UK - Teenagers who take Ecstasy 70% more at risk from depression

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edgarshade

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New Scotsman

Published on Thursday 19 April 2012 02:13

With reader comments

NEW figures have revealed a shocking link between the use of Ecstasy and depression in under-16s.

The study of almost 4,000 teenagers found that those who had taken Ecstasy in a recreational capacity were 70 per cent more likely to exhibit heightened depressive symptoms than those who had not taken the drug.

The study also detailed amphetamine use within the 15 to 16-year-old age group.

Figures show that teenagers who took both Ecstasy and amphetamines – namely speed – at the same time were twice as likely to suffer depressive symptoms as their peers who had not taken either narcotic.
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More...
http://www.scotsman.com/news/health...asy-70-more-at-risk-from-depression-1-2242166
 
I feel like this comes up with the use of all drugs, even weed....i think people who are depressed are more likely to try ecstasy, or any other drug. correlation doesn't mean causation
 
trappedpenguin7 said:
I feel like this comes up with the use of all drugs, even weed....i think people who are depressed are more likely to try ecstasy, or any other drug. correlation doesn't mean causation
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Bingo. People who feel something is missing (happiness? security?) will of course try to fill the gap.
 
Ecstasy and amphetamines aren't fucking narcotics :|

Also correlation != causation blah blah blah.
 
There's plenty of evidence that drug seeking behaviour is very common with many mental health conditions. Including tobacco and alcohol, for instance tobacco use among people with schizophrenia is around four times as prevalent as in the population at large.
 
Who'd have thought that individuals still in stages of brain development could develop negative symptoms of using psychoactive drugs eh?
 
Yes, depressed people use MDMA.


But the drug also releases your serotonin, and you E tards dont let it regenerate which leads to your brain having to do without it. Low amounts of serotonin is directly related to depression, and if you think you can use MDMA every week without doing damage to your brain (specifically, the part that controls emotions..) then you obviously dont know what you're talking about.
 
too much mdma definately "makes" me depressed. not suprising, nor any reason for it to be illegal. drugs are bad, mkay?
 
MDMA is neurotoxic when taken in excess; it shouldn't surprise anyone that psychiatric symptoms show up down the road.
 
Canada - Speed, ecstasy linked to depression in teenagers

Speed, ecstasy linked to depression in teenagers
Derek Abma
Canada.com
April 19th, 2012

Getting high might leave teens feeling low — and struggling with depression — a year later, new research suggests.

A study from researchers at the University of Montreal found 15- and 16-year-olds who used speed, ecstasy or both were more likely to show elevated symptoms of depression a year later.

Looking at 3,880 Grade 10 students from "disadvantaged areas in Quebec," those who had used ecstasy, or MDMA, within a year of being surveyed were 1.7 times more likely than non-users to show heightened symptoms of depression when assessed a year later. It was 1.6 times more likely for those who used speed, also referred to as meth or amphetamine.

Study co-author Frederic Briere, from the university's department of psychology, said the findings suggest these synthetic drugs have a toxic effect on the brain, even though he could not rule out separate factors that might be causing higher predispositions to both drug use and depression.

"There have been some studies done in animals which suggest that these substances can be neuro-damaging in some ways, that this could lead to some impairment in functioning," he said.
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Read the full story here.
 
Well no shit. The harm to serotonin receptors has been known for years. Can't imagine what it would do to developing brains!
 
Alcohol is a neurotoxin too, but nobody plasters that all over the place.

(also a carcinogen and hepatoxic)
 
Correlation doesn't mean that ecstasy was the cause. Note that they didn't survey them beforehand. It may just be that depressed teens are more likely to use drugs.
 
Additionally, on the same page that says "most sources now agree that ... potent neurotoxin", their most recent source, from 2011, says that it is NOT. This was the ONLY study in which the users were MDMA-only users. A gigantic flaw in nearly all survey/skills-based test of drug users is that the vast majority of drug users selected for these studies are polydrug users, making the results very unreliable for pinpointing a specific cause, and yielding very poor data for making such a broad claim as "MDMA is a potent neurotoxin, even in small doses." Before such a sweeping claim can be applied without hesitation to future inquiry, the methods of the original studies must be closely examined for gaps and holes. At BEST, it can be definitely stated that high, intravenous doses of MDMA are a definite neurotoxin to rodents, and that moderate-to-heavy users of MDMA among other "club drugs" and a shitload of cannabis tend to do more poorly on cognitive-function tests. The rest of these studies claiming "potent neurotoxin" may have some small foundation to stand on, but from there are a house of cards built on conjecture.

The Ricuarte study was brutally debunked and demonstrated to be either very sloppily done, or deliberately deceptive. The mice in the experimental group were given methamphetamine rather than MDMA. Ricuarte's history as a researcher and the relationship between his funding and his results is also very relevant.

"and many more, thats just from 30 seconds on Google dude"

- You mistook your misunderstanding of the context of the question for my lack of investigation into the topic.
 
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Here are some quotes from the actual TEXT of the articles that YOU POSTED. You should really try reading them for content instead of pretending to already know the answer and skimming until you find a few things that even remotely appear to support it.

"One study of MDMA administered to primates most closely modelled human use and used doses of 2.5 mg/kg given every 2 weeks for 4 months (2.5 mg/kg x 8) which found no evidence of neurotoxicity[2]"

"Other results of human studies in MDMA users are at odds with the conclusion that MDMA is a human neurotoxin. McCann, et al. in the same study which analyzed CSF 5-HIAA, found that MDMA users tended to have better impulse control and lower hostility while lower serotonin levels are thought to be correlated with increased hostility. A study of sleep patterns of MDMA users found that MDMA users had normal sleep patterns, but with a statistically significant decrease in stage 2 sleep, leading to an overall improvement in sleep quality -- more importantly these results are not at all in accordance with studies on sleep patterns of humans given the 5-HT supressor para-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA) or with animals having lesioned 5-HT systems[5]. "

"Prospective studies (giving users MDMA in a controlled environment with baseline testing and then checking for indications of neurotoxicity) rather than retrospective studies (after the fact with no baseline) are only just getting underway at the Harbor-UCLA medical center (other studies are starting in England, Switzerland and Germany[6]). Initial retrospective results of the UCLA study indicate that MDMA may increase cerebral blood flow [7]. This may be indicative of benficial rather than neurotoxic changes in the brain:
We are aware of a variety of neuro-psychiatric disorders associated with measurements of low blood flow, including Alzheimer's Disease, HIV Dementia, Major Depressive Disorders and Chronic Cocaine Abuse. However, there are no known clinical disorders or drugs which induce long-term elevations of rates of cerebral blood flow. -- Charles S. Grob."

"Ricaurte found that there was no effect after 2.5 mg/kg oral doses given every two weeks, for a total of eight doses. But after a single oral dose of 5 mg/kg, he observed a 20% reduction in serotonin and its metabolite 5-HIAA, only in the thalamus & hypothalamus. " (Which piece of this data do you think got widely circulated?"

" In a study designed to minimize limitations found in many prior investigations, we failed to demonstrate marked residual cognitive effects in ecstasy users. This finding contrasts with many previous findings—including our own—and emphasizes the need for continued caution in interpreting field studies of cognitive function in illicit ecstasy users."

Every single one of these quotes came from papers within the links that you posted to me. Please tell me how you can justify holding a firm position that "MDMA is definitely a potent neurotoxin, even at low doses," when your own sources are this mixed?
 
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