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, selfsame as stress management, present 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 true permission by Chris Kressler, a health researcher and pedant, 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 affection after taking prescription drugs of sense 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 instigate with pre - treatment stories of lives in turmoil that are partly unbearable and include post - treatment discussions of a good mood, an awakening, a new vigor, and a family that someday enjoys spend time with the patient whereas butterfly 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, observe the twin way. Antidepressants have in reality helped many people " lift the dark shield, " as the saying goes. Drug companies certainly want you to accept antidepressants are the safe, quick solution to your blues. According to a recent report in the New England Periodical 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 ' backing, or having sales representatives visit the doctor and assent drug samples, drug information and freebies according to pens and pads. The report also suggests that " the F&DA ' s capacity to enforce advertising regulations has been sickly 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 ). Halfway 232 million prescriptions for antidepressants were written last year, a goodly 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 halt the best approach to treat a patient for the factor at concern during a visit? About 15 record. ( 5 ) The use of antidepressants and other related drugs have ballooned over the last decade and that trend is projected to push on.
One of the most interesting statements I came across during researching this article was - to interpret - the dignity 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 introspection that these drugs also may come with serious side effects.
A Wake Up Call For this Author – Is the Seat More Serious Than Just Whether the Drugs Work or Not?
I am not a medical researcher. I crack to take down neighborhood focused articles that interpolate a significant amount of research and objective investigation. I think that virtually everyone who engages in this process, whether a hobbyist like me or a masterly journalist, conducts a " Google search " during the beginning stage of the article writing process. Saying that I " Googled " a subject is like my offer someone to " FedEx " a package when I really just want it sent overnight. Google searches not only afford useful sources of information, but I would contend that they also offer a barometer of what is both available on the Interlacing and what topics are of significant curiosity thanks 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 Web. 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 smartly 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 tall to dig.
As I followed up on several of those search results, I realized that there is a massive Netting - based movement - on websites, blogs, postings in forums, chat cantonment, etc. - to discuss and apprise of the dangers and side effects of antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs, the newer generation of drugs ), in particular. The blogs and sites are filled with horror stories about using the drugs, about suicidal thoughts, about that truth that people can ' t buy more isn ' t being done to change the way depression in being treated. I couldn ' t stab a guess at home many people are currently participating in this online grassroots movement. I suggest that everyone roused in the subject surf around the way I did.
My discussion chiefly 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 sharpness of antidepressant side effects? For that discussion, Chris Kressler, a medical researcher and pedagogue, 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 often considered to be safe by the media and amongst medical professionals and patients, a close contemplation at the evidence suggests colorful. Antidepressants have serious and potentially thorny adverse effects, originate potentially abiding brain damage, increase the risk of suicide and powerful 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 number among movement disorders, agitation, sexual dysfunction, undue bone development, unrightful brain development, gastrointestinal bleeding, and a variety of other subordinate known problems. These are not singular events, but the most significant injure comes only after months or years of use, which leads to the fabricated feeling that antidepressants seem fully safe.
More than half of those beginning an antidepressant have one of the more common side effects. ( 6 )
While some side effects may not carry serious health risks, others do. Gastrointestinal bleeding can become a life - precarious savor, and partial bone development in children is a serious nut that can lead to increased skeletal problems and conventional bone fractures as they age. It has been shown that serotonin exposure in boylike mice impairs their master ' s cerebral development, and many researchers swear by that the use of SSRI medications in pregnant mothers and inferior children may clinch children to emotional disorders sequential in life. ( 7 ) ( 8 )
Another predicament with the side effects caused by antidepressants that is often not discussed is the likelihood that additional medications will be prescribed to control them. It is well - known that Prozac produces anxiety and chickenheartedness, so physicians often prescribe a sedative ( typically a benzodiazapene ) along with it. Thanks to grassy studies have shown that antidepressants generate gastrointestinal bleeding, doctors are master to prescribe acid - inhibiting drugs close as Nexium to prevent this side effect. These drugs also inevitably generate side effects, which may lead to the prescription of even more drugs. ( This is not unique. )
Psychological Side Effects
Perhaps the best known psychological side effect of SSRIs is " amotivational syndrome ", a genius with symptoms that are clinically uniform to those that develop when the frontal lobes of the inspiration are damaged. The syndrome is characterized by apathy, disinhibited behavior, demotivation and a turn pocket money analogous to the effects of lobotomy. All psychoactive drugs, including antidepressants, are known to savage our emotional responses to some terminus.
Clinical studies of SSRIs report that distress is a common side effect. When Yale University ' s Department of Psychiatry analyzed the admissions to their hospital ' s psychiatric fragment, they commence that 8. 1 % of the patients were " get going to have been accepted owing to antidepressant solicitude or psychosis. " ( 10 ) Nightmare is twin a common side effect with SSRIs that the drug companies have consistently sought to hide it during clinical adversity by prescribing a tranquilizer or sedative along with the antidepressant. Studies by Eli Lilly employees fashion that between 21 % and 28 % of patients taking Prozac alert insomnia, misgiving, anxiety, nervousness and restlessness, with the super rates among people taking the beyond compare doses. ( 11 )
From their root, antidepressants have been confessed as having a worrisome capacity to incite changes between episodes of depression ( characterized by dysphoria, insomnia, low energy, insolvent concentration, reduced appetite and diminished libido ) and episodes of mania ( characterized by euphoria, expanded activity, rapid speech, nimble 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 accustomed choreic movements ) and tardive dyskiniesia. ( 12 )
These movement disorders are serious enough on their own. However, what is even more precarious is the prepatent for akathisia to induce attack and suicide. Akathisia, a make 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 Instruction of Mental Disorders ( DSM ). Akathisia has been shown to increase cruel behavior and suicide, and antidepressants are known to cause akathisia.
After years of tip - dragging and thousands of unnecessary suicides, the FDA fundamentally admitted that " two to three children out of every hundred " could be expected to develop suicidal thoughts or actions as a decision of antidepressant therapy. ( 13 ) The risk of suicide events for children recipient 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 extra risk of suicide in children has become better known, most people are unaware that a similar risk exists for adults. When adult antidepressant blow were re - analyzed to recover for erring methodologies, SSRIs have consistently revealed a risk of suicide ( over 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 sharpness, of depressive features in many subjects. Antidepressant therapy is often associated with the poorest outcomes. In a goodly, 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 common antidepressants during their initial episode of depression. In divergence, only one of the patients who did not relapse published no antidepressants during or following the initial episode. ( 16 )
Longitudinal ( long - term ) follow - up stuides show very impecunious outcomes for people treated for depression in both hospital and outpatient settings, and the overall prevalence of depression is rising despite and use of antidepressants. ( 17 )
Epidemiological observations have long held that most episodes of depression end after three to six months. However, midpoint 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 ) Inclined the detail that elevated cortisol levels are associated with depression, weight gain, immune dysfunction, and reflection problems, the alternative that antidepressants may contribute to prolonged elevations in cortisol is portentous to speak the inceptive.
In a study designed to needle the anatomic effects of serotonergenic compounds, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University institute that high - dose, short - term exposure to SSRIs in rats was yielding to produce swelling and kinking in the serotonin nerve fibers ( 20 ) Conclusion.
