771 - Serotonin and Depression: That New Study Isn't What You Think
Dr. Ruscio Radio, DC: Health, Nutrition and Functional Healthcare
Dr. Michael Ruscio, DC
4.6 • 804 Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2022
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
A recent study showing that serotonin and depression are not linked has seemingly set the world ablaze, and it is quickly changing the conversation around mental health. However, there's more to the story. Let's look at exactly what serotonin is and how it works, the validity of this new serotonin research, and what this means for treating depression moving forward. (Hint: the study did NOT show that any therapies or treatments modulating serotonin, like Saint John's Wart or SSRIs, are therefore ineffective)
https://drruscio.com/serotonin-and-depression
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Dr. Rousho Radio, providing practical and science-based solutions to feeling your best. |
| 0:15.4 | To stay up to date on the latest topics, as well as all of our prior episodes, make sure to subscribe in your podcast player. |
| 0:22.9 | For weekly updates, visit Dr. Ruscio.com. That's d r-R-R-U-S-C-I-O.com. |
| 0:30.6 | The following discussion is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. |
| 0:39.6 | Please do not apply any of this information without first speaking with your doctor. Now, let's head to the show. Seratona levels do not correlate |
| 0:46.5 | with depression. Hi, this is Dr. Mike Roushaw, and you've likely heard of this recent study that found |
| 0:52.8 | no correlation between serotonin levels and depression. |
| 0:56.9 | However, this study has been miscontextualized, so let's break down this study, what it found, |
| 1:04.4 | and most importantly, how the results of this study change the way we think about treatment of depression. |
| 1:12.9 | Okay, so the study was published in the Journal of Molecular Psychiatry and it found that there |
| 1:21.6 | was no correlation between serotonin and depression. Was this a good study? |
| 1:29.1 | It was an excellent study. |
| 1:38.0 | As an umbrella meta-analysis, it's probably the best data point that we have that will examine the totality of the evidence of serotonin and depression. |
| 1:42.5 | What is an umbrella meta-analysis? Well, if you have a clinical trial, |
| 1:48.9 | that clinical trial can be summarized into a metanalysis. So if there were, let's say, |
| 1:54.8 | 10 clinical trials, those clinical trials can then be summarized into one meta-analysis and what the |
| 2:02.7 | meta-analysis does is it allows you to see what is the aggregate finding from those 10 |
| 2:09.7 | clinical trials but what if there's a vast body of literature and let's say there's hundreds |
| 2:17.2 | and hundreds and hundreds of clinical trials. |
| 2:20.7 | Therefore, there might be dozens of different meta-analyses. Is there a way for us to take all |
| 2:28.6 | of those meta-analyses, summarize the meta-analyses, into an umbrella meta-analysis. So this is what an umbrella |
| 2:36.2 | meta-analysis is, and why a umbrella men-analysis is such a compelling piece of data. |
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