Anatomy of an Epidemic
In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Every day, 1,100 adults and children are added to the government disability rolls because they have become newly disabled by mental illness, with this epidemic spreading most rapidly among our nation's children. What is going on? Anatomy of an Epidemic challenges readers to think through that question themselves. First, Whitaker investigates what is known today about the biological causes of mental disorders. Do psychiatric medications fix "chemical imbalances" in the brain, or do they, in fact, create them? Researchers spent decades studying that question, and by the late 1980s, they had their answer. Readers will be startledand dismayedto discover what was reported in the scientific journals. Then comes the scientific query at the heart of this book: During the past fifty years, when investigators looked at how psychiatric drugs affected long-term outcomes, what did they find? Did they discover that the drugs help people stay well? Function better? Enjoy good physical health? Or did they find that these medications, for some paradoxical reason, increase the likelihood that people will become chronically ill, less able to function well, more prone to physical illness?
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- Thanks for the quote. This was part of an essay, Cargo Cult Psychiatry, posted at the Mad in America Foundation's website: https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/06/cargo-cult-psychiatry/
I found Robert Whitaker's books invaluable for helping me understanding the mental health industry's mindset. Mad in America covered how the Quakers got much better results with their Asylums (safe place with 4 meals a day & activities) than modern techniques of lobotomy, ECT'ers and palliative prescriptions. Anatomy of an Epidemic makes the case that palliative psychiatric prescriptions take an episodic condition and make it chronic. Psychiatry Under the Influence chronicles how psychiatry got captured by the prescription drug cartel. Highly recommended.
The good news from the mental health world is that Chris Palmer, M.D. published Brain Energy [0] last year. I haven't read more than excerpts from google books [1]. My understanding is Dr. Palmer was a conventional palliative psychiatrist, then he had a patient whose schizophrenia improved on a ketogenic diet. The patient was able to discontinue antipsychotics: Dr. Palmer's mind was blown. Then he discovered the 70+ years of research establishing that mental health conditions are metabolic problems, and wrote a book.
-Chris Palmer, MD - https://twitter.com/ChrisPalmerMD/status/1687850270602981376Perhaps the most bold and disruptive aspect of Brain Energy is understanding precisely how and why medications that harm metabolism might reduce mental health symptoms. The long-term consequences are of great concern and require the urgent attention of the psychiatric community.Dr. Palmer recommends a ketogenic diet. I think most of the benefit of 'keto' stems from avoiding fortified flour: https://twitter.com/JamesKnochel/status/1595562197412851712
A lot of people are harmed by folic acid, and the iron and lack of fiber in fortified white flour is harmful for almost everyone, in that they disrupt the microbiome. Most people get adequate iron, and don't actually need iron filings ("reduced iron"); the fiber in whole wheat fiber feeds bacteria that make short-chain saturated fatty acids [2].
[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=FoxlEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT233&dq=B...
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4756104/
(edited to add [2] and some speculations on the mechanisms of harm of fortified white flour)
- I am a subscriber to the microbiome inflammasome hypothesis for major depression [0], so I wouldn't be surprised if a treatment course for depression in many people could be as simple as better dental hygiene + magnesium orotate + probiotic supplements. I've had my eye on studies linking schizophrenia with inflammatory cytokine markers, and it follows that other psychological conditions could have similar etiology and pathogenesis. Research on the influence of gut bacteria and intestinal dysbiosis on anxiety and depression has been coming out since at least 2013 [1].
After reading Robert Whitaker's 2010 Anatomy of an Epidemic [2], I'm convinced that future generations will look back on this era of psychiatric treatment with the same critical eye that our generation points at Moliere's 17th-century leeches or George Washington's personal doctor treating his strep throat with several blood-letting phlebotomies -- an absolute iatrogenic travesty. The overprescription of potentially mania-inducing antidepressants in children and teenagers is especially egregious to me. Add in the perverse incentives of profit-driven pharmaceutical companies, and you get issues like Zyprexa's 2009 class action lawsuit, for example [3].
For those looking for a readable introduction to the potential link between chronic inflammation and depression, there is The Inflamed Mind by Edward Bullmore from 2018 which did some rounds on talk shows and the like.
[0] https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30004130/
[1] https://sci-hub.st/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_an_Epidemic
[3] https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2009/January/09-civ-0...
- Robert Whitaker's "Anatomy of an Epidemic" for mental health / clinical psychology / psychiatry.
- Not only is the diagnostic framework a joke, it's the basis of immense amounts of iatrogenic harm [0]
[0] "Anatomy of An Epidemic", Robert Whittaker
- The decriminalization wave helped me find minds like Paul Stamets, Hamilton Morris, and Will Hall. Then I started asking more questions and found writers like Johan Harri, Michael Pollan, and Robert Whitaker. Following Whitaker's work after reading his Anatomy of an Epidemic, I also suggest watching the "Medicating Normal" movie.
- It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe the experience of severe clinical depression to anyone who has not had it. Gerald Russello's review of George Scialabba's book makes a valiant start.
For those who are not moved by this, and wonder to themselves why George didn't just take a pill, consider also reading another book, written in a different mood, mode, and format by Robert Whitaker, an American journalist and author, who writes primarily about medicine, science, and history.
Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7799587-anatomy-of-an-ep...
During the past fifty years, when investigators looked at how psychiatric drugs affected long-term outcomes, what did they find?
