Shining A Light On The Dark Side ( effects ) Of Antidepressants

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, uniform as stress management, heartfelt 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 lecturer, 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 emotions after taking prescription drugs of sensation 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 trigger with pre - treatment stories of lives in turmoil that are nearly unbearable and interject post - treatment discussions of a good perspective, an awakening, a new vigor, and a family that in conclusion enjoys spend time with the patient seeing daughter 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 gospel helped many people " lift the dark cloak, " as the saying goes. Drug companies certainly want you to regard 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 ' help, or having sales representatives visit the doctor and leave drug samples, drug information and freebies matching 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 ). Almost 232 million prescriptions for antidepressants were written last year, a substantial 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 arbitrate the best approach to treat a patient for the character at nut during a visit? About 15 scandal sheet. ( 5 ) The use of antidepressants and other related drugs have ballooned over the last decade and that trend is projected to survive.
One of the most interesting statements I came across during researching this article was - to reword - the confidence 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 cognition that these drugs also may come with serious side effects.
A Wake Up Call For this Author – Is the Where More Serious Than Just Whether the Drugs Work or Not?
I am not a medical researcher. I endeavor to engross locus focused articles that insert a significant amount of research and detached investigation. I visualize that virtually everyone who engages in this process, whether a hobbyist matching 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 compatible my petition someone to " FedEx " a packet when I really just want it sent overnight. Google searches not only feed 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 interest being 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 Lacework. 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 sunshiny pretty quickly after searching a few hundred terms - there are tens of millions of search results related to the problems of antidepressants. Intrigued, I stringy to dig.
As I followed up on several of those search results, I realized that there is a massive Net - based movement - on websites, blogs, postings in forums, chat lodgings, etc. - to discuss and caution of the dangers and side effects of antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs, the newer engendering of drugs ), in particular. The blogs and sites are filled with horror stories about using the drugs, about suicidal thoughts, about that reality that people can ' t have more isn ' t being done to nickels the way depression in being treated. I couldn ' t test a guess at home many people are currently participating in this online grassroots movement. I suggest that everyone affected 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 disorder 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 usually considered to be safe by the media and amongst medical professionals and patients, a close bad eye at the evidence suggests antithetic. Antidepressants have serious and potentially serious adverse effects, engender potentially abiding brain damage, increase the risk of suicide and frantic behavior in both children and adults, and increase the frequency and chronicity of depression. Chronic use of antidepressants also promotes dependency on drugs fairly 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 accommodate movement disorders, agitation, sexual dysfunction, vicious bone development, partial brain development, gastrointestinal bleeding, and a variety of other minor known problems. These are not uncommon events, but the most significant bully comes only after months or years of use, which leads to the fabricated doctrine that antidepressants seem quite safe.
More than half of those beginning an antidepressant have one of the more common side effects. ( 6 )
While some side effects may not take serious health risks, others do. Gastrointestinal bleeding can become a life - unhealthy constitution, and unscrupulous bone development in children is a serious crunch that can lead to extra skeletal problems and usual bone fractures as they age. It has been shown that serotonin exposure in budding mice impairs their creativity ' s mental development, and many researchers buy that the use of SSRI medications in pregnant mothers and blossoming children may opt children to emotional disorders next in life. ( 7 ) ( 8 )
Another dispute with the side effects caused by antidepressants that is often not discussed is the likelihood that supplementary medications will be prescribed to control them. It is well - known that Prozac produces anxiety and trepidation, so physicians often prescribe a sedative ( typically a benzodiazapene ) along with it. Being verdurous studies have shown that antidepressants originate gastrointestinal bleeding, doctors are introductory to prescribe acid - inhibiting drugs matching as Nexium to prevent this side effect. These drugs also inevitably effect side effects, which may lead to the prescription of even more drugs. ( This is not personalized. )
Psychological Side Effects
Perhaps the best known psychological side effect of SSRIs is " amotivational syndrome ", a kind with symptoms that are clinically coincidental to those that develop when the frontal lobes of the genius are busted up. The syndrome is characterized by apathy, disinhibited behavior, demotivation and a temper change coincident to the effects of lobotomy. All psychoactive drugs, including antidepressants, are known to uncivilized our emotional responses to some deadline.
Clinical studies of SSRIs report that unease is a common side effect. When Yale University ' s Department of Psychiatry analyzed the admissions to their hospital ' s psychiatric sliver, they settle that 8. 1 % of the patients were " plant to have been acknowledged owing to antidepressant fervor or psychosis. " ( 10 ) Scare is allied a common side effect with SSRIs that the drug companies have consistently sought to hide it during clinical trouble by prescribing a tranquilizer or sedative along with the antidepressant. Studies by Eli Lilly employees set up that between 21 % and 28 % of patients taking Prozac intelligent insomnia, dread, anxiety, nervousness and restlessness, with the pre-eminent rates among people taking the finest doses. ( 11 )
From their inauguration, antidepressants have been accepted as having a worrisome capacity to incite changes between episodes of depression ( characterized by dysphoria, insomnia, low energy, in want concentration, reduced appetite and diminished libido ) and episodes of mania ( characterized by euphoria, extra activity, rapid speech, snappy thoughts, diminished need for sleep, hypersexuality and diminished impulse control ).
Several reports suggest that SSRIs are associated with movement disorders near as akathisia, Parkinson ' s disease, dystonia ( acute rigidity ), dyskinesia ( abnormal native choreic movements ) and tardive dyskiniesia. ( 12 )
These movement disorders are serious enough on their own. However, what is even more hot is the unrealized for akathisia to induce assailing 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 Guidebook of Mental Disorders ( DSM ). Akathisia has been shown to increase agitated behavior and suicide, and antidepressants are known to engender akathisia.
After years of borderline - dragging and thousands of gratuitous suicides, the FDA presently admitted that " two to three children out of every hundred " could be expected to develop suicidal thoughts or actions as a close of antidepressant therapy. ( 13 ) The risk of suicide events for children receipt 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 parallel risk exists for adults. When adult antidepressant catastrophe were re - analyzed to retrieve for askew methodologies, SSRIs have consistently revealed a risk of suicide ( down 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 abandon, of depressive features in many subjects. Antidepressant therapy is often associated with the poorest outcomes. In a vast, 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 plain antidepressants during their initial episode of depression. In alteration, only one of the patients who did not relapse accepted no antidepressants during or following the initial episode. ( 16 )
Longitudinal ( long - term ) follow - up stuides show very meager outcomes for people treated for depression in both hospital and outpatient settings, and the overall prevalence of depression is rising despite else use of antidepressants. ( 17 )
Epidemiological observations have long held that most episodes of depression end after three to six months. However, halfway 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 ) Apt the reality that elevated cortisol levels are associated with depression, weight gain, unaffected dysfunction, and subconsciousness problems, the choice that antidepressants may contribute to prolonged elevations in cortisol is hot to yak the front.
In a study designed to interrogate the anatomic effects of serotonergenic compounds, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University organize that high - dose, short - term exposure to SSRIs in rats was adequate to produce swelling and kinking in the serotonin nerve fibers ( 20 ) Conclusion.