Posted on 08/03/2009 7:42:53 PM PDT by mombyprofession
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday.
About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 -- 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found.
"Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans," Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
"Not only are more U.S. residents being treated with antidepressants, but also those who are being treated are receiving more antidepressant prescriptions," they added.
More than 164 million prescriptions were written in 2008 for antidepressants, totaling $9.6 billion in U.S. sales, according to IMS Health.
Drugs that affect the brain chemical serotonin like GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil, known generically as paroxetine, and Eli Lilly and Co's Prozac, known generically as fluoxetine, are the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressant. But the study found the effect in all classes of the drugs.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
With this president that will triple, at the very least.
Turns out the whole country was on St. John Wort - a natural antidepressant - just enough to "take the edge off" much needed guilt...
There are two big causes of this. They are the stressful economic times and the public schools. With Obama in office, look for it to double again. Who knows, maybe some of us will need them before long.
My, how depressing a story.
I’d love to run a cross-tab on how many of these pill poppers voted for Barry. Gut feeling, tells me at least 65%.
who cares? nobody. and what if they did? it wouldn't matter anyway. nothing matters. and what if it did? nobody would care.
I bet Obama bought stock in Pfizer before the election.
depressing? well, take one of these
?
LOL! Great link!
You gotta watch it like 10 times to read all of the hysterically funny “side effects” listed.
;]
?
Sure, more than 9% have had the flu, or the chicken-pocks or some other sickness, but it's "at the same time" that is disturbing, at least to me.
O-hole’s fault.
Actually, I think the true figures are that about 1 in 4 are taking some form of antidepressent or tranquilizers.
Many persons don’t even know that is what they are taking. Fluoxetine (prozac) for several years now has been prescribed for severe PMS in women (no joke). Physicians also routinely prescribe Diazapam as a muscle relaxant. Diazapam is also known as Valium.
My goodness, even the military issues Diazapam as one of three drugs used to treat a nerve agent victim (atropine being another).
Use of psychotrophic medications has become widely accepted. They have proven to be very useful for many persons previously impaired. Prozac is almost something of a miracle drug in some cases.
Abortion!
I’ll bet 80 percent of Democrats are on them.
BTW - This is much better, under the care of a physician, than what people did before. That being to “self medicate” themselves with alcohol.
Me, I've been turning to hard physical labor to work out anger at what obama is doing to America and Americans...and a little Jack on the rocks to sooth the nerves.
Type 2 Diabetes. That would go along with the heart disease and hypertension.
I am really curious: Could you send me a source for this??? Seriously!
I just pontificate on FR, does wonders for my BP and all my other ailments. I don’t need no stinking antidepressants, I have FR. Gives me a reason to get up in the morning.
The increased use of medication is because we are all getting stinking terrified of this man and the direction he is forcing on our wonderful country.
Just when I think it can’t get worse, it does.
If Obamacare passes, we’ll be back to self medicating.
“If Obamacare passes, we’ll be back to self medicating.”
More likely the country will be overrun with Kenyan witch doctors.
The doctors writing the scripts for it better have a good understanding of the patients entire medical history especially ones related to neurological impairments. Antidepressants given to the wrong persons even for what the doctors believe is the right reasons can be as bad as giving some persons LSD. Doctors, patients, and patients families need to educate themselves on possible adverse reactions from antidepressants. Sad thing is even many shrinks are unaware how severe and adverse reaction can be and mistake it for acute psychosis they induced via medication.
Oh goody! Chicken with their heads cut off, goat heads, black crows and such...YAY!!!
Yep. That's right. You know, all those things can have one common cause, obesity. I wonder if anyone has ever looked into a linkage between obesity and clinical depression.
every problem can be solved, every pain relieved...
well folks.....some problems never go away, they can be handled and de-escalated...and pain is such a relative thing.....many people live with constant aches or pains....its called being human.....
people whine about a sniffle and automatically they have a sinus infection, or they have a back ache and automatically they get Hydrocodones......they sleep poorly so their placed on c-pap.....they feel a little down, they get on antidepressants....
we are over coddled and over medicated...too frequently operated on...fed too much ....
look in the mirror folks...its US that are the problem....
and one can only imagine a big reason that some idiot people voted zero in is that they were half cocked with pills....
Brave new world indeed...
Take a poll of teen-aged girls who use antidepressants - it is shocking. (I taught in a private school and it came up in class once. Almost all were on “meds”.)
“”I’m okay..you’re okay” philosophy....”
It sure beats the “I Suck .. You Suck” philosophy.
“Oh goody! Chicken with their heads cut off, goat heads, black crows and such...YAY!!!”
Yah mon, lots a bad ju ju!
“It sure beats the “I Suck .. You Suck” philosophy.”
Personally, I subscribe to the view that, “I’m not OK, and your are probably even worse.”
I am no pro here, but an observation on this topic.
We are looking at a generation of folks, actually 2 now, that have been raised without moms in the home, outside of church and faith (good parents don’t foist faith on their kids, they let them grow up and make up their own minds) and in an age of divorce. It must have felt like shifting sand under their feet.
Add to that the availability of birth control, and girls went looking for love and acceptance outside of marriage. More permanent damage, emotionally. Add abortion, casual sex with multiple partners, and removal of God and sin from every aspect of their lives.
There isn’t any way not to feel depressed if all you live for is the moment, especially when you start to wonder why am I here? What is my purpose?
These questions cannot be answered with todays remedies, so they turn to medication. While I am well aware that there are some cases of mental illness that do need to be treated, just as there are children with behavioral issues that do as well, there is no way the numbers can be that high just because, for either group. We have exchanged the confessional with the psychoanalysts couch, prayer for pills, and reasoned faith with the feel good and do it mentality.
I remember reading on here that among polled folks those who were married, practicing their faith, and conservative were the happiest folks, by a huge margin. No surprise; living as one was designed to live has its advantages, in this life, and the next one :)
Love your name, by the way!
Cherry, you sound depressed.
Approximately 370 species of the genus Hypericum exist worldwide with a native geographical distribution including temperate and subtropical regions of North America, Europe, Asia Minor, Russia, India, and China. St. John's wort is today most widely known as an herbal treatment for depression. According to the Cochrane Review, a key resource in evidence-based medicine, "the available evidence suggests that the hypericum extracts tested in the included trials are superior to placebo in patients with major depression; are similarly effective as standard antidepressants; and have fewer side effects than standard antidepressants."[3]
Well said, and I couldn’t agree with you more.
Those in my immediate family who are the most messed up are those that don’t have any underpinnings of faith in their lives and have made every wrong choice a person can make in this lifetime.
don’t see any references to nazis in that abstract.
I feel the same could happen here - as there's so many people with blunted senses of right and wrong walking around...
Well, hopefully it comes back on. ;)
Drugs can be factor, but mass delusions are a fact of history in very diverse places and conditions.
The book "Coffee" alludes to it's desired affect of increasing drive and enthusiasm...wonder what the world would be like without it...but I don't really want to know.
A culture in which every eighth person (just a guess) has either had or paid for an abortion can make for some pretty messed up masses. People do really weird things when their consciences are nagging.
This morning’s paper had an article about depression being diagnosed in children as young as three. If they are put on drugs I can just imagine how screwed up they will be as adults.
sad, but true...
Thank you
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