> It is not magic and does not work in every case,
That is exactly what they are saying in the study. No better than placebo means Ketamine does not cure depression. If ketamine cured depression it would work in every case.
Increasing serotonin receptor density trough Ketamine use may relieve depression, but so can being cared for.
Your beliefs do not matter, biology matters. And it may in fact be that your "strong beliefs" in ketamine are why it helps you.
Something can be effective, especially more effective than a placebo, without being a cure. We have many "treatments" for all sorts of illnesses where the treatment isn't a cure. SSRIs for depression are a treatment, not a cure, just as one example. Hell, even Nyquil is a treatment for symptoms without being a cure.
When it comes to mental health we also have these big umbrella categories (depression, schizophrenia) that are made up of groups of illnesses. Schizophrenia has so many different causes, and thus different treatments, that viewing it as a single illness can actually be problematic.
Anyways, my point is that what you're saying makes no sense at all.
I don't have a position on the paper (I haven't even read it), but this statement you just made seems unjustified:
> If ketamine cured depression it would work in every case.
Depression can have many different causes, and people have many different biological variables, so it should not be surprising that a given treatment isn't 100% effective.
There are many example of this in the real world. With your logic, one might say: the sars covid-19 virus doesn't cause illness because some exposed people showed no symptoms. The families of the dead people would disagree.
Then why this singular focus on ketamine and psychedelics all the sudden? If it has many different causes why focus on activating a single serotonin receptor?
> and people have many different biological variables, so it should not be surprising that a given treatment isn't 100% effective.
Yes, and that is why we need to stop recommending mediation to people without knowing/researching the cause of each individuals depression. Why is there such limited nutritional and genetic testing on people with severe depression?
> With your logic, one might say: the sars covid-19 virus doesn't cause illness because some exposed people showed no symptoms. The families of the dead people would disagree.
If SARS2 does not cause illness in me that is all I care about. And if it does not cause illness in me you should all be interested in me.
> Then why this singular focus on ketamine and psychedelics all the sudden? If it has many different causes why focus on activating a single serotonin receptor?
Because it does work really well for a lot of people for whom other things don't work really well. Why would that be controversial?
No, in fact it does not "work well for a lot of people" as the study found. I am not making it controversial, you are, by denying what they found in the paper.
What you are really hearing is the massive marketing that is flooding the airwaves so some corporations can make a profit off of sick people and when it does not work they can say "Oh well" and walk away with the money and all you get is rebound depression.
Erm... you realize this isn't the first study on ketamine, right?
This is one study, that has not yet been peer-reviewed, that explicitly acknowledged the study design could be subject to significant subject-expectancy bias, using one particular treatment regimen, with a treatment group of ~20 people. At most, this study tells us that we have more to learn about what's going on and why we see significant effects. Both groups did see significant effects relative to base rates that are unlikely to be random even at that small sample size! Funny how you've come to radically different conclusions on the findings than the scientists themselves.
I am actually only vaguely aware of the marketing around this -- I've been following this space for about a decade and have read quite a few studies around it. Even if this study is generalizable and ketamine is no more effective at treating depression than the idea that ketamine will have an effect in treating the depression (placebo), we know from the evidence that it's having a significant effect relative to simple regression to the mean (depressed people simply getting less depressed without treatment). If it's a placebo, it's a powerful placebo, and placebo effects that are effective aren't a bad thing.
The FDA does not approve medicine based on beliefs.
I am sharing my personal perspective, alongside the fact that controlled studies have proven it is one of the most effective treatments known to exist.
Nobody thinks ketamine cures depression, it is one treatment.
That is exactly what they are saying in the study. No better than placebo means Ketamine does not cure depression. If ketamine cured depression it would work in every case.
Increasing serotonin receptor density trough Ketamine use may relieve depression, but so can being cared for.
Your beliefs do not matter, biology matters. And it may in fact be that your "strong beliefs" in ketamine are why it helps you.