Posted on 02/25/2008 8:31:48 PM PST by sagmanagain
Prescribing anti-depressants to the vast majority of patients is futile, as the drugs have little or no impact at all, according to researchers. Almost 50 clinical trials were reviewed by psychologists from the University of Hull who found that new-generation anti-depressants worked no better than a placebo – a dummy pill – for mildly depressed patients. Even the trials that suggested some clinical benefit for the most severely depressed patients did not produce convincing evidence. Professor Irving Kirsch from the university’s pyschology department said: “The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and patients taking anti-depressants is not very great.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
take a pill
pinging
bummer
There we go
I don’t really know squat-all about this other than having had family members and associates turn to anti-depressants. It always seems at first it provides some immediate relief and they sing it’s praises, but invariably they get off them and say it was a false crutch that was weighing them down in the end.
I guess it can be a band-aid if you desparately need relief, but I’ve never heard that it’s a solution to a damned thing.
Someone better tell Salamander that the medical world and “big pharma” won out over plain, old-fashioned discipline and self control a long time ago.
Pass my Ritalin please.
Unless a person's medical condition is purely biological, it makes no sense that drugging a person living in a crappy situation would create anything other than a drugged person living in a crappy situation.
It's a bandaid over a gaping wound.
Wow, another study that is supposed to prove somehow that the majority of clinically depressed individuals would be much better off with no medication. And the less informed will extrapolate that any mentally ill individual should just pull him or herself up by his or her own bootstraps.
thanks, bfl
I used to get depressed a lot in the 70’s. Too much sugar and no exercise. I got rid of the sugar and started working out every other day. Never had a problem with it after that.
People are taking too many damn pills today. I take an ocassional tylenol.
yep, simply doctors and pharmaceutical companies playing God and giving people some false relief from the very suffering that they need in order to ask God for help. What a bunch of dingbats.
My understanding is that antidepressants (SSRI’s) regulate seratonin release. They don’t pull a person out of depression; rather, they keep people on an even keel so they can avoid emotional peaks and valleys that can place someone who is already depressed in danger. SSRI’s by themselves aren’t a cure; they’re supposed to be a tool used in conjunction with therapy, counseling, etc. They also are supposed to have a secondary effect on anxiety, but I don’t know the mechanism by which this is supposed to work.
An example of what can happen when seratonin release goes haywire is when kids use XTC (ecstasy). Normally, our brains release seratonin at a measured rate, and there is always a certain amount in reserve. Ecstasy causes the brain to release these reserves in a mad rush, which produces the feeling of an emotional high. Unfortunately, as has been seen many, many times, the next day many of these same kids turn suicidal. The brain only has so much reserve seratonin at any given time, and once it’s depleted they are effectively suffering from deep clinical depression. It takes time for the brain to produce enough seratonin to build these reserves again.
The term “antidepressant” is an unfortunate misnomer. They’re better described as “depression regulators” or “depression managers”. What they do is try to keep things under control so treatments like counseling can work.
They are no better than a placebo except
when you abruptly stop when you become a mass murderer !
A big problem with most of these studies is that patients expect the pills to do something that they don’t. They don’t make everything better, and they don’t do it instantly. People want a pill to make all the problems go away, and no pill can do that. They don’t do anything else to fix their problems and, when the pills alone don’t make everything OK they blame the pills.
I wonder how many of these pills are prescribed by GP’s who do no follow-up and don’t work to get the patient the counseling they need.
The study is bunk. The placebo effect is already accounted for in a double blind study.
One key to fighting depression is exersize. Another is eating a balanced diet. Pills might provide some with short-term benefits, but in the long run it’s not the best answer.
Wow, I must be one of the “severely depressed” on whom the pills actually work. I was diagnosed way back in ‘93 and have been on and off Zoloft, which didn’t do much except make me manic and lose hair. I never wanted to admit or accept I had some new-fangled hip and trendy syndrome, and always thumbed my nose at the idea of lining pharmacutical companies’ pockets, however the more I tried to fight it the worse things became. I’m on Prozac now and can honestly say it is working. I was severely debilitated and suicidal and was worried about the 2 weeks it takes for the pills to kick in, but they have really improved things for me. Yes, I worry about psychological addiction, but my doc over here in England has told me that I have a “disorder” and may need to be on the pills for a while. He’s tried to arrange for counselling as well but there is a huge waiting list. I’m coming back to the States for a few months soon and plan to stock up on pills before I head back. Yes, I pay for them on the NHS, but they’re discounted. So...
Wow, I must be one of the “severely depressed” on whom the pills actually work. I was diagnosed way back in ‘93 and have been on and off Zoloft, which didn’t do much except make me manic and lose hair. I never wanted to admit or accept I had some new-fangled hip and trendy syndrome, and always thumbed my nose at the idea of lining pharmacutical companies’ pockets, however the more I tried to fight it the worse things became. I’m on Prozac now and can honestly say it is working. I was severely debilitated and suicidal and was worried about the 2 weeks it takes for the pills to kick in, but they have really improved things for me. Yes, I worry about psychological addiction, but my doc over here in England has told me that I have a “disorder” and may need to be on the pills for a while. He’s tried to arrange for counselling as well but there is a huge waiting list. I’m coming back to the States for a few months soon and plan to stock up on pills before I head back. Yes, I pay for them on the NHS, but they’re discounted. So...
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