Yeah, sure. Some hippie organic food magazine makes another claim. Remember St. John’s Wort? People who don’t know what real depression is should keep their traps shut.
This isn't a claim being made by "some hippie organic food magazine." The work behind this article was done by researchers at the Baylor Research Institute of Baylor University Medical School, which is not some fly-by-night outfit. The paper originally appeared in a peer-reviewed scholarly medical journal and the study patients had been diagnosed already with MDD. So, um, yeah, this could be worth paying attention to, as a supplement to prescription anti-depressants if nothing else. Can't hurt.
I’ve tried St. John’s Wort. It was superficially helpful, energy levels improved. But over time it began to feel sort of “speedy,” and I experienced anxiety attacks for the first and only time in my life. Also got an odd metallic taste in my mouth.
Turmeric capsules led to a sort of warm pleasant feeling of well-being, fairly immediately. There can be digestive upset from high dosage. Very high dosage can lead to yellowing. I use a fair amount of curry in my food now, so I stopped supplementing. You can feel it in sore joints, they warm up and ache less.
SAM-e was very good. Over a period of weeks I just felt better, very subtle, more energy but not jittery or speedy. It’s a little pricey though. No problems from stopping use of it once I felt better. I’d take it again if the need appeared to be there.
See ottbmare’s comment regarding the particular matter at hand.
However, I’d not be so dismissive about things coming out of Whole Foods: the company has well-heeled superannuated hippies as a target market, but it’s a very well run corporation and its CEO actually proposed real market-based reforms to the health care system that Congress could have adopted and actually made thing better instead of worse by going the statist route with Obamacare. Corporate reputation being hard won, I don’t think they’ll hawk anything unsound in their house publications.
(They’re overpriced, but there are things I buy there when I get to a Whole Foods because you can’t get them at any of our local groceries — e.g. Campo del Montelban cheese, Bulgarian yogurt — along with sale items on which the price
is reasonable, since their product quality is very good.)
Baylor University study, author is director of epigenetics. Not exactly fruits and nuts.
the more exotic the placebo the better... i think there is a faith effect here