System of a Down

According to the World Health Organisation, depressive illness is now the number 1 health disorder globally. The trend is not your friend; the numbers of people suffering from depression have increased by about a fifth in the last decade alone. Over in the US, prescriptions for anti-depressant drugs have roughly doubled for every generation since 1950. For Generation Z’ers, depression is pretty much normal.

But don’t worry (be happy), because those nice folk at Big Pharma have got your back.

Except – they haven’t. 

The drugs don’t work very well. For some, they numb the pain and make life a bit more bearable. For many, though, they have little effect, other than to cause horrendous withdrawal symptoms when you finally pluck up the nerve to go cold turkey. And for a select few, who metabolise the drugs differently, levels of the antidepressant build up in the blood stream to dangerous levels.

This is linked to self-harm and to tragedies such as Columbine High.

The anxiolytics (aka Mother’s little helper, aka Z-bars, K-Pin, Schoolbus, Valley girl, Stupefy, etc.) are no better. They are habit-forming, and come with an array of withdrawal symptoms that are painful to watch and experience.

Can we do better? Maybe … 

We could build a better world, where people were valued for who they were, and what they could offer. Yeah, I’m joking. We live in a world where most of us are owned by the banksters, the crooked politicians they rent, the mega-corporations and the Big Families. Things are not about to get much better, if at all. The age of corporatism is upon us, and we are the new peons.

So where do we go?

Let me take you to the high sierras of central Spain, where the Crocus sativa grows. This flower gives us saffron, the most expensive spice in the world. It costs more per gram than gold.  And it also gives us happiness.

One thousand years ago, the Persian polymath Avicenna discovered that saffron cured depression and anxiety.  Ten years ago, a group of doctors in Iran (modern day Persia) proved that old Avicenna was right. This stuff is better, safer and above all it works faster than Proxac. In fact, it lifts depression about 3 hours after taking the first pill. Anxiety and stress melt away just as quickly.

That is because it attacks the mechanism of depression directly, which is inflammation in the brain. Unlike the SSRI’s, which are way off target and therefore slow and painfully ineffective.

There is no toxicity, and no withdrawal problems.

Things are looking up.

Bibliography:

Meta-analyses

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Comparative efficacy and safety of Crocus sativus L. for treating mild
to moderate major depressive disorder in adults: a meta-analysis of
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Ng QX, Koh SSH, Chan HW, Ho CYX.
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Trials

Lopresti AL, Drummond PD, Inarejos-García AM, Prodanov M.
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J Affect Disord. 2018 May;232:349-357.

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Saffron improved depression and reduced homocysteine level in patients
with major depression: A Randomized, double-blind study.
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Arch Gynecol Obstet. 2018 Mar;297(3):717-724.

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Kashani L, Eslatmanesh S, Saedi N, Niroomand N, Ebrahimi M, Hosseinian
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