Claire Bates (dailymail.co.uk)
Overwhelmed by life? One in 10 middle-aged adults in Europe take anti-depressants
Seeking chemical happiness: Why one in 10 of us reaches for the anti-depressants in middle age
It's a time of life when many adults reach the peak of their careers and are busy raising their children, but a new study reveals you are most likely to be depressed in your late 40s.
Researchers from the University of Warwick and the University of Stirling found one in 10 middle-aged adults acrossEurope took anti-depressants in 2010. [
They do not work but rely on placebo effect and are toxic]. The rates were greatest in the UK alongside Portugal, France, and Lithuania.
In Britain, seven percent said they had been on drugs such as Prozac for more than four weeks, while two percent said they had taken them for under a month or from time to time.
This means 5.5million adults in the UK were on anti-depressants at some point last year.
Middle-aged women who were unemployed, divorced, or separated were the most likely to pop the pills.
Co-author Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick, said: "As we live in the richest and safest era in the history of humans, perhaps we are going to have to ask ourselves why one in ten of Europe’s middle-aged citizens need a pill to cope with life.
"That is an awful lot of people relying on chemical happiness."
The scientists said that the results supported the hypothesis that most of us experience well-being in life as a U-shape. So we start and end our lives relatively content but become bogged down by stresses and strains at work and home leading to a mid-life crisis.
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What's the Alternative?
Wisdom Quarterly
If you cannot afford to be depressed, you cannot afford to eat poorly, no matter how much it costs to eat well instead. We are the only people happy to ruin our health to get rich then go give that wealth away to try to get well again.
There is so much that can be done, a plethora of therapies and solutions. But the one thing we refuse to do is listen to the condition. Why are we depressed?
Oftentimes it is appropriate. It becomes inappropriate and debilitating. Nevertheless, chemical allopathic drugs do not themselves work. Being paid attention to, given something, taken care of, feeling side effects (that reinforce the placebo effect)... all of these give us hope. We are being sold hope and cancer. With help comes a high price -- soaring health care costs, toxic livers (full of fluoride, heavy metals, enzyme disruptors, and artificial excipients).
The shocking truth is that MOST of our serotonin is made in the gut, not the brain. Eating well (food combining" for smooth digestion) and avoiding "food complementing" (for complete protein, which means food goes undigested ruining our digestion and serotonin levels) is often enough.
Utilizing an alkalizing diet also helps so long as we alkalize the blood not the stomach. The stomach needs to be acidic. Anyone who thinks s/he has an "acid stomach" is almost certainly lacking acid. Antacids are a terrible idea! Instead, the solution is vegetarian digestive enzymes. Digest more, be depressed less with no intestinal distress.
Anyone who has gut problems is likely to become depressed. There is an ancient Chinese saying: We are only as healthy as our intestines and only as young as our backs.
Good digestion is a blessing we do almost everything we can to ruin -- with sugar, starch/grains/carbohydrates, alcohol, vinegar, artificial and "natural" flavors (all of which are artificial excitotoxins toxic to braincells but legally called "natural" because they mimic a naturally existing flavor), gluten and grain damage (Celiac disease), chemical sweeteners...
Our "Food Pyramid" is a testament to the Four Food Lobbies. No human group in history or prehistory has ever eaten this way. If one wants to see the danger in such a diet, here is how:
Go to an Indian reservation. Its food supply is provided by the American government and wholly subsidized. It therefore follows American (Food Pyramid) guidelines. You will not find worse health -- obesity, acne, diabetes (insulin resistance), hypoglycemia, heart disease, high cholesterol, alcoholism, oxidative stress (premature aging), sugar addiction, and depression.
The other major cause of depression is lack of steady sleep (due to stimulant use, worry in reaction to stress), failing to exercise (a little many times a week is much better than a lot a few times a week), and toxicity. Heavy metals can be cleared by chelation.
But good luck trying to get any help for any of these things from an allopathic doctor. Such doctors and the medical industry in generally is utterly vested in disease and symptom treatment. Health means invasive treatment in this sense. But this is not holistic or sustainable but enslaving and bankrupting.
- Eat fats that heal (which are satiating)
- Avoid all processed carbohydrates and sugar
- Eat greens daily, preferably at every meal
- Eat antioxidant rich organic fruits and berries
- Consume clean proteins (unfried, cruelty-free, vegetable-based)
- Drink lots and lots of water (unfluoridated and never in plastic)
- Eat daily probiotics (cultured food, not fermented)
- Eat as much fiber/roughage as possible ensuring as many bowel movements as meals in a day
- Detox through exercise, sweating, deep breathing, bathing in chlorine-free water (use a shower filter)
- Avoid hydrogenated fats in plastic containers (which means processed oils such as canola and soy oil, even though they do not say so on the label)
- Avoid putting chemicals on skin such as sunscreen (replacing it with antioxidants and phytonutrients), sodium lauryl sulphates (and related chemicals) or in hair.
There is much we can do to avoid depression. If it all seems like to much to be responsible for in our own lives, consider that we are doing all these things that need avoiding. Simply stop. There are countless alternatives.
Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with science writer Paul Hoffman about a mathematician named Frank Nelson Cole, who demonstrated a groundbreaking idea at a conference in 1903. Paul explains that in addition to their celebrated breakthroughs, many of the greatest thinkers in history have entertained some very crazy ideas. Paul is the author of many books including The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, and is director of the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey. 
