Why Bother?

A lot of new medical studies appear these days, which is good for human progress, medicine makers, medicine takers and the folks who print studies. But, frankly, it can be pretty confusing for readers bombarded with reports appearing to tout incremental progress against another of the countless afflictions floating around to worry about. Some of us could swear these afflictions were conquered a while ago, though we didn’t keep that day’s paper. But the studies roll out with warnings that practical application of new findings may be 10 years away, a long time if you’re afflicted, think you might qualify or pay for newspaper home delivery.

Take a recent study on depression. On one hand it provided the depressing news that Americans treated for depression soared from 1.7 million to 6.3 million from 1987 to 1997. Even in California that’s a lot of people waking and saying, “Oh, no, not another day.” But a burgeoning population of depressed people is good, the study said, because it shows we’re more open about being down.

Turns out the depressed population on antidepressants is up from 37% of the 1.7 million to 75% of the 6.3 million. That’s good for the makers of Prozac and its chemical cousins. But that’s a lot of pills for the richest, safest, most educated, cabled, automobiled and well-housed continental democracy in human history. But that might be good too because the depressed feel better--as long as they take their medicine, which the study found that many stop, which is not good. But the study also found fewer depressed people on medicine going for psychotherapy to address underlying problems. This is depressing for psychotherapists, although the actual social impact won’t be known for years. So don’t get too anxious. But business is good for primary doctors prescribing medicines for the depressed instead of steering them into long-term specialist care, which might or might not be good depending on their memories of Mom.

Now comes a study of 62,000 Norwegians, urging primary doctors to be careful treating common complaints like nausea because they may really be symptoms of--oh, no!--depression. It found that 41% with major nausea complaints had an anxiety disorder; fully 24% were clinically depressed. So the number of depressed people mistakenly taking nausea medicine may further inflate the depressed population that stops taking its antidepressants--and prompt gloomy new studies on the impact of gloomy studies on depression.

Surveys indicate that perhaps 14 million Americans could benefit from depression treatment. That’s good for the depression business but nauseating if you think what an editorial writer could do with this information.