#336 Whether Antidepressants Actually Work and the Myth of Serotonin Imbalance | Professor Joanna Moncrieff
The Doctor's Kitchen Podcast
Dr Rupy Aujla
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today we’re having an uncomfortable but very necessary conversation about antidepressants and the theory that these drugs work for those with depression by correcting imbalanced chemicals in their brain.
Our guest to discuss this topic is Joanna Moncrieff, a Professor of Psychiatry at University College London, and works as a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS. She is author of numerous scientific papers including a major review that showed there was little evidence to support the idea that depression is caused by a serotonin abnormality. Her most recent book "Chemically Imbalanced: the making and unmaking of the serotonin myth” is what we’re going to be discussing today.
This was a complete eye opener for me. For years I believed in the pharmaceutical washed message that antidepressants worked because of a genuine brain chemical imbalance that we corrected with medications. This is not proven.
Today we’ll discuss over-use and misrepresentation of psychiatric drugs in the public sphere, the changing philosophy of mental health and how we got to a point where over 8 million people in the UK use antidepressants.
We discuss what serotonin is, how we measure it in the body, why the imbalance theory is inconclusive, whether antidepressants have good evidence that they work and their many side effects.
I want to make it clear that this episode is not meant to shame or belittle anyone on medications for mental health, but provide accurate information about how we can safely treat these problems and offer informed consent weighing up the pros and cons of medications like antidepressants. The use of these medications has well recognised withdrawal and dependency effects and should not be stopped without strict supervision of your medical practitioner.
We’ve also linked to the Maudsley deprescribing guidelines here in the show notes for practitioners educating themselves on how to do this with their patients.
Website: https://joannamoncrieff.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today we're going to have an uncomfortable conversation, but very necessary one about antidepressants |
| 0:06.4 | and the theory that these drugs work for depression by correcting imbalanced chemicals in our brains. |
| 0:16.8 | Hi, I'm Dr. Rupi. I'm a medical doctor and nutritionist. And when I suffered a heart condition |
| 0:22.3 | years ago, I was able to reverse it with diet and lifestyle. This opened up my eyes to the world |
| 0:28.9 | of food as medicine to improve our health. On this podcast, I discuss ways in which you can use |
| 0:35.7 | nutrition and lifestyle to improve your own well-being every day. |
| 0:39.3 | I speak with expert guests and we lean into the science, but whilst making it as practical |
| 0:44.5 | and as easy as possible so you can take steps to change your life today. Welcome to the |
| 0:50.8 | Doctor's Kitchen podcast. |
| 1:02.5 | Our guest to discuss this topic today is Joanna Moncrief. |
| 1:07.4 | She is a professor of psychiatry at University College London and works as a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS. |
| 1:08.9 | And she is author of numerous scientific papers including |
| 1:12.5 | a major review that showed there was little evidence to support the idea that depression is |
| 1:19.2 | caused by a serotonin abnormality. Her most recent book, Chemically Imbalanced, The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin myth is what we're going to be discussing today. |
| 1:31.1 | Now, |
| 1:31.3 | this was a complete eye-opener for me. |
| 1:33.1 | For years, |
| 1:33.7 | I believed in the pharmaceutical washed message that antidepressants worked because of a genuine |
| 1:40.3 | brain chemical imbalance that we corrected with medications. |
| 1:48.0 | This is not proven. Today, we'll discuss overuse and misrepresentation of psychiatric drugs in the public sphere, the changing |
| 1:55.0 | philosophy of mental health and how we got to a point where over 8 million people in the UK |
| 2:01.4 | alone use antidepressants. |
... |
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