Tony Cunningham

...evidence is of about similar quality. I do understand why people don't prescribe serious medications without a lot of trials, but sleep deprivation seems to be super safe. Unless your patient is a bipolar (in which case SD can trigger mania)...

...there seem to be literally 0 serious concerns about SD. I imagine that the situation with it would be similar to melatonin which FDA has not approved but everyone knows it's safe and my impression is that it's prescribed by actual doctors?

Tbh, Matt is right on this one. It's just not a viable option for long term treatment of depression. They feel better for a few hours, finally go to sleep, and then what? They're right back where they started. It's like halting the symptoms of cancer for a day. Sure it's great,

But it doesn't get at the root of the problem. No skills learned, no pill they can take, just the potential to continue to sleep deprive themselves on occasion which we don't know what will do to them. They certainly won't be able to function in a normal social capacity

Oh man, i thought we were both still talking abt acute use. If long term use, aside from the social & economic impact, you can look into the health consequences associated with circadian rhythm disruption and shift work. Those entire fields are basically the negative side effect

Lists you're looking for

any studies that assess *causality* on this?