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Researchers Find Antidepressants Increase Risk of Death (medicalxpress.com)
Artem Tashkinov shares a report from Medical Xpress: Antidepressant medications, most commonly prescribed to reduce depression and anxiety, increase the risk of death, according to new findings by a McMaster-led team of researchers. It's widely known that brain serotonin affects mood, and that most commonly used antidepressant treatment for depression blocks the absorption of serotonin by neurons. It is less widely known, though, that all the major organs of the body -- the heart, kidneys, lungs, liver -- use serotonin from the bloodstream. Antidepressants block the absorption of serotonin in these organs as well, and the researchers warn that antidepressants could increase the risk of death by preventing multiple organs from functioning properly.
Interestingly, the news about antidepressants is not all bad. The researchers found that antidepressants are not harmful for people with cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. This makes sense since these antidepressants have blood-thinning effects that are useful in treating such disorders. Unfortunately, this also means that for most people who are in otherwise good cardiovascular health, antidepressants tend to be harmful. The study has been published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.
Interestingly, the news about antidepressants is not all bad. The researchers found that antidepressants are not harmful for people with cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. This makes sense since these antidepressants have blood-thinning effects that are useful in treating such disorders. Unfortunately, this also means that for most people who are in otherwise good cardiovascular health, antidepressants tend to be harmful. The study has been published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.
That may well be and it's good to know this, however it makes little sense lowering your risk of death due to serotonin absorption blockers when you in turn either run a risk of throwing yourself off the next bridge or don't have any fun living anyway.
That's... Depressing....
This makes me wonder about the medical qualifications of the article writers:
"The researchers reviewed studies involving hundreds of thousands of people and found that antidepressant users had a 33% higher chance of death than non-users."
So, users of antidepressants have a 133% chance of death?
This news has made me feel really depressed .. oh wait!
It's only the drugs.
Isn't the risk of death for humans always 100%? Sooo...
Antidepressants block the absorption of serotonin in these organs as well, and the researchers warn that antidepressants could increase the risk of death by preventing multiple organs from functioning properly.
Is it just me? I find the whole idea of a pill curing depression rather strange. I think what we need is a more just society; a society that focuses less on material possessions or money but more on family -
whatever that may mean to an individual.
Let's remember that there are communities on this planet where depression is an unknown, especially the so called third world nations, despite their popluation's daily struggle to survive.
Let's start with something the computer literate ought to understand: Any computational problem at least as hard as solving the Halting Problem is certain to have no general solution. If we restrict to a finite Turing machine of a given size N (e.g. by looping the tape, or having the machine halt-and-reject in the advent of running of tape), any size we choose, the corresponding Halting Problem for that machine cannot be solved on that machine, only a much larger machine.
Once we reach the point where decision making is affected (i.e. beyond proper sensible drinking), prediction as to the outcome is essentially reduces to a practically limitless family of decision problems each at least as hard as the Halting Problem for the _largest_ finite Turing Machine which can be faithfully implemented in this physical universe (yes, the entire universe, and given all 14 billion years of runtime available to us).
That is how hard the problem these 'this drug does X' researchers are trying to solve. The only problems they can really solve are those which involve coming up with more and more elaborate ways to delude themselves and those who are gullible enough to believe their pseudoscientific bullshit. Accurate prediction of the 'this medication treats schizoaffective disorder' is so impossible that it is way past the point of insanity, out through Numptyland to the field called Dipshit, before one begins to get to the degree of craziness necessary to think what people who believe this shit do.
John_Chalisque
I can be dead and want to live or alive and want to die. Nice choices. Thanks, Obama.
Quite depressing indeed...
The tittle had me excited because I thought they'd been studying the suicide risk of depressed people on anti-depressants vs. depressed people not on anti-depressants. There have been studies done, such as this one (open access, published in the journal of the Royal Society of Medicine) found that when selective serotonin and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors are given to adult healthy volunteers with no signs of a mental disorder, the suicide risk is doubled. Whether this doubling also occurs in depressed individuals is the real question, but this is hard to study ethically.
Anti-depressants are far more controversial than most people seem to think, and the medical field has slowly begun to admit it. Note that I'm not saying the study I mentioned or this study prove that their usage should be stopped, but at the very least they're clear indicators that more research is needed into their efficacy and potential alternatives.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
A few good seizures each day will have you in shape again.
"Interestingly, the news about antidepressants is not all bad. "
Sure, after a while the most depressed people are all dead, so there are less depressed people.
The study was done by a bunch of psychology students.
Choose your way to die, from a myocardial infarction or from hanging yourself.
I was treated for depression for a couple of years with SSRI. The medication works. But I really get out of depression by buying a Bible, and praying, asking God for help, and giving some money to charities and beggars. Now I am treated for schizophrenia which is much better than depression. (Jesus speak tenderly to me.) Good Luck to everybody with sickness or poverty or any suffering.
That's not to say that finding better families for foster care wouldn't help a lot of kids w/ mental problems. (especially if there's one neglected kid who starts taking it out on the other kids, resulting in all ending up with issues) ...
But my first thought about this was 'doesn't suicide rate go up for the holidays?' Those are the times we spend with family. Now, maybe it's because people can't afford presents for the kids after getting laid off and they see themselves as a failure (so it's related to the materialism).
But for others, it's just dealing with family. Is my mom/grandmom/whoever going to pester me about not having a (boy|girl)friend/not liking my (boy|girl)friend/not being married/not having kids/not having a job/not having a good enough job/not being straight/whatever else?
I'd hang out w/ one of my brothers more ... perhaps some cousins ... maybe see my dad more than once every 5 years or so ... but the rest of the family? I'll pass.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
This study does not seem to account for the fact that people who would take antidepressants might be at higher risk than those that would not. Therefore, this increased risk of death might be in part because they are depressed, not just because of the medication. These kinds of studies must be taken with a large grain of salt. Or a spoonful of sugar. If we are going to publish study results on news outlets, let's please make sure they are thorough and aren't sensationalized!
While growing up most people learn, for better or worse to deal with their feelings and how to control the extremes. By changing your brains natural chemistry you will inevitably, in some people introduce a critically destabilizing change that sometimes causes the person to crash. I say this because it happened to me years ago when I worked for a not for profit mental health system. I was proscribed over the years several different types of antidepressants with very little in the way of real therapy. Some caused major mood swings that did nothing for my mental well being. I never caused harm to myself but I personally think these drug need to be more restricted and require more scrutiny by providers. This of course will never happen, until we stop taking money from these programs and increase the number of resources available to them. You don't let someone with cancer go without constant tests to assess the persons condition. In fact ignoring cancer in a child is a punishable offense but you're free to ignore their mental state.
The article doesn't mention a control group.
Clinical depression is an illness, and like other illnesses, it can cause a lot of physical problems. Could it be that the illness itself is causing the organ malfunctions, rather than the antidepressants?
Depression also leads to many bad habits, such as substance abuse and other addictions. Could it be that these bad habits are the real cause of the organ failures?
Antidepressants do have some nasty side effects. We've known that for decades. But this study doesn't prove it. And even if it's right, the risk of death and poor quality of life due to depression is far worse than anything caused by these side effects.
Great Zeus, we have become a stupid species.
All the ads I see on tv for any anti - depressant always state that a side effect is suicidal thoughts.
As one who has taken them in the past, I can vouch for this... On many occasions I had to unload and lock away my 9mm weapon in a separate container from my ammunition for said, so that I would not put it into my mouth and pull the trigger.
And that was while taking these anti-depressants.
Off of them I am not as happy, true, but on them the thought of ending it all happens regularly.
If you would like to naturally increase your bioavailable serotonin, then the short answer is to take tryptophan supplements with niacin.
When tryptophan passes through the digestive system, it can take one of two pathways, processing into either niacin or serotonin (and then a portion into melotonin after further processing).
Taking niacin with tryptophan will maximize the serotonin pathway.
However, use great caution with these supplements in the presence of an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, i.e. the main ingredient of many anti-depressants) - this combination can be fatal.
About three years ago my wife started hearing voices. It got progressively worse until it was happening 22 hours a day or so. She went through all kinds of hell trying to get help and when she did they put her on a huge panoply of drugs. The drugs never helped. Some did make her into a zombie so she couldn't scream at the voices as much, but they didn't really help her. She'd struggled with depression, anxiety, and other less severe mental illness for about 15 years before the voices. She took SSRI's, Trycyclics, a few novel drugs, and if they ever did anything it was just a negative side effect. After dozens of doctors visits, 20 years of struggle, and trying just about ever treatment under the Sun, drugs have never worked. The only thing that ever showed any promise was when she was doing Cognitive Behavior Therapy. That actually had some incredibly good results, but the problem is that it's real work. For someone who can't concentrate, is clinically disorganized, and simply can't think without being interrupted by voices, CBT is too hard.
I haven't given up trying to help, but I have given up all hope that any of these doctors have clue about what they are doing. It doesn't help that you normally get super-short appointments with them (10 minutes is a long one). It also doesn't help that it's super-expensive.
Paxil made me completely apathetic, with a diminished sexual interest, and lack of appetite among other symptoms. I'd rather be depressed and have periodic "black moods".
Limited usage of THC works wonders in comparison - with none of the anti-depressant symptoms.
Risk of death from anti-depressants: Up a few percent over your entire lifespan
Risk of death from suicide: 100% the second you do it
I hope this BS doesn't discourage people struggling with depression from seeking help... If it does, those deaths are squarely on the people that ran this study.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
What happens when you give a deeply depressed, suicidal person whose main reason to NOT kill himself is that he didn't even have the drive to do this a motivational boost?
This reminds me of the sampling-error false link between antidepressants and criminal behavior, and the ethical dilemma some psychologists have when treating psychopaths.
Some psychopaths (just like some non-psychopaths) also happen to be clinically depressed. (It's apparently like being color-blind vs. being diabetic. No particular link, so there's all four binary combos.)
A depressed psychopath may be quite willing to commit atrocities but mostly doesn't because he's too downed to get up the energy to do it. (He may have committed a few already and be in prison, which might also add a bit of situational depression to the mix.)
So what do you get if you treat the depression? A fully-functional, energetic, psychopath, all set to go on the rampage he's been too downed-out to get around to.
Thus do you get sampling bias making it appear that a good antidepressant has increased criminal behavior as a side-effect. (Actually it just produces more active behavior in general - and the psychopahths do more of their usual thing.)
And thus the ethical dilemma for a shrink treating one: Does he leave the depression untreated and the patient suffering? Or does he treat the depression and produce an active, energetic psychopath who is a serious danger to everyone around him?
Psychopathy itself is essentially untreatable. About the only "treatment" that has been shown to be substantially effective (by the measure of drastically reducing recidivism) is to teach them Objectivism - a philosophy that provides convincing and accessible answers to "Why should I be good? What's in it for me?"
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Depression is a battle that you only have to lose once. Just having depression can mean fighting thoughts of stepping out in front of a train or wondering if that knife would be sharp enough to cut your wrists before it hurts to stop.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
Remember, the brain is mostly fat. Some inspiration of what may be possible: https://nutritionandmetabolism...
"We report the unexpected resolution of longstanding schizophrenic symptoms after starting a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet. After a review of the literature, possible reasons for this include the metabolic consequences from the elimination of gluten from the diet, and the modulation of the disease of schizophrenia at the cellular level."
And:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/lear...
"Depression doesnâ(TM)t have one specific cause; environmental and genetic factors may be at play, as well as psychosocial stressors, however, a major factor causing depression is unhealthy dietary factors. Fast-food and commercial baked goods are linked to depression in a dose dependent manner, and dietary excellence can be the solution for many suffering individuals. A feeling of a depressed mood can also be a symptom of other medical conditions or a side effect from a medication, so to be sure of what is causing your symptoms, you may need to discuss your depression with your doctor."
Search also on "The UltraMind Solution: The Simple Way to Defeat Depression, Overcome Anxiety, and Sharpen Your Mind" by Dr.Mark Hyman, again focusing on nutrition.
Water-only fasting helps in some cases of mental illness too (especially if brain inflammation is caused by some food allergy). The Russians did a lot of research and practice on that.
Obviously, good mood is more complex than just nutrition. Look at Dr. Andrew Weil for a broader perspective.
Or see this quoting Philip Hickey, Ph.D:
http://www.eqi.org/p1/depressi... Is Not An Illness: It is an Adaptive Mechanism
"In order to feel good, the following eight factors must be present in our lives.
* good nutrition
* fresh air
* sunshine (in moderation)
* physical activity
* purposeful activity with regular experiences of success
* good relationships
* adequate and regular sleep
* ability to avoid destructive social entanglements, while remaining receptive to positive encounters"
Also, check out:"The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time Paperback" by Alex Korb PhD.
There are lots more resources like that. There are lots of alternatives to placebo-like mental drugs...
Our society is also all too quick to label a "spiritual crisis" as mental illness:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So, when all else fails,consider: "Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals" by Thomas Moore for finding meaning and even personal growth in the darkness (might be of some help to you too as it is a difficult journey you are on together).
Good luck to you and your wife!
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.