Essay Questions Role of Antidepressants,Authors Challenge Link Between Chemical Imbalance/Depression

WebMD ^ | Nov. 7, 2005 | Salynn Boyles

[Jenny Hatch]

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), include the drugs Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro, and Celexa. The drugs increase the availability of serotonin, which acts as a chemical messenger in the brain among other areas.

Millions of Americans take SSRIs for depression and other mood disorders, and in the U.S. alone sales of the drugs top $10 billion a year.

In a newly published essay, anatomy professor Jonathan Leo, PhD, along with colleague Jeffrey Lacasse, say that SSRI ads aimed at the public are often misleading.

Leo teaches neuroanatomy at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Bradenton, Fla.

"The advertising is not portraying the science in a true light," Leo tells WebMD.

He says the ads typically claim that SSRIs restore the serotonin balance of the brain but adds that there is "no such thing as a scientifically established correct balance of serotonin."

[Jenny Hatch]

Movie Star Spat

Leo and Lacasse published their essay in the December issue of the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine. The Public Library of Science is a privately funded, nonprofit group that publishes scientific and medical research and makes it freely available on its web site.

Leo says he hopes the paper will make the public aware that there is legitimate scientific debate about whether depression is caused by chemical imbalance.

"Professionals have researched and debated this issue for years. It is not just a public spat between two movie stars," he says.

He is referring to actor Tom Cruise's highly publicized criticism of actress Brooke Shields, who wrote earlier this year that SSRIs helped her recover from postpartum depression after the birth of her first child.

In a June appearance on NBC's Today Show, Cruise called antidepressants "very dangerous" and claimed there was no proof that chemical imbalances in the brain drive depression.

Shields responded in a New York Times op-ed piece, calling Cruise's assertions a "ridiculous rant."

God bless Tom Cruise if he is the reason this debate is FINALLY being waged in the public airwaves AND in the medical community and press...

Jenny Hatch

[Gay State Conservative]

Leo teaches neuroanatomy at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Bradenton, Fla.

What's the matter? Couldn't they get anyone from Mrs Stevens' Medical School And Storm Door Company?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Tom Cruise is a mouthpiece for an organized crime outfit that wants to promote the idea that the answer to all mental illness involves forking over all your money to said organization, and then devoting your life to sucking other people into it. Psychoactive pharmaceuticals and the doctors who prescribe them are competition, which said organization will not hesitate to use ruthless measures to try to stamp out, regardless of whether or not the competition is right.

The issue of rapidly growing use of psychoactive pharmaceuticals is well worth scientific and intellectual examination, but not from a conspiracy theory point of view. A major factor IMO, which has received little serious attention, is that relatively low physical activity levels are associated with both depression and ADD -- the conditions most widely medicated. Humans evolved, like most mammals, to spend many hours every day in energetic physical activity. But in the modern, knowledge-based economy, manual labor is at the bottom of the economic ladder, with most worthwhile jobs involving endless hours at a desk, and many years of educational preparation done at a desk, and that's not going to change. It may turn out that routine use of psychoactive pharmaceuticals IS the best answer to this dilemma (though hopefully, newer and better ones will be developed to replaced the current favorites). Anyone who isn't open to that possibility is, like Tom Cruise, irrationally attached to a belief system that has nothing to do with reality.

[jan in Colorado]

ping for later!

[grellis]

A major factor IMO, which has received little serious attention, is that relatively low physical activity levels are associated with both depression and ADD...

Holy sh!t! We agree! I've battled bouts of depression since single-digit childhood. In my late teens I had a wonderful psychoanalyst who finally had the sense to say "You don't need me--you need exercise." He was totally right. Does exercise completely do away with my depression? No--it makes it manageable, which is all that drugs do, and exercise has much better side effects.

I don't know if I'd lump the ongoing Shields/Cruise debate in here, however. From all that I've read, what she went through was treading into post-partum psychosis territory, not the much more common ppd that the bulk of moms deal with. Moms with post-partum psychosis--IIRC, roughly 1-3% of moms at best--should, at the very least, be seeing a medical doctor for treatment of their "circumstance" (for lack of a better word), at least twice a week, if possible. Andrea Yates is a good lesson about what's at stake. It is a temporary situation. Hormone levels nearly always return to normal naturally, often within weeks of delivery or weeks of weaning from the breast.

BTW--in my most humble opinion, Tom Cruise is a butt wipe.

[Jenny Hatch]

Andreas psychosis was brough on by the drugs!! She was released from a mental hospital the day before she murdered the kids and killed them in a anti-depressant psychosis, which is a common side effect of these drugs... The truth is that when serotonin metabolism is impaired, as every one of the SSRIs do - this is thought to be their "therapeutic effect" - it has been shown for decades of medical research to produce impulsive murder and suicide. At this point we have a decade and a half of these drugs being used on the general population as proof that the research from the past several decades is indeed correct. Counting the dead from the SSRI induced impulsive murder and suicide will take a very long time. As if the problems with these drugs were not already bad enough, if Wyeth has their way we can just use college campuses as microcosms to help us see what adverse effects these drugs have upon a very vulnerable group within our society. It was in the spring of 2000 that Elizabeth Shin set herself on fire under the influence of Celexa in her dormitory room at MIT. But Wyeth's Effexor has been in the news so much this year you would think someone might have noticed some red flags popping up. To list only a few: First we had Andrea Yates go to trial for killing her five children while under the influence of both Effexor and Remeron at maximum dose of each drug. The drug companies have spent the past few years coming up with some powerful and very expensive anti-psychotics. They know when all those folks on Anti-Depressants finally start to come off of them, as many will when they press starts to share the facts as they have done this past week, that some, if not many will suffer from mania and psychosis. This is what the medical profession does. They come out with a proceedure or drug, and then when they have milked it long enough, and when they have something new waiting in the wings, they finally capitulate and let it die, all the while reaping a harvest off the new drug of the month, year, or decade. If the 90's were symbolized by Prozac and depression, the new millenium will be symbolized by Psychosis and all of these new expensive anti-psychotics.... just wait and see.... Jenny

[aimhigh]

Are you going to post the same story day after day?

[codyjacksmom]

bump for later read....

[TheSpottedOwl]

I don't know about Andrea Yates, and whether abruptly stopping her medication made her worse. Actually she's a poor example because she needed to be an inpatient. Her husband probably told her she didn't need the drugs.

Brooke Shields is a better example. Post Partum Depression is a really scary thing. I'm blessed that except for a few days of baby blues, I didn't experience anything like what she did.

I take Zoloft to deal with some problems I'm having with my ex husband. The stress has led to two mild strokes. I'm not depressed, well I don't think I am. I just have to get through this crap, and need some help. Years ago, the doctor would have probably prescribed Valium. Lol, there are times where a Valium along with the Zoloft would be perfect!

For some people, the stuff works. For others, it doesn't. The Columbine killers were taking Paxil.

[grellis]

Andreas psychosis was brough on by the drugs!!

According to whom? A link specific to her case, including what drugs she was taking, when she was taking them, and most importantly if she stopped taking them would be nice.

[GovernmentShrinker]

BTW--in my most humble opinion, Tom Cruise is a butt wipe.

So there's more than one thing you and I agree on :-)

[grellis]

Well, there ya go! He's as creepy as it gets.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[GovernmentShrinker]

Happy Thanksgiving to you too!