiple medications before finding one that treats their underlying disease (for example, the first drug I tried, wellbutrin, actually exaccerbated my depression).
Likely excercise can be a successful treatment for some people, but it won’t work for everyone, and a headline that says it’s as effective as medication fails to communicate that that’s averaged across a population. Just like how a typical anti-depressant is only somewhat effective (amazing for some, nothing for others), I imagine exercise is the same.
The title says they’re just as effective as excercise. The only way to intrepret this as saying medication isn’t useful is if you think excercise isn’t useful either.
I hate these articles because they imply that anti-depressants aren’t useful (“just excercise more!”). In my personal experience, having had about 20 years of depression and suicidal ideation since I was a child, nothing worked until I finally was on venlafaxine. That drug seriously saved and transformed my life, and I hate that there are people that will read this article for whom it might be the only treatment that will work for them, but they’ll try excercise, not get better, and blame themselves because they always could have exercised more.
Depression is a symptom of likely different hidden diseases, and some treatments will only work for some of them. That’s why it’s not uncommon for patients to need to try multiple medications before finding one that treats their underlying disease (for example, the first drug I tried, wellbutrin, actually exaccerbated my depression).
Likely excercise can be a successful treatment for some people, but it won’t work for everyone, and a headline that says it’s as effective as medication fails to communicate that that’s averaged across a population. Just like how a typical anti-depressant is only somewhat effective (amazing for some, nothing for others), I imagine exercise is the same.
The title says they’re just as effective as excercise. The only way to intrepret this as saying medication isn’t useful is if you think excercise isn’t useful either.
It can be used in a “why do you take meds when you could just as well exercise instead, it’s just as useful” way.