Anti-Depressants "Don't Work"

[Hootad Binky]

(But don't stop taking them, pharmaceuticals advise )

Study finds antidepressants no better than sugar pills

Feb 27, 2008 04:30 AM

Study: Four of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants, including Prozac, work no better than placebo sugar pills to help mild to moderate depression, says a study published in PloS (Public Library of Science) Medicine. Irving Kirsch of the department of psychology at Hull University in England and colleagues in the U.S. and Canada compared trial results for patients taking a sugar pill with those given the antidepressants fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Seroxat), venlafaxine (Effexor) and nefazodone (Serzone). They found that patients felt better but those on placebos improved as much as those on the drugs. The only exception: the most severely depressed did better on the drugs.

Method: Using freedom of information rules, researchers obtained a full set of trial data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including results the drug companies had chosen not to publish.

Background: Prozac has been used by 40 million patients since 1988.

Claim: "There seems little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit," Kirsch says. Alternatives include talk therapy.

Caveat: Patients are strongly advised not to stop taking medication without consulting their doctor. "This analysis has only examined a small subset of the total data available while regulatory bodies around the world have conducted extensive reviews and evaluations of all the data available," says GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Seroxat. Eli Lilly, maker of Prozac, also defended research showing the antidepressant is effective.

Second Opinion examines health studies.

Source: The Guardian, BBC News.

TheStar.com | living | Study finds antidepressants no better than sugar pills

[obsidian]

binky where to you find some of this shit? who are you tom cruise?

[Hootad Binky]

It was a leading story on CNN last night, and BBC, and CBC news.

Big Pharma makes big mullah from these pills; any wonder researchers had to use freedom of information rules to get the data?

"Talk therapy" unless you're super-depressed, then. In other words, go have a coffee/beer with a friend and have a chat and you'll feel better!

This news report actually made me feel better

Perhaps life and its remedies aren't so complicated after all.

[obsidian]

///

[Hootad Binky]

The Medicated Americans: Antidepressant Prescriptions on the Rise

Close to 10 percent of men and women in America are now taking drugs to combat depression. How did a once rare condition become so common?


A clinically depressed person may not be able to drag herself out of bed.
Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy Getty Images

• In the past three generations, increasing numbers of Americans have been prescribed antidepressants. In many cases, such prescriptions are the only mental health care the patients receive.
• One cause of the rise in antidepressant use is that many doctors conflate conventional sadness—as from the loss of a loved one or a life-changing event such as a divorce—with the more serious and life-quashing condition of clinical depression.
• A second contributing factor, the author argues, is a change in the standard diagnostic guide, which caused many milder mental ailments to fall under the seemingly neutral label of “disorder.”

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-medicated-americans

[MeMock]

Close to 10 percent of men and women in America are now taking drugs to combat depression. How did a once rare condition become so common?

I actually thought it would have been higher. They advertise in Australia that 1 in 4 adults suffer from Depression (guess not that many seek treatment)

Why so many now you ask? Because we are becoming lazy and will seek any excuse to help us. Its like ADD in kids. Why has that exploded in recent times? It is because most (not all) of these kids are just plain naughty and there parents are lazy and will not discipline them.

People are always looking for an excuse to blame their own shortcomings on.

[Hootad Binky]

^ Yup.

Not only that, we're sometimes giving these kids many prescriptions of anti-psychotic drugs at once, without research into long-term effects.

Meanwhile adults gobble anti-depressants they don't need...

[MeMock]

Any wonder why these kids grow up and become dependent on anti depressants.

[Ivor Biggun]

Any wonder why these kids grow up and become dependent on anti depressants

Todays antidepressant drugs are non addictive. Having been on them myself I always thought they didn't work. It takes up to 6 weeks for antidepressants to reputedly work. This is the exact time period someone is expected to come out of depression, if not on medication. As for Prozac. It never worked for me even though it's nick name is the Sunshine Pill.

[good2bhappy]

The problem of coming off ADs is that you are at a higher risk of suicide

[MeMock]

not if they don't work you aren't.

[blackgang]

Yep, but after taking LEXAPRO I lost some suicidal urges and they worked fine, quit some compulsive behavior like cut smoking in half and quit biting of fingernails, but it was bad for my prostate, so wither not piss or fight killing my self 555, well I do piss now.

But there is side effects to most meds, and are not for everybody.
But then killing yourself, unless your ANTY, ain't to cool an idea either.

[Ivor Biggun]

The problem of coming off ADs is that you are at a higher risk of suicide

The majority of people who commit suicide are not depressed. If you are clinically depressed you're too depressed to even think about it. There are stages to depression.

[good2bhappy]

Correct
thats why when your coming out of depression you are at the most risk

[terry57]

But there is side effects to most meds, But then killing yourself, unless your " AUNTY," ain't to cool an idea either.

[obsidian]

The majority of people who commit suicide are not depressed. If you are clinically depressed you're too depressed to even think about it

thank you Dr biggun. wouldnt have a bit of support for this dumb comment would you?

[good2bhappy]

biggun has it right
when your clinically depressed they say you think about it but are unable to follow it through
as you come out of the depression you are able to formulate and put it into practice
MBBS fail LOL

[AntRobertson]

But then killing yourself, unless your ANTY, ain't to cool an idea either.

Hey, I'm not the one taking medication to supress suicidal urges.

I guess making stupid and irrelevant comments is another side-effect of your medication.

[obsidian]

perhaps dr's biggun and 2bhappy could find link to support this assertion.

please?

[good2bhappy]

Read Clegg on Psychiatry obsidian

[terry57]

Depression is a shocking illness and often leaves people that surround the suffer confused as to what the fok is really going down.


I work with 2 guys who have this illness, they got great family's, money, good jobs and a cracking life style that our profession provides, yet they are all foked up.


When one looks at these guys its hard to rationalize what there problem is considering lots of people in Perth have fok all and just get on with it, but depression has nothing to do with material or personal circumstances they say, a truly strange disease of the mind.

I did see a program lately where they had a control group and gave half of the group placebo's.

The results where interesting as half of the placebo group responded positively to the placebo. ?

Work that one out.

Once again thinking they where on the medication made them feel better but it was a lump of sugar.

[obsidian]

clegg (dr?) states that clinically depressed people are unable to:

-- think about suicide (per biggun)
-- formulate a plan and act on it (per 2bhappy) until they "come out of the depression"

[good2bhappy]

Dr/Prof-Yes
But then illnesses of the mind are the most misunderstood of medical disorders
My prof told me there was no such thing as maddness just degrees of sanity LOL

[obsidian]

which dr. clegg? there are many.

[good2bhappy]

prof of psychiatry
cambridge i think
wrote the textbook for English medical students