Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

The onset of depression has greatly increased in incidence, and it is affecting people much earlier in their lives during the late 20th century and early 21st century than before the 20th century (Meyer and Quenzar, 2005). The reasons for these findings are not quite clear, but inadequate dietary Mg is prevalent in America and is the most likely cause. There is probably a real increase in depression, coupled with a change in diagnostic habits, which has to do with the element of stigma. Lower stigma leads to a higher rate of diagnosis.

Somatopsychic medical effects are very real. I've gotten very good results with addressing nutritional deficiencies as a first line of defense for issues that often present as mood or mental health issues.

But I don't think you can reasonably conclude that magnesium deficiency is The explanation for increased prevalence of depression in a world that has had so many profound changes.

Things are more crowded. Most people now live in cities instead of rural environments. Among other things, this means people are subjected to much noisier conditions.

We have far, far better information about the world than we used to. The 24/7 news cycle is incredibly stressful, if only because most "news" is bad news.

There are just so very many confounding factors, no, you can't reasonably conclude that this one singular factor is the sole explanation or primary explanation. That's ridiculous.

I would wager it's a combination of factors:

1. In general, the north american diet is disgraceful.

2. Consumerism and brainwashing people into believing that they can only be happy when they achieve X, Y or Z, does nothing for people's emotional emptiness.

3. The constant barrage of shit news, most of which is largely irrelevant to most of our lives, most of the time.

4. The constant threat of automation and off-shoring meaning that people never feel secure about their income stream unless they specifically work in an industry where their ability to generate their income stream is unrelated to these constant threats.

5. Inflation of living costs escalating at a rate beyond inflation of income.

6. The polarization making people feel isolated from one another instead of connected. Nobody can talk about anything any more without fear of offending someone, being politically incorrect, being ostracized or vilified.

7. The reported growing financial disparity where the 2% have 98% of the wealth while the 98% share the other 2% and the constant message that it's only going to get harder to be able to cross that chasm.

8. Corporations subverting politics for their own profits instead of the good of the people.

The list goes on ad nauseum.

I firmly believe if the world stops behaving like assholes, learns to eat properly and talks to one another to a level that find connection instead of a divide. The depression is just going to get worse and worse until suicide becomes an epidemic.

I would add at least two more that I think are huge and largely overlooked most of the time:

a. Loss of a sense of community and the very real practical support that provides with moving from small town/rural to big city life for most people.

b. "Sick building syndrome" which I think is far, far more widespread than is generally recognized. Among other things, indoor air quality is crap more often than not.

I agree and think these actually enormously overshadow all of the previously mentioned factors except maybe diet.

We weren't meant to live out our lives in seas of isolated little poorly ventilated boxes.

Sleeping in a tent for nearly six years actually did my health a world of good. It also dramatically changed my perspective on the state of housing in modern America and its relationship to myriad problems, including health issues, in ways that aren't likely to be taken seriously by most people any time soon.

When I comment on such things, it typically gets downvotes and/or snarky, dismissive replies and personal attacks.

I'd always been dimly aware that I always woke up feeling more refreshed in a tent, but it wasn't until fairly recently that I noticed I got the same effect if I slept with the window open. Now I keep my bedroom window open at all times.

In general, I think society is extremely blase about possible health hazards - if it doesn't kill you instantly, people basically don't wanna know. Alcohol is huge. Smoking is even now considered basically fine by huge swathes of the population. It wasn't until 1996 that leaded gasoline was banned in the US, two decades after lead paint was banned. We tolerate absurd levels of pollution in cities, with not much more than a shrug.

For almost any given product and interaction, you can ask yourself "is there a powerful incentive structure in place to prevent this from invisibly but seriously harming me"? Usually, the answer is "no". It's up to you to pay attention, and ignore what society thinks is okay.

Ancient Romans would consider you a sissy snowflake to avoid their lead pipes - modern society will consider you likewise, if you go out of your way to be healthy. If you don't feel like a sissy snowflake - you're probably being poisoned.

Sorry that I'm focusing on one small part of your comment, but I'm genuinely curious - do you find you have the same effect if, say, you force your whole house fan to run at least five or ten minutes out of every hour?

I find that fresh air helps too, but during the winter I can't convince myself to "waste" money heating the house while at the same time leaving a window wide open letting the cold back in...

BTW I don't think smoking is considered 'fine' by any stretch - at least where I live in the US. All restaurants/bars are non-smoking, and the only place my kids have encountered smokers has been when we travel in Europe.

I don't quite know what a "whole house fan" is - is that air conditioning? I guess it might help depending on the size of the house, the size of the bedroom, and whether the air comes from outside. I feel like it's to do with gas conditions - too much CO2, too little oxygen, carbon monoxide buildup, some kind of material outgassing - who knows.

Winter is trickier, but as I live in a relatively mild climate I usually deal by keeping the bedroom door shut, the room heating off, and snuggling under a thick duvet with pyjamas. You sleep better in cooler conditions anyway. If it's really cold out, I'll air the whole house while I'm not at home and the heating's off anyway - then I sleep with the bedroom door open, in the hope that I at least get the benefit of the larger volume.

In Europe, as you say, a very large number of people smoke, even though they're just as aware of the health problems as Americans. I think America's advantage there is less to do with health consciousness and more to do with a kind of low-key puritanism - smoking is stigmatized and is seen as a moral failing in a way that it isn't in Europe.

> In general, I think society is extremely blase about possible health hazards - if it doesn't kill you instantly, people basically don't wanna know.

A flip side of this is that if you stopped and considered what is reported to be killing you slowly, you'd go crazy (and arguably a lot of people did, to some extent). Consider e.g. nutritional "advice" in popular press.

Having my attention constantly called to garbage information on what does cause cancer this week by random people, I developed a following rule of thumb: if the actual negative health effect is big enough to even worth spending time thinking about, the product is either already banned by the government or has huge warning labels on it. Otherwise, it's fine in moderate quantities.

EDIT:

> "is there a powerful incentive structure in place to prevent this from invisibly but seriously harming me"? Usually, the answer is "no"

There's another question worth considering: "is there a powerful incentive structure in place to blow up statistical noise out of proportion, in order to create fear around common products?", and the answer is clearly yes - this is one of the ways news portals, lifestyle magazines and small blogs drive their traffic.

> Now I keep my bedroom window open at all times.

I don't always keep the bedroom window open, but it's open enough, even in the middle of winter that it's not unusual. I feel way better sleeping with the window open than I do with it closed.

My nightmares and mood swings stopped five weeks ago when I started leaving my windows open 24/7.

There is an efficient way to get fresh air without wasting energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_recovery_ventilation

I'm looking into setting up a window-mounted HRV in my apartment. I'm looking at the VENTS-US MICRA 150 and a DIY window vent bracket. The MICRA 150 is available at Home Depot and on Amazon. It collects condensation in a tank, rather than draining it through the vent tube.

In hot and humid areas an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) should be chosen as it's able to remove moisture from the incoming air as well.

There are a number of companies that make whole house ERV/HRV kits and a good method of setup is to constantly exhaust your bathrooms and possibly other contaminated spaces, while delivering fresh air to bedrooms or common areas.

Energy recovery is in the 50% range.

Some can be balanced to slightly positive pressure particularly if there is an attached garage or other sources of contamination.

ASHRAE publishes standard 62.2 which recommends that for modern houses the ventilation rate in CFM = 0.03*ft^2 + 7.5(Nbedrooms+1)

I'd love to hear more about this! Have you written about your experiences anywhere?

I've written extensively about my experiences being homeless, for example:

https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/

I also frequently write about my health, but it has become my policy to not link to any of that directly on HN. It's too much drama.

But I don't think I've done much writing about the intersection of those two topics in specific, if that's what you are asking.

Hah - when we visit family in the summer, we're lucky to be able to do backyard camping for almost entire stay - reduces stress on the hosts, my young kids love it, and we have a pretty smooth process & kickass tent.

Done it for 4 years now and I can say it does make me feel more alive at the end & there have been minimal sleep incidents.

However, I don't think it's changed the way I share my opinion on housing (perhaps reinforced it?). People get ticked off when you diss their biggest investment even by proxy.

Another one. We now have a much higher exposure to blue light messing up our circadian rhythm. Sleep is incredibly important for health and wellbeing.

Something else to consider is that a lot of people live in food deserts, where no nutritional food is available or affordable. People who live in such food deserts often have low incomes, so they really don't have a choice but to have a really awful diet. Richer people tend to have greater, more convenient choices of nutritional food, and the wealth to afford it.

Add to that the fact that many people in the US work insanely long hours in unfulfilling or even demeaning work, little free time to spend with their families, on leisure, or to recover from burnout, possibly mounting medical and credit card bills, little hope for a secure retirement, their children at risk of violence in schools and few prospects when (or if) they graduate. Add in the media which worships wealth, fame, and appearances, and you have almost a sure fire recipe for depression.

It's really a wonder more people aren't depressed.

There have been a number of experiments where they gave patients more magnesium, and in response most patients reduce their depression by a statistically significant amount. The inverse was found when they gave them calcium (more calcium increases depression). It's all about the ratio of calcium to magnesium. We're a society that consistently gets way too much calcium and way too little magnesium. That's because our food source isn't diverse. Dairy is considered a food group here in the US, and almost everything in it comes from Milk, is primarily made up of milk. Milk is very unbalanced in terms of Calcium to magnesium, something like 10 to 1 ratio.

Also, there was another study where they found that treatments for depression actually increased serum magnesium levels in the brain.

EDIT: Here is the study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507265/# "A dietary supplement of 500mg calcium immediately and severely worsened MD, which was extinguishable within one hour by orally treating with 400mg gel capsules of Mg as magnesium glycinate "

Which specific studies were those?

> There have been a number of experiments where they gave patients more magnesium, and in response most patients reduce their depression by a statistically significant amount

Can you link to those studies please?

> more calcium increases depression

now that really is curious. Again, do you have a link? TIA

please check edit.

I stated up front that somatopsychic effects are quite real. I don't doubt that a magnesium deficiency is a culprit in depression for many people.

But are you arguing that, yea, verily, this article's foundational assumption is true and correct: Magnesium deficiency is the sole or prime cause of all (or virtually all) modern depression?

If so, I think you need to back that up with a whole lot more than a paragraph or two about things you've read, like a long list of citations that not only show the role magnesium plays, but also another long list of citations that affirmatively excludes myriad other potential causes of Major Depression that are generally understood to be contributing factors.

I don't think the article is saying it's the sole cause but they're saying it's a factor.

And of course, not everyone who gets too little mag/too much calcium will react in the same way.

From the article:

inadequate dietary Mg is prevalent in America and is the most likely cause.

It contains zero qualifiers suggesting it is one of many factors, a major factor among many, etc. It uses the word "the" and the singular form of "cause."

You skipped right over "most likely" and only focused on "the ... cause". To me it sounds like they are saying statistically Mg deficiency is the most widespread underlying factor. Their language is strong, but it does not come off that absolutist and the "most likely" suggests other causes.

I'm a freelance writer by trade. I sometimes write health articles. I could not say what this article says about cause.

At best, I could say something like "Given the proven widespread lack of adequate dietary magnesium and the known side effects of magnesium insufficiency, it seems plausible to suggest that at least some portion of the increase in depression is due to widespread magnesium deficiency."

That may seem like quibbling to you, but scientists get paid to quibble about the details and to be as precise as humanly possible. They should be meeting at least as high a standard as my generally low paid freelance writing.

Read the entire article. It also talks about the increased Mg excretion effect of stress hormones.

It’s a combination of lower intake of what already is a micronutrient, increased excretion (consequence of the lifestyle changes), and hard to diagnose (because serum Mg levels stay stable, only cellular Mg reserves are depleted).

I had a couple neurological issues in the past and had a good endocrinologist suggest me Mg (quelated) and he explained all that is mentioned on the article.

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