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Imagine that you are depressed and see a psychiatrist who explains that you have clinical depression and would benefit from an antidepressant. So far, so good. But then the doctor tells you there is a 60 percent chance that you’ll feel better with this antidepressant and that it could take as long as four to six weeks to find out, during which time you’ll probably have some side effects from the drug. I have just described the state-of-the-art pharmacologic treatment of major depression in 2007. Don’t get me wrong; we have very effective and safe treatments for a broad array...

The number of prescriptions for anti-depressants has hit an all-time high, a mental health charity has said. More than 31 million were written last year - up 6% on the year before, according to Mind. Statistics show that within this figure, prescriptions for SSRIs (Serotonin Specific Reuptake Inhibitors) including Prozac have risen by 10% from 14.7 million to 16.2 million in England. It comes as the charity released research showing that country walks can help reduce depression and raise self-esteem. This has led to calls for "ecotherapy" to become a recognised treatment for people with mental health problems. Ecotherapy: the...

(AP/WLTX) - Young adults beginning treatment with antidepressants should be warned about an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior, federal officials said Wednesday. The Food and Drug Administration proposed labeling changes that would expand a warning now on all antidepressants. The current language applies only to children and adolescents. The expanded warning would apply to adults 18-24 during the first month or two of treatment with the drugs, the FDA said. The proposed labeling changes also would note that studies have not shown this increased risk in adults older than 24, and that adults 65 and older taking antidepressants...

Parents of clinically depressed children often find themselves in a troubling quandary, forced to weigh the mood-lifting benefits of antidepressants against the small but very real risk of suicidal behavior that may occur in young people who take these drugs. The Food and Drug Administration requires a black box warning on antidepressants (including Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft) concerning the possibility of suicidal thoughts, attempts, and behaviors in anyone under 25 who takes the drugs. But a new study, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, indicates that the drugs' benefits outweigh the risks. Researchers examined 27 clinical...

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- The suspected gunman in the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, Cho Seung-Hui, was a troubled 23-year-old senior from South Korea who investigators believe left an invective-filled note in his dorm room, sources say. The note included a rambling list of grievances and ended with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on the inside of one of his arms.

The death of Libby Zion, an 18-year-old college student, in a New York hospital on March 5, 1984, led to a highly publicized court battle and created a cause célèbre over the lack of supervision of inexperienced and overworked young doctors. But only much later did experts zero in on the preventable disorder that apparently led to Ms. Zion’s death: a form of drug poisoning called serotonin syndrome. --snip-- In its classic form, serotonin syndrome involves three categories of symptoms: ¶Cognitive-behavioral symptoms like confusion, disorientation, agitation, irritability, unresponsiveness and anxiety. --snip-- Perhaps adding to the diagnostic challenge is the fact...

In a long-awaited analysis, health officials reported yesterday that antidepressant medications appeared to increase significantly the risk of suicide attempts and related behaviors in adults under 25, while reducing such risks in older people. The analysis, the most comprehensive and rigorous to date, found that suicidal behavior of any kind was rare, and that people taking the medications were no more likely to kill themselves than those taking placebo pills. But adults under 25 taking the drugs were more than twice as likely as those on placebos to report a suicide attempt, or to prepare for one by, say, writing...

Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suicide rates among the youngest and oldest Americans have steadily declined since the late 1980s, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a finding that contradicts popular conceptions that rates were rising. The study suggests that new antidepressant drugs may not raise the risk of suicide after all, the researchers said, but they acknowledge they are mystified by what might be causing the decline, because it is not affecting people aged 25 to 64. "For 40 years adolescent suicide rates rose," said Dr. Robert McKeown, a professor at the University of South Carolina's school...

The results of two new studies may signal a substantial shift in the way psychiatrists and researchers think about treatment for severely depressed patients. --snip-- In the other, psychiatrists in New York found evidence that antidepressant drugs significantly increased the risk that some children and adolescents would attempt or commit suicide. Doctors have debated this risk for years, but the authors of the study were skeptical of it, and their report may sway others. --snip-- The study of suicide risk, led by Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, was based on an analysis...

"This post is dedicated to Rusty Yates, husband of Andrea, and all of the family members of those who have taken Anti-Depressants and had horrific consequences."

If the pursuit of happiness was once an ideal in American life, the entitlement to happiness may now have replaced it. Since the late 1980s, when psychotropic drugs first came on the market, grateful Americans have been lining up at the counter. Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Wellbutrin and a host of other antidepressants have been embraced as practical solutions to everyday unhappiness. More than 15% of Americans now use one of the above. Needless to say, they are not all clinically depressed. Whereas Sigmund Freud once described the goal of psychotherapy as "transforming hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness," many doctors now...

One of the most widely used treatments for the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, the antidepressant Prozac, works no better than dummy pills in preventing recurrence in young women who have recovered from it, researchers are reporting today. The study, the most rigorous to date to test the use of medication for anorexia, should alter treatment for an illness that is often devastatingly chronic and that has a higher mortality than any other psychiatric disorder, experts said. Fewer than a third of the study's participants, who also received regular psychotherapy, remained healthy for a year or more, whether they received drug...

Failure to screen U.S. troops for mental health problems may be the cause of an increasing suicide rate among soldiers serving in Iraq, a report says. According to an investigation by the Hartford (Conn.) Courant, fewer than one in 300 service members see a mental health professional before shipping out, despite a congressional order that all deploying troops by screened, the newspaper reported Sunday. The report uncovered evidence of soldiers suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome being sent back to the war zone and unstable troops being kept on the front lines while taking potent anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs. In addition, the...

After analyzing data from clinical trials, GlaxoSmithKline has sent letters to doctors warning that its antidepressant drug Paxil appears to increase the risk of suicide attempts in some young adults. The company said it had changed the labeling on the drug to reflect the finding of the study, which analyzed clinical trial data involving some 15,000 people. The study found that reported suicide attempts were rare but significantly more common in adults who took the drug for depression than in those who received placebo pills. The Glaxo researchers reported only one suicide in the trials, a number so small it...

Antidepressants work better than psychotherapy in preventing relapses in elderly men and women who have recovered from depression, a new study suggests. The government-financed study, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that a combination of drugs and therapy was the best way to restore well-being in seriously depressed patients 70 and older. Once the patients had recovered, however, drug treatment was more effective over the next two years than once-a-month psychotherapy. Experts said the results underscored the challenges of treating depression in people past retirement age who are buffeted by anxieties — about dying, losing friends,...

NEW YORK, March 2 (UPI) -- Forest Laboratories said Thursday its patent on anti-depressant Lexapro has been extended for nearly two and a half years. The company said it received a notice from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that its patent covering Lexapro's composition of matter has been extended for 828 days. That means the Lexapro patent is now in effect until Sept. 14, 2011, and until March 14, 2012, with inclusion of six months' market exclusivity the drug maker was granted for completing pediatric studies of Lexapro. Lexapro is currently approved to treat major depressive disorder and generalized...

ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK -- New research has linked the use of Prozac and other similar antidepressants during pregnancy to yet another complication in newborns: an uncommon but life-threatening lung problem. Infants whose mothers took the antidepressants in the second half of pregnancy had six times the expected risk of developing the lung disorder, the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. The antidepressants implicated are called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, a class of drugs that includes Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. "This is the latest in a series of troubling reports of possible adverse effects of...

Pregnant women who take selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants such as Celexa, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft could boost the risk of withdrawal symptoms for their newborns, a new study suggests. However, the Israeli researchers add that these symptoms are usually gone within 48 hours and appear to pose no long-term threat to the infant's health. Another expert noted that stopping antidepressant therapy during pregnancy poses its own risk to the health of a mother and her child. "At present, probably the effect of not treating the women's clinical depression is a much bigger issue for mothers and their infants,"...

Can antidepressants lead people to become violent? The question has been raised frequently in recent years, often by lawyers representing murder defendants who had been taking drugs, such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. It surfaced in Charlotte with the stabbing deaths Jan. 20 of 5-year-old twin girls. Their father, David Crespi, who was taking antidepressants and sleeping pills, was charged with murder. Without details of Crespi's treatment, experts say speculation is dangerous. Even when specifics are known, answers aren't always clear. "Sometimes it is hard to accept (that) we don't know why for sure," said Dr. Ranga Krishnan, chairman of...

In the 60's to 1989 research into tryptophan grew rapidly, millions used it for depression. In 1989, a contaminated batch forced the FDA to pull tryptophan off the US market, never to return. This destroyed all research into this critical amino acid and cleared the way for pharmaceutical drugs and billions of profits for them. I am asking the question, why do so many drugs work on the tryptophan oxygenase (pyrrolase) pathway? We have antidepressants (all classes). Related articles; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=7126996 And here; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1826617 Then we have alcohol; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10721064&query_hl=9 Then we have asprin; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=7082905&query_hl=15 Nicotine, morphine, phenobarbitone http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=989&query_hl=17 then we have...