“Over the past few decades, we have been subjected to a relentless medicalisation of everyday life by people who want to sell us sciencey solutions. Chancers from the $56 billion international food supplement industry want you to believe that intelligence needs fish oil, and that obesity is just your body’s way of crying out for chromium pills (”to help balance sugar metabolism” etc).

Similarly, quacks from the $600 billion pharma industry sell the idea that depression is caused by low serotonin levels in the brain and so – therefore – you need drugs which raise the serotonin levels in your brain: you need SSRI antidepressants, which are “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors”.

That’s the serotonin hypothesis. It was always shaky, and the evidence now is hugely contradictory.” (Bad Science)