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March 11 2008

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Antidepressants Are No Better Than Placebos

depression, antidepressantsAntidepressant drugs, including the best-selling Prozac, simply do not work as advertised, according to a comprehensive review by U.S. and Canadian researchers.

After examining all data available for the drugs -- including clinical trials that manufacturers did not publish at the time -- it was found that patients taking the drugs improved just as much as those taking placebo pills. The only exception was among severely depressed patients, who improved slightly more on the drugs than the placebos.

This study is unique in that it is the first time a study has been done using a full set of data for the antidepressants Prozac, Seroxat, Effexor, and Serzone.

"Using complete data sets (including unpublished data) and a substantially larger data set of this type than has been previously reported, we find the overall effect of new-generation antidepressant medication is below recommended criteria for clinical significance," the authors wrote.

Sources:

  The Guardian February 26, 2008

  PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine February 26, 2008 (Free Full-Text Article)


Dr. Mercola''s Comments Dr. Mercola's Comments:

It’s been known for years that placebos, or sugar pills, work just as well as antidepressants, but it is still amazing what comes out when you are actually able to see the whole picture. In this case, after the researchers got their hands on all of those unpublished studies (by taking advantage of freedom of information rules from the Food and Drug Administration) it came out that antidepressant drugs don’t work.

They don’t work. Yet, they are being prescribed to 118 million Americans each year -- and the four most commonly prescribed are also three of those that this study found to be just as effective as popping a sugar pill: Prozac, Effexor and Serzone (Paxil is the fourth).

Now, here’s something to think about: there are 118 million prescriptions for these drugs each year, yet, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, depression affects approximately 14.8 million American adults in any given year.

Who is receiving the 100+ million doses of “extra” antidepressants? People with pain, people with anxiety, people who want to quit smoking, people with sleep problems, fibromyalgia, overreactive bladders, and even some people who simply want to lose weight.

In short, there are large numbers of people who are taking these drugs, and paying for these drugs, for wildly different problems, when perhaps a simple tool that they already possess could do the same thing, for free, a sugar pill. But what would work even better is to use another solution that is also free: your mind.

Can Depression be Treated With Your Mind?

Depression is a serious illness and one that clearly needs to be addressed, as it is the cause of loads of pain and suffering. But the reason why some people experience benefits after taking an antidepressant drugs is not, as this study proves, because of the drug itself. It is because the person believed that the pill would work.

This is why, when given a sugar pill, it is possible to experience relief from a wide range of symptoms, as long as you believe the pill will help you.

This placebo effect has, in fact, been proven to be real in one of the most prestigious journals in the world, Science.

Most doctors only superficially acknowledge the power of placebo and do not even begin to fully utilize the power that it represents.

Your subconscious mind is basically neutral. It will implement just about any command that you continuously feed it and sincerely believe in. This concept is explained very clearly in this great video on The New Biology, but the bottom line is that if you believe something will heal you, then there’s a good chance, even a 100 percent chance, that it will.

So, why spend money on an antidepressant that has potentially dangerous side effects, when you can use your mind instead?

To do this, I suggest using an energy psychology tool such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). For serious problems such as depression, it would be prudent to contact a health care professional who is trained in the technique. You can use Gary Craig's list of EFT Practitioner Referrals to do this.

What else can you do to help ease depression? Here are three additional tips:


Related Links:

  Dangerous Antidepressants Elevate Diabetes Risk

  How Antidepressants Affect Your Immune System

  Antidepressants 'Do Not Provide Meaningful Benefit'




Comment on This Article
Comment on This Article Community Comments (59)
 
 
Posted On Feb 28, 2008
There has been a great deal of buzz recently about the over-prescribing of SSRIs. How is this explained?
• the DSM-IV, which labels as depression, any symptoms that persist for more than two weeks
• attitudes of patients who think a pill will fix everything
• attitudes of doctors, who have been trained to believe in medication

Over the past 6 months or so, an increasing number of news items have reported both the recall of dangerous drugs and the ineffectiveness of certain drugs. Recentin, a proposed lung cancer drug in trials, is the latest failure. Is the pharmaceutical industry losing its credibility? Could that account for the growing urgent outcry to vaccinate everybody against everything? (The latest is a vaccine for drug addiction!) Is Big Pharma afraid of seeing a dip in its obscene profits?

It's important to make a distinction between true clinical depression and the temporary blues resulting from a death in the family, a failed relationship, job loss and other unhappy events. Of course we feel bad, and these feelings may well continue for weeks. They are normal and natural. How can we experience happiness and joy if we never feel the opposite? We need to reverse the mindset that we are entitled to feel happy happy happy all the time and never experience pain or sorrow. Pain and sorrow are part of the human condition and have led to some of the world's greatest works of art. Grief and joy are both strands in the complexity of life.


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Posted On Mar 11, 2008

SSRI's not only do not work, they are extremely dangerous. They induce the psychosis and agressive behaviour that has been producing the long series of murder-suicides and school violence of recent years.

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Posted On Mar 11, 2008

I can only speak for my own experience.

I was reduced to a non-functioning mother of 4 who lost 45 pounds because I could not eat at the age of 34 due to extreme panic/anxiety attacks that caused symptoms such as nausea, & pain.  After tying many other ways to control this I reluctantly took antidepressants and with in a few weeks began to get my life back. I hated taking the drugs but they DID work. I got off of them permantely after a while and no longer need them. I do believe though that they are over used and over prescribed.


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Posted On Feb 28, 2008
The drug companies are only doing what they do best: FLEECING THE SHEEP AND LEAVING THEM NAKED!
Does anyone really believe big Pharma is selling these drugs for the benefit of the people?? I learned this in school and my pharmacist dad even admitted this to me the way they bring in new drugs.  Big pharma takes an existing drug and changes it one molecule so it can't be labeled the same, and then tries to market it. If the drug causes incontinence and dizziness, they find a way to give it to people who already have those symptoms.  It doesn't have to work, just as long as they can dupe doctors into prescribing it!

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Posted On Feb 27, 2008
The article DID say that the exception was people who were SEVERLY depressed....the article also states

says Kirsch. "This study raises serious issues that need to be addressed surrounding drug licensing and how drug trial data is reported."

DUH!!!!!     The FDA  and EFT....they go perfect together!!(at least it helps my blood pressure whenever I read anything FDA related!)

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Posted On Feb 28, 2008
I know alot of kids at my school are on antidepressants, call me
paranoid... but i have seen the effects and i know a lot of them have
weapons, so i preplanned escape routes from any point in the school for
not only me but the entire class i am with... i pray i never have to
put them into effect.

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Posted On Mar 11, 2008

Shaneperrone:  Some would call that paranoia; others would call it wisdom.  What a sorry state of affairs that one would even have to contemplate such possible actions for self-preservation.  I wish you well.

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Posted On Feb 29, 2008
Of course bad things happening can bring us down, and those feelings can take many weeks or even months of grieving before they fade.  One good doctor once refused to prescribe anything (back when I wanted that kind of thing), not even a sedative or a sleeping pill, saying that with everything that had just happened to me, he'd be extremely worried if I WASN'T depressed. His prescription: look after yourself, cry, sleep, cry some more and in a few weeks it won't feel quite as bad then in a few months, etc.

There is a difference between elated-happy and simply content.  I would say though, about great works of art and literature, that some have questioned the value of 'celebrating anguish', and that the greatest artists (and comedians!) often DO suffer from chronic, long term depression - or sometimes bipolar disorder.  After all, extraordinary talent is by definition not normal.

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Posted On Feb 29, 2008
Well said, LadyPam!

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