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.

Comments

Re: Sure

[crankyspice]

If they actually worked as antidepressants... https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/are-antidepressants-just-placebos-with-side-effects/

Re:The drug industry chasing $$...

[Enter the Shoggoth]

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.

Yes it is just you! Although it's true that unhappiness can be a byproduct of social ills it is profoundly ignorant of you to confuse this with clinical depression. The former might trigger an epsidoe of the latter but depression, anxiety, bipolar specturm disorders, schizophrenia and other mental disorders have a neurophysiological basis.

Also, please keep the tired trope about third world nations to yourself as there is no evedince whatsoever to support the conjecture. People in third world nations who suffer mental illness are generally shunned. Those that come to harm generally have their cause of death misattributed,