While the intake of hallucinogenic drugs causes a temporary acute
change in levels of neurotransmitters, the chronic changes brought on by
daily intake of psycho-active pills have unknown long-term effects.
Each new class of anti-depressant brings with it new risks, unclear interactions with other chemicals/endogenous proteins or its relative affinity for the number of physiologically important receptors (in regard to both your cells and your symbiotic bacteria).
The sheer number of factors involved in foreseeing all the possible interactions of a drug make it, at the moment, literally impossible and most testing restricts itself to phenotypically (so physically) measurable differences (e.g kidney weight, heart size, cancer rates, life expectancy etc).
Unfortunately, this ignores the fact that many endocrine disruptors (also known as xenohormones, or non-endogenous cellular messengers; which may include antidepressants) affect molecular processes that cannot always be successfully characterized unless the researchers know exactly what they are looking for.
The interaction with its primary target receptors is usually clearly defined, but the number of other potential interactions is frequently unknown and never exhaustive.
Problems like that seen with thalidomide continue to occur for exactly this reason.
Each new class of anti-depressant brings with it new risks, unclear interactions with other chemicals/endogenous proteins or its relative affinity for the number of physiologically important receptors (in regard to both your cells and your symbiotic bacteria).
The sheer number of factors involved in foreseeing all the possible interactions of a drug make it, at the moment, literally impossible and most testing restricts itself to phenotypically (so physically) measurable differences (e.g kidney weight, heart size, cancer rates, life expectancy etc).
Unfortunately, this ignores the fact that many endocrine disruptors (also known as xenohormones, or non-endogenous cellular messengers; which may include antidepressants) affect molecular processes that cannot always be successfully characterized unless the researchers know exactly what they are looking for.
The interaction with its primary target receptors is usually clearly defined, but the number of other potential interactions is frequently unknown and never exhaustive.
Problems like that seen with thalidomide continue to occur for exactly this reason.
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