Recent headlines flashed the news that a major review article had found “no clear evidence” that low serotonin levels cause depression and called into question whether taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants is worthwhile.
However, many experts were not surprised that low serotonin levels are not the sole cause of depression, and many do not agree with the conclusion that serotonin has no role in depression at all. Depression is a heterogeneous disorder, both in terms of causes and symptoms. That makes it unlikely there is a single treatment for depression that is effective for all patients, but that doesn’t mean that existing treatments are ineffective for everyone.
Experts caution that patients should not stop taking SSRIs and that this new evidence does not negate findings from randomized controlled trials of thousands of depressed people that have definitively demonstrated that SSRIs and other antidepressant drugs are effective in treating depression.
Read more at Psychology Today