Recent years have seen a shocking increase in antidepressant use the world over, with one in four women starting their day with medications.

These drugs have steadily become the panacea for everything from grief, irritability, and panic attacks to insomnia, PMS, and stress. But the truth is, what women (and everyone else) really need can’t be found at a pharmacy.

Antidepressants not only overpromise and under-deliver, but their use may permanently disable the body’s self-healing potential. We need a new paradigm: the best way to heal the mind is to heal the whole body. The true cause of depression is not simply a chemical imbalance, but rather a lifestyle crisis that demands a reset. It is a signal that the interconnected systems in the body are out of balance— from blood sugar to gut health to thyroid function—and inflammation is at the root.

Conventional medicine has built a mythology around the causes and treatment of depression. However, based on published medical findings, as well as years of experience in my clinical practice, Here are the Facts:

• Depression is often an inflammatory condition, a manifestation of irregularities in the body that can start far away from the brain and are not associated with the simplistic model of so-called “chemical imbalances.”
  
  
• In 6 decades, not a single study has proven that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. There has never been a human study that validates low serotonin levels as the cause of depression. Imaging studies, blood and urine tests, post-mortem suicide assessments, and even animal research have never validated the link between neurotransmitter levels and depression.
  
  
• Antidepressants have the potential to irreversibly disable the body’s natural healing mechanisms. Antidepressants have repeatedly been shown in longterm scientific studies to worsen the course of mental illness—in addition to risks of impulsivity, suicide, agitation, liver damage, bleeding, weight gain, sexual dysfunction, and reduced cognitive function they entail.
  
  
• Studies have shown that they are among the most difficult drugs to taper from, more so than alcohol and opiates. While you might call it “going through withdrawal,” medical professionals have been instructed to call it “discontinuation syndrome,” or label it a “relapse” of previous symptoms. A grassroots movement demands attention to the struggle with antidepressant withdrawal, which is characterized by fiercely debilitating physical and psychological reactions.

See: Can long-term treatment with antidepressant drugs worsen the course of depression? Fava, G. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 64 (2003):123-33.

Also see: Discontinuing antidepressant treatment in major depression. Viguera, A. Harvard Review of Psychiatry 5 (1998): 293-305.

Also see: Efficacy and Effectiveness of Antidepressants. Pigott, H. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 79 (2010), 267-279.

Also see: Blue Again: Perturbational Effects of Antidepressants Suggest Monoaminergic Homeostasis in Major Depression. Andrews, P. Frontiers in Evolutional Psychiatry 2 (2011): 159.

• Antidepressants have a well-established history of causing violent side effects, including suicide and homicide. Five of the top 10 most violence-inducing drugs have been found to be antidepressants.
  
  
• Almost three-quarters of the antidepressant prescriptions are written without a specific diagnosis. Most are doled out by family doctors—not psychiatrists, with seven percent of all visits to a primary care doctor ending with an antidepressant prescription.
  
  
• When the Department of Mental Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health did its own examination into the prevalence of mental disorders, it found that most people who take antidepressants never meet the medical criteria for a bona fide diagnosis of major depression, and many who are given antidepressants for things like OCD, panic disorder, social phobia, and anxiety also don’t qualify as actually having these conditions.
  
  
• The Great Pretenders. Many different physical conditions create psychiatric symptoms but aren’t themselves “psychiatric.” Two prime examples: dysfunctioning thyroid and blood sugar chaos. We think we need to “cure” the brain, but in reality we need to look at the whole body’s ecosystem: intestinal health, hormonal interactions, the immune system and autoimmune disorders, blood sugar balance, and toxicant exposure.
  
  
• The field of psychiatry has known about the role of the immune system in the onset of depression for the better part of the last century. But only recently have we really begun to understand the relevant connections thanks to better technology and large, long-term studies that reveal just how impactful the relationships are among immunity, inflammation, gut flora, and mental health. This field of study is called psychoneuroimmunology and it breaks down old barriers between seemingly discrete areas of the body.
  
  
• Gut health—especially the state of the intestinal microbiome—is inextricably linked to mental health.
  
  
• Basic lifestyle interventions can facilitate the body’s powerful self-healing mechanisms to end depression: dietary modifications (more healthy fats and less inflammation-inducing sugar, dairy, GMOs, and gluten); natural supplements like B vitamins and probiotics that don’t require a prescription and can even be delivered through certain foods; minimizing exposures to biology-disrupting toxicants like fluoride in tap water, chemicals in common drugs like NSAIDs, acetaminophen, birth control, acid-reflux drugs, and statins, and chemicals in cosmetics; harnessing the power of sufficient sleep and physical movement; and behavioral techniques aimed at promoting the relaxation response.

Based on the book, The Truth about Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives, by Kelly Brogan, MD. Published by HarperCollins ©2016.

Kelly Brogan, MD is a Manhattan-based holistic women’s health psychiatrist. She completed her psychiatric training and fellowship at NYU Medical Center after earning her medical degree from Cornell University Medical College, and has a B.S. from MIT in Systems Neuroscience. Dr. Brogan is board certified in psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, and integrative holistic medicine —one of the only doctors in the nation with these qualifications. She is also a mother of two young daughters.