How human are we - actually?

What does this mean? Take bacteria for instance. They “work” in a symbiotic relationship with all life forms. To understand the significance of this we’ll need to go back in time – just a tad. Like three billion years (3 billion years) to when there were no recognizable life forms on earth, only a primordial ocean “soup”. Simply put, this soup contained a huge variety of bacteria (never mind where they came from – no one really knows).

Now, return to present times and follow me – it was from out of that primordial “soup” that life (as we understand it) developed. Furthermore – just to put things in perspective – the human body consists of somewhere between 30 and 80 trillion cells (no one is quite sure – it depends on the method of measurement used – volume or weight). But the number of bacteria in the human gut exceeds this by a ratio variously estimated at about 3:1. That’s right, there are estimated to be about 3 times more gut bacteria than cells in our body. Similarly, while the human genome has about 20 000 genes the gut biome has many, many times this – variously estimated at about 150 times this number.

Never forget, too, that we rely on out gut bacteria for our nutrition. Furthermore many different chemicals such as the brain chemical serotonin and many enzymes are produced in our gut. In fact without our gut bacteria we wouldn’t survive. They help digest everything we eat by reducing it to an easily absorbed form, which is then transferred to our blood affecting not only our metabolism but also our moods. 

But the bacteria need us too – to feed them!

So now, because of the symbiotic relationship between us and them (and don't forget we are inextricably linked to all the Earth’s life forms through our bacterial ancestry) consider this scenario:-

Bacteria were here first – we (and all life forms) developed from the original primordial bacterial soup. Therefore, are we just a useful host for bacteria to live in – in our case, our gut biome (recall, there are more of them than cells in our body)? Remember also they get fed at regular intervals, interact with us via the vagus nerve – which connects the gut with the brain (in fact our gut may be considered our “second” brain as there are about 150 million neurons lining the intestines). This “communication”, travelling both ways along the vagus nerve, tells the brain “I’m hungry” or “I’m full” or “I don’t feel well” and then there is that mysterious “gut feeling” that “tells” us to do or not do something. Increasingly researchers are discovering links between our gut bacteria and our general health - physical, emotional and mental.

The food we eat affects our gut bacteria (negatively or positively) and in doing so, they affect our health and our moods (also negatively or positively).

So, how human are we - actually? 

  

Pharma-psychology – is it faith based medicine?

I know this is an inflammatory question – but it still needs an answer, is pharma-psychology, the treatment of mental problems by drugs alone - based on faith – pharmaceutical faith? The medicines, the pharmaceutical drugs that have been developed for use in situations when a person’s mind is deemed to be unhinged or they are behaving in a manner considered to be “abnormal”, work up to a point. But no one (psychiatrists, psychologists, neuro-scientists, pharmacologists et al) knows WHY or HOW they work or what the long-term effects of continuous use are. They are adopting a “suck it and see” approach with people’s brains (and minds) – they are in effect using the affected people as guinea-pigs - which I think is both appalling and unethical.

While I have no faith (that word again) in statistics they are useful up to a point, in generalisations. So, generally, if one considers the commonly used Prozac - the results, compared to a placebo (a “sugar pill”), show that only about 50% of people who take the drug appear to benefit. Up to 33% suffer side effects – ranging from insomnia to reduced libido – that is 33 people out of every 100 who take Prozac. This is an astonishing result – so why use them?

In spite of what the pharmaceutical companies would like us to believe, while antidepressants such as Prozac do increase serotonin levels in the brain, this doesn’t mean that depression is caused by a shortage of serotonin. After all, paracetamol may reduce the unpleasant effects of a headache, but this doesn’t mean that a headache is caused by a deficiency of paracetamol!

The truth is that researchers know very little about how antidepressants work. A test that can measure the amount of serotonin in the living brain has yet to be developed. There is no way to even know what a “normal” level of serotonin is, let alone a low level, and it has yet to be shown if or how medication corrects these levels.

Many studies contradict the chemical imbalance theory of depression. Experiments have shown that lowering people’s serotonin levels doesn’t always lower mood, or worsen symptoms for those already depressed. And, furthermore, while some types of antidepressants may raise serotonin levels within hours, it takes weeks before the medication is able to (apparently) relieve depression. If a deficiency in serotonin actually causes depression, this time lag would not exist.

Also it is essential to be aware that the side effects of these drugs, without exception, are unpleasant – in fact some drugs (i.e. lithium) are positively lethal. It is very important to first read the warnings printed on the document inside every box of any medication.

It may be hard to believe but with some people there is the danger that a total reliance on antidepressant medication may cause an increase, rather than a decrease, in depression and with it, an increased risk of suicide. While this is particularly true of children and young adults on antidepressant medication, anyone taking antidepressants should be closely watched for suicidal thoughts and associated behaviour. The suicide risk is particularly great during the first few months of antidepressant treatment.

So, again, why use the stuff in the first place? It is important to recall the fact that no behaviour or misbehaviour (however aberrant - Alzheimer’s and Huntingdon’s accepted) can be categorised as a disease – in spite of the fact that many people now use the term “mental illness”. If you’re suffering from depression, antidepressant medication, used under the guidance of a mental health professional, may relieve, temporarily, some of your symptoms. But antidepressants aren’t a silver bullet for depression. Medication doesn’t cure the underlying problem and is rarely a long-term solution. As mentioned above there are real questions about their effectiveness and the many profound and disturbing side effects.

So to get back to my original question – is the exclusive use of medication to treat mental disturbances based on a faith in pharma-psychology? I believe it is. I also believe this faith is based on a flawed interpretation of the causes and the many issues associated with mental health. It is a false faith and is doing incalculable long term harm to many people.