A huge rise in the number of people taking antidepressant drugs is potentially posing a threat to the environment. “Antidepressant and antianxiety medications are found everywhere, in sewage, surface water, ground water, drinking water, soil, and accumulating in wildlife tissues
This isn't just limited to antidepressants. This applies to most drugs. Research is finding more and more prescription drugs in the entire water cycle.
What this should be interpreted as is a call to arms for better wastewater treatment. As it stands, water treatment engineers basically only care about killing pathogens and chelating heavy metals. The list of organic chemicals they even measure is pretty damn short. Considering not only the known issues regarding other untreated chemicals that the article is talking about, but also the possibility of issues caused by the very large set of compounds that we haven't really studied, I wonder if it's time to change the policy on water treatment such that we treat wastewater using distillation or reverse osmosis and expect to remove everything from the effluent that isn't H or O.
So you take water out of the natural cycle that's full of minerals and all sorts of other inorganic and organic material (aka tap water), and give back pure H2O at high energy cost. You return less than you took and spend resources in the process. Useful/existing material gets caught in the same filters as harmful byproducts which creates, at best, a waste product that can be refined for paltry resources at further energy cost. Sounds like a big ecosystem debit to me. We can do better than that.
A huge rise in the number of people taking antidepressant drugs is potentially posing a threat to the environment, according to new research.
An expert in the effects of human waste on marine life and an expert in ethical pharmacology, both at the University of Portsmouth, are calling for prescribers to be taught what happens when drugs in human waste enter the environment.
The number of people in the UK taking antidepressants such as Prozac has doubled in the last decade and, it is thought six million people in the UK, about 10% of the population, now regularly take such drugs.
Dr Helena Herrera, of Portsmouth’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, says many prescribers might not be aware antidepressant medication was potentially harmful for marine life, or that it persists in the environment
I would say the opposite. What we call relaxation and recreation now were more or less a part of our ancestor's way of life. Their troubles were in the same environment too. Can't worry about global warming or nihilism if you're busy scavenging for food and basic necessities. Not only that, but you genuinely don't care about it. You're not at a point in society where you're well enough off to even ask bigger questions. The level of depression we see today is, I think, restricted to developed nations.
I'm from an immigrant family and I've always wondered why every one of my elders/the previous generation by-and-large don't experience these things. Why they're always so well put together, and why they don't understand mental health. They're not perfect people and have some skewed views, but they're never depressed. The only times it happens is when someone passes away.
Mental health.. It was never a part of the equation for them - they're constantly working. In their youth, they worked to survive. They farmed from dawn till dusk, cooked, and some of them went to school. But they always worked and lived more or less in the midst of nature. Moving to a new country where you can literally find clean water at a public fountain is crazy. I've gone back to their villages - if the power goes out for more than a few days we scoop up some cow shit and burn it so we can boil our water. The smell is infused and the water tastes fine but is ghastly if you don't plug your nose. That's only the beginning.
What our generation sees as a terrible society to them is eons ahead of where they came from. We take opportunities that they could've scarely dreamt of for granted.
So of course they're happy. We have fundamentally different perspectives. To some degree it's a privilege to be born into the societies that we are, despite what I believe to be our natural incapability to deal with the level of leisure that we actually experience in the world today.
I was reading something about comfort breeding depression and mediocrity. Basically we're so inundated with comforting things that they're no longer that comforting, but there isn't necessity to pursue more for a lot of people in the developed world, because there's just so much access to stuff. Kind of like the counterpoint to necessity breeds ingenuity.
I think there's probably a lot of contributing factors though, like media blasting people with the latest celebrities and luxurious stuff for the wealthy. It gives us an artificial view of the world, and how much better others have it. Or being able to buy everything online and just have it shipped to your house. There's less social interaction and little pursuit required to obtain something, so even being a consumer offers less satisfaction. I think there's probably a lot of little things that society has developed that are "comfortable", but reinforce negative patterns of behaviour and thought that lead to depression
Maybe not, but that requires adrenaline, focus, and purpose. You know your objective (run away from that bear, look for berries that look like this and this, etc), you are doing it for a clear reason that impacts people you directly know and care about, and are able to pursue it at your own pace(e.g. very quickly, away from the bear). Modern society is much more complex, obscured, remote, and draining than what we initially evolved to deal with, and--at least in America--we are given less and less time to disconnect from what is, honestly, a constant assault on the human psyche. This in no way means that no one was depressed before the industrial revolution, or that everyone will inevitably become depressed in today's world. It just means that depression is all the more likely in societies that have been built piecemeal, over decades, without ever factoring the incredibly complex human mind into new changes at more than a surface level.
Air quality
Air pollution linked to increased mental illness in children
Higher Levels of Air Pollution in Cities Associated with Suicide in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan
Long-term exposure to air pollution and the risk of suicide death: A population-based cohort study
Ambient air pollution and daily hospital admissions for mental disorders in Shanghai, China
The association between daily concentrations of air pollution and visits to a psychiatric emergency unit in Sweden
Long-term exposure to ambient air pollutants and mental health status: A nationwide population-based cross-sectional study
Smog in our brains: Researchers are identifying startling connections between air pollution and decreased cognition and well-being.
Air Pollution and Emergency Department Visits for Depression in Edmonton, Canada, 2007
Air Pollution and Emergency Department Visits for Depression, 2010
Long-term Air Pollution Exposure Is Associated with Neuroinflammation and Disruption of the Blood-Brain Barrier in Children and Young Adults,
Air pollution, cognitive deficits and brain abnormalities: A pilot study with children and dogs
Brain Inflammation and Alzheimer's-Like Pathology in Individuals Exposed to Severe Air Pollution
Neurotoxicity of traffic-related air pollution
The polluted brain
Traffic air pollution turns good cholesterol bad in mice, 2013 Higher bad cholesterol leads to higher systemic inflammation which leads to a higher likelihood of mental diseases such as GAD.
ADHD
Even in healthy young men, all it took was very short-term exposure to cause an 11% decrease in white blood cells and a 32% increase in C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation). Source Higher systemic inflammation increases your chances of getting ill with mental disorders
Even when particulate levels are within US standards, there are still tens-to-hundreds of thousands of early deaths every year. source But usually before killing you, pollution tend to damage your organs including your brain thus increasing your chances of suffering from mental disorders.
Polluted Morality: Air Pollution Predicts Criminal Activity and Unethical Behavior
Exposure to lead & violent crimes in the USA
Unleaded gasoline reduces violent crimes in Sweden too
Urban air pollution, poverty, violence and health – Neurological and immunological aspects as mediating factors
Environmental pollution, neurotoxicity, and criminal violence
Air pollution, weather, and violent crimes: Concomitant time-series analysis of archival data.
"Maternal Residence Near Agricultural Pesticide Applications and Autism Spectrum Disorders among Children in the California Central Valley" source
"Tipping the Balance of Autism Risk: Potential Mechanisms Linking Pesticides and Autism" source
"Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Prenatal Residential Proximity to Agricultural Pesticides: The CHARGE Study" source
"Potential role of organochlorine pesticides in the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative, and neurobehavioral disorders: A review" source
"Pesticide Concentrations in Maternal Mid-Pregnancy Serum Samples: Association with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability" source
Analysis finds that prenatal exposure to the pesticide is associated with a higher risk of severe autism with intellectual impairment. source
Food
Sugar and depression
Relationship Between Diet and Mental Health in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review
nutritional psychiatry your brain on food
A high-fat, refined sugar diet reduces hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor, neuronal plasticity, and learning
The longer-term impacts of Western diet on human cognition and the brain
Fermented foods, microbiota, and mental health: ancient practice meets nutritional psychiatry
The link between violence and what we eat
Linking Gut Microbiome, Neurodevelopment, and Depression
Intestinal microbiota, probiotics and mental health: from Metchnikoff to modern advances part 1 from 3
[psychiatrists should pay more attention to what patients eat]https://www.psy-journal.com/article/S0165-1781(07)00329-0/abstract
Depression, suicide and deficiencies
Anxiety in caffeine challenge test
Caffeine and psychiatric symptoms: a review
Screens, artificial lights, and sleep
Excessive Screen Use on Childrenhttps://www.natureplaywa.org.au/library/1/file/Resources/research/K%20Martin%202011%20Electronic%20Overload%20DSR%20(2).pdf
Sleep and mental health
Exposure to light at night and mood disorders
Screens at night harmful to your health.
Timing of light exposure affects mood and brain circuits
A contribution of fluorescent lighting to agoraphobia
Effect of flickering light stress on certain biochemical parameters in rats
Association between duration of daily visual display terminal use and subjective symptoms
Computer use at work is associated with self-reported depressive and anxiety disorder
Prevalence of perceived stress, symptoms of depression and sleep disturbances in relation to information and communication technology (ICT) use among young adults
EMF
Exposure to EMF and suicide among electric utility workers
Review: EMFs produce widespread neuropsychiatric effects including depression, 2016
no links here but there are also lots of studies showing a link between mental health and 1) not enough trees/nature 2) too much noise pollution 3) too little exercise 4) too little sunshine and natural light 5) lack of close village-like or tribal-like relationships.
