Study doubts effectiveness of antidepressant drugs

[Bouncer]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Antidepressant medications appear to help only very severely depressed people and work no better than placebos in many patients, British researchers said.

The researchers found that compared with placebo, these new-generation antidepressant medications did not yield clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially had moderate or even very severe depression. The study found that significant benefits occurred only in the most severely depressed patients.

Full Story: Study doubts effectiveness of antidepressant drugs | Health | Reuters

[NYCmitch25]

"Although patients get better when they take antidepressants, they also get better when they take a placebo, and the difference in improvement is not very great. This means that depressed people can improve without chemical treatments,"

weird i always thought it was chemical thing that could only be fixed with meds. i think they just mean the ppl who are a little down not severely depreessed. I guess its over perscribed pharms are making out ... the ppl with post pardom, bi polar need the meds. i know some ppl who are bipolar and are completely different off meds.

[Bouncer]

I think the current doctors who are writing prescriptions for these drugs to thousands and thousands of people a day really need to reconsider.

[coffee-guy]

I can attest to the fact that these drugs don't always *help* - I've known far too many people who rely on them instead of fixing the underlying issues that caused them to feel that they needed them to begin with - drug prescriptions are an evil evil thing this country needs to address but just like with cigarettes they never will simply because it's a trillion dollar a year business...

Of course the responsibility "shouldn't" land on the government - it should depend upon the people who don't need these things to do something about the fact that they're taking them anyway....

Although I should say that I know some people do in fact "need" these drugs so I'm NOT knocking those folks - just the millions who want an easy fix :mad: