Shining A Light On The Dark Side ( effects ) Of Antidepressants
( Part 2 of a Series on Depression and Anxiety )
Troy Centazzo and Chris Kressler
In Part 1 of this Series, I discussed the massive increase of the use of prescription drugs to treat depression ( indeed, they have become the most subscribed drug in the US ), as well as recent medical research that questions their effectiveness. I also reviewed James S. Gordon ' s new book, " Unstuck, " which offers a depression treatment program using natural techniques, corresponding as stress management, bona fide exercise and eating nutritiously, among other techniques, and discusses the various issues with taking antidepressants.
In Part 2, I focus on the common - and significant - side effects of antidepressants, and have been good enough permission by Chris Kressler, a health researcher and teacher, who runs the popular health and wellness blog, " The Healthy Skeptic, " to publish an excerpt from his article, " The Dark Side of Antidepressants ". This comprehensive overview of medical research related to antidepressant side - effects follows my Introduction.
Part A - Introduction
Positive anecdotal stories of antidepressant users who have suffered from the debilitating symptoms of untreated depression and anxiety often involve passion after taking prescription drugs of tactility better, clearer and just plain happier. One of the most popular antidepressants, which I will not name, has a website with persuasive - often heart wrenching - patient testimonials that plunge into with pre - treatment stories of lives in turmoil that are nearly unbearable and bear post - treatment discussions of a good temperament, an awakening, a new vigor, and a family that hereafter enjoys spend time with the patient due to minx is no longer irritable, a negative personality shift originally caused by stress on the job.
These personal stories are of course compelling. Some readers of this column, no doubt, endure the identical way. Antidepressants have in detail helped many people " lift the dark cache, " as the saying goes. Drug companies certainly want you to think antidepressants are the safe, quick solution to your blues. According to a recent report in the New England Daybook of Medicine, pharmaceutical companies spend over 1 billion dollars each year on marketing and promoting antidepressants to consumers and the doctors who prescribe them, including direct - to - consumer advertising on television and significant investments in " detailing " doctors ' support, or having sales representatives visit the doctor and permit drug samples, drug information and freebies relating pens and pads. The report also suggests that " the F&DA ' s capacity to enforce advertising regulations has been unsubstantial in recent years. " ( 1 )
The marketing certainly has worked. As mentioned in Part 1 of this Series, I discussed how antidepressants have become the most commonly prescribed drugs in the United States, prescribed more often than drugs for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, asthma, or headaches. ( 2 ) The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) reviewed 2. 4 billion drugs prescribed in visits to doctors and hospitals in 2005. 118 million were for antidepressants ( high blood pressure drugs were the second most common, with 113 million prescriptions ). Partly 232 million prescriptions for antidepressants were written last year, a sizeable increase. ( 3 ) Approximately 30 million patients in the US spent $12 billion on antidepressants in 2007. ( 4 ) The average time a general practitioner ( MD ) will spend with each patient to pin down the best approach to treat a patient for the affection at nut during a visit? About 15 log. ( 5 ) The use of antidepressants and other related drugs have ballooned over the last decade and that trend is projected to outlast.
One of the most interesting statements I came across during researching this article was - to restate - the celebration of antidepressants may be a triumph of marketing over science. Why is that? In part 1 of this Series, I included recent medical research that questions the effectiveness of prescription antidepressants. Now we are increasingly rumination that these drugs also may come with serious side effects.
A Wake Up Call For this Author – Is the Latitude More Serious Than Just Whether the Drugs Work or Not?
I am not a medical researcher. I undertaking to turn out region focused articles that contain a significant amount of research and disinterested investigation. I scheme that virtually everyone who engages in this process, whether a hobbyist twin me or a slick journalist, conducts a " Google search " during the beginning stage of the article writing process. Saying that I " Googled " a subject is same my begging someone to " FedEx " a combination when I really just want it sent overnight. Google searches not only arrange useful sources of information, but I would contend that they also offer a barometer of what is both available on the Lattice and what topics are of significant curiosity owing to Google actually tells you. As one types in a search term of a word or words, Google will quickly show a list of how many results ( in terms of webpages, blogs, etc. ) you ' ll find for your search based on the particular term you ' re searching.
When I began researching this article, I " Googled " various terms related to depression, its treatment, antidepressants and their side effects, among others, and then spent time seeing what was on the Interlacing. To be frank, the results were fairly shocking. I originally intended to search all terms for antidepressants that could be considered positive or neutral ( e. g., " antidepressant benefits " ) and then all terms that could be considered negative ( " antidepressant side effects " ), but quickly realized there are neatly too many possible key words to come up with. One thing became halcyon pretty quickly after searching a few hundred terms - there are tens of millions of search results related to the problems of antidepressants. Intrigued, I stretch to dig.
As I followed up on several of those search results, I realized that there is a massive Web - based movement - on websites, blogs, postings in forums, chat lodgings, etc. - to discuss and acquaint of the dangers and side effects of antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs, the newer begetting of drugs ), in particular. The blogs and sites are filled with horror stories about using the drugs, about suicidal thoughts, about that actuality that people can ' t believe more isn ' t being done to change the way depression in being treated. I couldn ' t bag a guess at home many people are currently participating in this online grassroots movement. I suggest that everyone into in the subject surf around the way I did.
My discussion principally has been based on the anecdotal discussions of individuals and families I came across while researching this article. But what has medical research discovered about the likelihood, types, and wildness of antidepressant side effects? For that discussion, Chris Kressler, a medical researcher and tutor, has loaned an excerpt from his comprehensive research - based article on the physiological, psychological and social consequences of antidepressant use.
Part B – “The Dark Side of Antidepressants” Excerpt by Chris Kressler
Side Effects of Antidepressant Use - A Review of the Medical Research
Although these [antidepressant] drugs are much considered to be safe by the media and amongst medical professionals and patients, a close noticing at the evidence suggests contradistinctive. Antidepressants have serious and potentially chancy adverse effects, create potentially surviving brain damage, increase the risk of suicide and passionate behavior in both children and adults, and increase the frequency and chronicity of depression. Chronic use of antidepressants also promotes dependency on drugs quite than empowering people to make positive life changes, and places a tremendous burden on healthcare systems in the U. S. and abroad.
Physiological side effects
The adverse effects of antidepressants contain movement disorders, agitation, sexual dysfunction, dishonorable bone development, unfair brain development, gastrointestinal bleeding, and a variety of other inferior known problems. These are not remarkable events, but the most significant bully comes only after months or years of use, which leads to the simulated viewpoint that antidepressants seem fairly safe.
More than half of those beginning an antidepressant have one of the more common side effects. ( 6 )
While some side effects may not transact serious health risks, others do. Gastrointestinal bleeding can become a life - hairy character, and partial bone development in children is a serious disputed point that can lead to new skeletal problems and homely bone fractures as they age. It has been shown that serotonin exposure in boyish mice impairs their bent ' s cognitive development, and many researchers lap up that the use of SSRI medications in pregnant mothers and unpracticed children may conclude children to emotional disorders successive in life. ( 7 ) ( 8 )
Another botheration with the side effects caused by antidepressants that is often not discussed is the likelihood that further medications will be prescribed to control them. It is well - known that Prozac produces anxiety and anxiety, so physicians often prescribe a sedative ( typically a benzodiazapene ) along with it. Seeing raw studies have shown that antidepressants generate gastrointestinal bleeding, doctors are initial to prescribe acid - inhibiting drugs undifferentiated as Nexium to prevent this side effect. These drugs also inevitably cause side effects, which may lead to the prescription of even more drugs. ( This is not express. )
Psychological Side Effects
Perhaps the best known psychological side effect of SSRIs is " amotivational syndrome ", a condition with symptoms that are clinically matching to those that develop when the frontal lobes of the expert are sad. The syndrome is characterized by apathy, disinhibited behavior, demotivation and a makeup pocket money in agreement to the effects of lobotomy. All psychoactive drugs, including antidepressants, are known to barbarous our emotional responses to some edge.
Clinical studies of SSRIs report that timidity is a common side effect. When Yale University ' s Department of Psychiatry analyzed the admissions to their hospital ' s psychiatric member, they settle that 8. 1 % of the patients were " fashion to have been familiar owing to antidepressant lust or psychosis. " ( 10 ) Anxiety is consistent a common side effect with SSRIs that the drug companies have consistently sought to hide it during clinical trials by prescribing a tranquilizer or sedative along with the antidepressant. Studies by Eli Lilly employees commence that between 21 % and 28 % of patients taking Prozac brilliant insomnia, tremor, anxiety, nervousness and restlessness, with the first-class rates among people taking the ace doses. ( 11 )
From their jumping-off place, antidepressants have been well-known as having a worrisome capacity to incite changes between episodes of depression ( characterized by dysphoria, insomnia, low energy, scanty concentration, reduced appetite and diminished libido ) and episodes of mania ( characterized by euphoria, other activity, rapid speech, quick thoughts, diminished need for sleep, hypersexuality and diminished impulse control ).
Several reports suggest that SSRIs are associated with movement disorders parallel as akathisia, Parkinson ' s disease, dystonia ( acute rigidity ), dyskinesia ( abnormal common choreic movements ) and tardive dyskiniesia. ( 12 )
These movement disorders are serious enough on their own. However, what is even more malignant is the thinkable for akathisia to induce initiative and suicide. Akathisia, a savor of inner restlessness or severe agitation, is the most commonly occurring movement disorder associated with psychoactive drug use. Akathisia - related violence receives specific attention in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM ). Akathisia has been shown to increase mighty behavior and suicide, and antidepressants are known to effect akathisia.
After years of end - dragging and thousands of random suicides, the FDA conclusively admitted that " two to three children out of every hundred " could be expected to develop suicidal thoughts or actions as a reaction of antidepressant therapy. ( 13 ) The risk of suicide events for children obtaining SSRIs has been three times higher than placebo. ( 14 ) Amazingly, no bans or restrictions have been placed on their use in children in the U. S.
While the expanded risk of suicide in children has become better known, most people are unaware that a companion risk exists for adults. When adult antidepressant trouble were re - analyzed to retrieve for awry methodologies, SSRIs have consistently revealed a risk of suicide ( through or attempted ) that is two to four times higher than placebo. ( 15 )
Turning short - term suffering into long - term misery
A growing body of research supports the hypothesis that antidepressants worsen the chronicity, if not tumult, of depressive features in many subjects. Antidepressant therapy is often associated with the poorest outcomes. In a mammoth, retrospective study in the Netherlands of more than 12, 000 patients, antidepressant exposure was associated with the worst long term results. 72 - 79 % of the patients who relapsed known antidepressants during their initial episode of depression. In departure, only one of the patients who did not relapse popular no antidepressants during or following the initial episode. ( 16 )
Longitudinal ( long - term ) follow - up stuides show very pinched outcomes for people treated for depression in both hospital and outpatient settings, and the overall prevalence of depression is rising despite wider use of antidepressants. ( 17 )
Epidemiological observations have long held that most episodes of depression end after three to six months. However, partly half of all Americans treated with antidepressants have remained on medication for more than a year. ( 18 )
Antidepressants have been shown to produce long - term, and in some cases, irreversible chemical and structural changes to the body and brain.
The administration of Prozac and Paxil raises cortisol levels in human subjects. ( 19 ) Habituated the gospel that elevated cortisol levels are associated with depression, weight gain, immune dysfunction, and cognizance problems, the alternative that antidepressants may contribute to prolonged elevations in cortisol is formidable to state the first.
In a study designed to request the anatomic effects of serotonergenic compounds, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University endow that high - dose, short - term exposure to SSRIs in rats was valid to produce swelling and kinking in the serotonin nerve fibers ( 20 ) Conclusion.
