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Researchers Find Antidepressants Increase Risk of Death (medicalxpress.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the heads-up dept.

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.

4 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Not the study I was looking for by Kiuas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Not the study I was looking for by hey! · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You should never make any health decisions based on individual studies, and most importantly never, ever go looking for studies which support a decision you are going to make, because you'll find them.

      I like to say that science isn't about truth, it's about evidence. The difference is there is logically no such thing as conflicting truths, although two different truths may make you feel conflicted. Evidence, on the other hand, contradicts other evidence all the time. It's the normal state of things.

      What you want to do is base decisions on systematic review papers published in high impact journals. The purpose of a systematic review is to review the state of evidence at the current point in time. You may disagree with the author's conclusions, but the evidence should be laid out right there.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. Re:The drug industry chasing $$... by geekmux · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Depression is not a single condition. Pick up the Harvard Guide to Psychiatry, there are myriad disorders, i.e., paranoia, grandiosity, etc. One person usually does not have a single one but is some smorgasbord of different conditions. That makes picking drugs that much harder.

    So go ahead believing a just society will cure depression. Just societies also generate serial killers.

    Believing the pill-pushing healers is also difficult to swallow due to the one constant that stands out; Greed.

    Greed has infected the Pharma industry, and it wouldn't matter if the pill was as worthless as a placebo; if it generates revenue and comes with the benefit of being able to generate more revenue due to side effects, it's considered a good thing and the answer in our corrupt world of ruthless capitalism.

    With regards to what a just society is capable of generating, Big Pharma is now the largest opium dealer on the planet, with Greed killing tens of thousands of people every year.

  3. Control group? by Tony+Isaac · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.