According to a comprehensive review of previous research conducted under the direction of researchers at the University College London (UCL), there is still no conclusive evidence that serotonin activity or levels are the cause of depression.
The major new umbrella review, which provides an overview of previous systematic reviews and meta-analyses, was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. It raises questions about the effectiveness of antidepressant medications and suggests that depression is not likely brought on by a chemical imbalance.
This is due to the fact that the majority of antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which were originally thought to work by raising serotonin levels above normal. In point of fact, there is no other recognized pharmacological mechanism through which antidepressants influence depression symptoms.
Lead creator Teacher Joanna, a Teacher of Psychiatry at UCL and an expert specialist at North East London NHS Establishment Trust (N-E L F T), said: It's always hard to prove a negative, but I think we can safely say that, despite decades of research, there is no convincing evidence that serotonin abnormalities, particularly low levels or reduced activity, are the root cause of depression.
The use of antidepressants has skyrocketed in tandem with the widespread acceptance of the "chemical imbalance" theory of depression. Since the 1990s, the number of antidepressant prescriptions has skyrocketed, with one in six adults in England and 2% of teenagers receiving one in a given year.
This new research suggests that the belief that depression has a biochemical cause is not supported by evidence, which is why many people take antidepressants
The goal of this all-encompassing review was to include all relevant studies in the most important areas of research on serotonin and depression. Tens of thousands of people took part in the research that is included in the review.
There were no significant differences found between participants in healthy control (comparison) studies and those who had been diagnosed with depression in the levels of serotonin and its breakdown products in the blood or brain fluids.
Studies on serotonin receptors and the serotonin transporter, the protein targeted by the majority of antidepressants, revealed weak and inconsistent evidence suggesting higher levels of serotonin activity in depression patients. Be that as it may, the researchers say the discoveries are reasonable made sense of by the utilization of antidepressants among individuals determined to have melancholy, since such impacts were not dependably precluded
The scientists likewise researched examinations where serotonin levels were misleadingly brought down in many individuals by denying their eating regimens of the amino corrosive expected to make serotonin. These studies have been cited as supporting the connection between depression and a lack of serotonin.
However, a 2007 meta-analysis and a selection of more recent studies demonstrated that this method of lowering serotonin did not result in depression in hundreds of healthy volunteers. A small subset of people with a family history of depression had very little evidence, but only 75 of them participated, and more recent evidence was inconclusive.
Gene variation, including the gene for the serotonin transporter, was the subject of some extremely large studies involving tens of thousands of patients. These genes were found to be identical in healthy controls and those with depression. These studies also looked at how stressful life events affected people's risk of depression.
They found that the more stressful life events a person had, the more likely it was that they would be depressed. A well-known early study found a link between the likelihood of depression, the type of serotonin transporter gene a person possessed, and stressful events. However, larger, more in-depth studies suggest that this was a false discovery
There is "no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations", researchers at Cardiff University have concluded. They found evidence from a large meta-analysis that people who used antidepressants had lower levels of serotonin in their blood and that long-term use reduces serotonin concentrations
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