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Is Depression a Disease?

Questions

What is it so difficult to agree on whether Depression is a disease?

What is wrong?

Should it be so complicated?

Why can't it be simpler?

What can be done to close the gap of differences?

What is the key and thing to bring home after the debate?
 
Cause of depression. Stress. The longer you are depressed, the harder it is to beat. The more you are stressed with no reprieve, the higher the chances that you will get depressed. Factor in a person't tolerance to stress and knowledge on how to deal with it, and it is almost impossible to predict who will get clinically depressed. Then factor in those with anxiety already, and the poor brain can suffer some permanent damage.

Your brain + stress = effect.

This old analogy of mine: Bang your knee, and stop. You might get a bruise. Continuously bang your knee nonstop and you will eventually get permanent damage. Your brain can suffer a permanent chemical imbalance. It is chemicals that cause the minor case of blues or full blown depression.

We are also seeing that "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" is not the case here. The more damage that is done, the less tolerance you have to stress.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=35249

Yes, I know that having had depression doesn't make me an expert, but I've had to learn all I can.

I just wish I knew how to manage stress instead of making things worse. Then maybe I could have been spared years of wallowing in hell.

I did eventually learn, and do accept that depression can be managed as a disease.

"Years of research has told us that people do become sensitized to stress and that this sensitization actually alters physical patterns in the brain," says Seymour Levine, Ph.D., of the University of Delaware. "That means that once sensitized, the body just does not respond to stress the same way in the future. We may produce too many excitatory chemicals or too few calming ones; either way we are responding inappropriately."

...Unfortunately, when stresses become routine, the constant biochemical pounding takes its toll on the body; the system starts to wear out at an accelerated rate.
Click to expand...

I will testify to this.

One way it can be managed, if the brain cannot mend on its own with stress management and psychotherapy alone, is with drugs. That again is an argument that depression is a disease, right? The drugs can act as a bandaid to allow the brain time to heal, or it may have to be a permanent solution in severest cases. The drugs are rather useless without behavorial change if that is what is causing some of the depression - by putting unnecessary stress on the brain.

I do recommend reading all the pages of the article to get the full explanation. I've read books on it, so a few pages of reading will help if one hasn't much experience with it.

Stress management is a personal discovery. One thing that works for one person may not help another at all. Live and learn.
 
Jyera said:
See here a debate on the topic
"Is Depression a Disease?"

Interesting debate.
http://www.szasz.com/isdepressionadiseasetranscript.pdf

What do you think ?
Click to expand...

Depression is an illness.

It seems to be a physiological condition, because it responds to treatment with drugs.

It's probably inherited.

For it to be a disease, there would have to be an etiology, and nobody has come up with one that works most of the time. "Chemical imbalance," being a folk diagnosis, does not cut it.

Szasz has effectively become a shill for Scientology.
 
Re: Re: Is Depression a Disease?

epepke said:
Depression is an illness.

It seems to be a physiological condition, because it responds to treatment with drugs.

It's probably inherited.

For it to be a disease, there would have to be an etiology, and nobody has come up with one that works most of the time. "Chemical imbalance," being a folk diagnosis, does not cut it.
Click to expand...

A lot of what has to do with getting depression is most likely inherited, especially one's stress tolerance. The other part is what can be learned to prevent depression. One can recognize their tolerance level, but most people need some idea that this is even possible.

Okay, dopamine imbalance then, along with some other chemicals. Read the article for specifics.
 
Re: Re: Is Depression a Disease?

epepke said:
Depression is an illness.

It seems to be a physiological condition, because it responds to treatment with drugs.

It's probably inherited.

For it to be a disease, there would have to be an etiology, and nobody has come up with one that works most of the time. "Chemical imbalance," being a folk diagnosis, does not cut it.

Szasz has effectively become a shill for Scientology.
Click to expand...

This business about lack of etiology is not anywhere near 100% true. Your opinion, being uninformed, does not cut it. Depression can be caused by malnutrition or alcohol abuse, each resulting in a niacin deficiency, causing a problem known as pellagra. The diagnosis of pellagra is three or four "D"'s, one of which is... wait for it.... depression. It can be treated by changing to a second world diet, or simply supplementing with niacin (in amounts so large that they would make someone without the condition extremely uncomfortable). Brewer's yeast supplementation was found to be an effective treatment in the U.S. south in the early twentieth century.
 
Okay, more complete now. If diet and drug abuse are not in the picture, then the explanation does come down to behaviour and stress management.

Add self medicating to a depressed person (in the form of alcohol and drug abuse), and you exacerbate matters even more.

So malnutrition, alcohol and drug abuse can lead to depression, and depression can often end up in people using drugs and alcohol which can then lead to malnutrition as they neglect to take care of themselves.

Rather a horrible cycle when entering neglecting or abusing your body to the equation.
 
Re: Re: Re: Is Depression a Disease?

Eos of the Eons said:
Okay, dopamine imbalance then, along with some other chemicals. Read the article for specifics.
Click to expand...

The best that I have found is that some serotonin receptors in depressed patients are more numerous than and smaller than receptors in normal patients. (Of course, you have to wait until they're dead to get their brains out, which may produce some bias.) If this is confirmed, which to the best of my knowledge hasn't happened yet, it would imply an anatomical difference. Dopamine is probably implicated, too, but its role is uncertain.

You and I have crossed before on this topic, and I remember your calling me a liar. I maintain the same stance now. It may well turn out that depressed patients, due to whatever physiological or anatomical condition, may require more free serotonin than so-called "normal" patients, just as manic-depressives may benefit from having more than normal amounts of lithium in their systems.
 
Without considering the dictionary definition of "disease" , "illness"; and without checking what these "jargon"/words means to scientists, doctors ;
my layman analysis and understanding comes to this...

To be ill, is to be sick.
Being ill and Illness is a condition describing a person's condition, often with the understanding the person is suffering.

A disease is something we are afraid to catch.
It means it is communicable.
Usually transmitted via virus or germ or human bodily fluid upon close contact.

I think the above it comes close to epepke's logic.

In addition, I think that ...

Depression, is not communicable, thus it is not a disease.
 
Jyera said:
A disease is something we are afraid to catch.
It means it is communicable.
Usually transmitted via virus or germ or human bodily fluid upon close contact.
Click to expand...

I think there can be inherited diseases, but for something to be called a disease, I think it has to have an etiology, that is, a fairly clear causal agent. Otherwise, it's an illness, or a syndrome, or a disorder, or something else. Scurvy is a disease, but it isn't communicable. It's a disease because there's a fairly clear cause.

It's not really a judgement to declare depression not a disease, just a way of keeping the word "disease" to mean something.
 
Zombified said:
I could introduce you to a couple of ex-girlfriends, but you wouldn't thank me...
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Nonsense to suggest that depression is communicable! :) but then again, it borders on being paranormal to suggest that your ex-girlfriends could telepathically make me have depression.

If I'm $1mill wealthier and have a couple of new girlfriends.
:) I think I won't mind.
 
Zombified said:
I could introduce you to a couple of ex-girlfriends, but you wouldn't thank me...
Click to expand...

That's more likely to be Borderline Personality Disorder, which is much more powerful than depression.
 
Hi Eos,

I have not had depression before.
So I'm interested to know your opinion if it make any difference
to you if "Is Depression a Disease" or not?
 
Re: Re: Re: Is Depression a Disease?

TeaBag420 said:
This business about lack of etiology is not anywhere near 100% true. Your opinion, being uninformed, does not cut it. Depression can be caused by malnutrition or alcohol abuse, each resulting in a niacin deficiency, causing a problem known as pellagra.
Click to expand...

Pellagra as the etiology of depression? Surely you jest, unless you're just plain stupid. Living in the South, I've known a fair number of pellagra-boys. They don't seem to have a tendency toward depression, though some of them are sociopaths.
 
epepke said:
That's more likely to be Borderline Personality Disorder, which is much more powerful than depression.
Click to expand...
Well, I was joking. I do know somebody diagnosed with BPD, and that is a very serious thing, much worse than ordinary depression. Not to minimize the seriousness of depression.

And I never said anything about telepathy. :p
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Is Depression a Disease?

epepke said:
Pellagra as the etiology of depression? Surely you jest, unless you're just plain stupid. Living in the South, I've known a fair number of pellagra-boys. They don't seem to have a tendency toward depression, though some of them are sociopaths.
Click to expand...

No, asshat, I'm not jesting nor am I stupid, just well-informed. I also have reading skills adequate to the task. Let me point out that I did not say "the etiology". That's something you made up while you were tuning your banjo. Depression is indeed one of the diagnostic signs of pellagra, and if you don't like it, too bad.
 
I am wondering what the point of this argument is.

Let's assume depression is a psychological condition. It has inheritable tendencies. It is difficult to diagnose. It has measurable effects on the body. Sometimes it can be caused by environment. Sometime it spontaneously remisses. Sometime drugs cure it. We should research it and find more causes and cures.

Let's assume it is a disease. What changes?

CBL
 
I'd like to say my depression was an illness because when I'd hit those times it was like the regular person was folded up and put away until it was over.

It wasn't the kind that could be medicated though (tremors, anxiety, cleaning kitchens to spotless at 3AM, hyperacuteness, other fun side effects). Essentially the cure became, "Oh I am not having this from me or anyone else." + brief stay in hospital which is another fun and very aggravating story.

Even at the usual time I'd have a bout of major depression (every three falls), I didn't have this time.

I suspect in my case it was a disease, but only one in my head.
 
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