Every time a new study about the efficacy of antidepressants hits the journals, we see antidepressants plunge further into the abyss.
A recent study in the January 2010 issue of JAMA concludes that there is little evidence that SSRIs (a popular group of antidepressants that includes Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and others) have any benefit to people with mild to moderate depression, and they work no better than a placebo.
That means that SSRIs are 33 percent effectiveas a placebo. And a study presented at the Neuroscience conference in 2009 tells a similar story. Researchers from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine shared two major findings:
1.Antidepressant drugs were not invented for depression. Researchers used certain drugs to manipulate the behavior of stressed animals, and then concluded (erroneously) that the drugs would be “good antidepressants.” But chronic stress does not cause the same molecular changes that depression does, making the hypothesis incorrect.
So, antidepressants were actually designed to treat stress, rather than depression—which is one reason they are so ineffective.
2.An imbalance of neurotransmitters in your brain may not trigger depressive symptoms in the way that has long been believed. Instead, the biochemical events that lead to depression appear to start in the development and functioning of neurons. This means antidepressants focus on the effect of depression and completely miss the cause… yet another reason why they are so ineffective for most people.
Unfortunately, the lead researcher is hoping the research will “open up new routes to develop new antidepressants,” when in reality a drug solution is not the answer.
Similarly, in 2008, a meta-analysis published in PLoS Medicine concluded that the difference between antidepressants and placebo pills is very small—and that both are ineffective for most depressed patients. Only the most severely depressed showed any response to antidepressants at all, and that response was quite minimal.
In an interview, Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker explained that research suggests the use of antidepressant drugs may actually result in more relapses back into depression in the long run. In other words, these drugs may be turning depression into a more chronic condition.
The other worrisome effect is that antidepressant drugs appear to be converting people from unipolar depression into bipolar—meaning, fluctuating between mania and depression—and this disorder has much poorer long-term outcomes.
These are not new revelations.
Back in 2002, a meta-analysis of published clinical trials indicated that 75 percent of the response to antidepressants could be duplicated by placebo. Many antidepressants may actually make your “mental illness” worse. When your body doesn’t feel good, your mood crashes along with it.
The List of Terrifying Antidepressant Drug Side Effects Grows
Depression—or described another way, “unrepaired emotional short-circuiting”— can cause far more profound negative health consequences than all the damaged food and toxins you expose yourself to daily.
Psychiatric drugs kill 42,000 people every year—that’s 12,000 MORE people than successfully commit suicide due to depression! And the death count continues to rise.
Antidepressants are the largest category of psychiatric drugs. It wouldn’t be so bad if antidepressants were harmless sugar pills, occasionally showing benefit simply because you believe they will work.
But in addition to being ineffective, they are far from harmless and are now associated with many serious health problems:
•Diabetes: Your risk for type 2 diabetes is two to three times higher if you take antidepressants, according to one study.
•Problems with your immune system: SSRIs cause serotonin to remain in your nerve junctions longer, interfering with immune cell signaling and T cell growth.
•Suicidal thoughts and feelings and violent behavior : Your risk for suicide may be twice as high if you take SSRIs; seven out of twelve school shootings were by children who were either on antidepressants or withdrawing from them.
•Stillbirths: A Canadian study of almost 5,000 mothers found that women on SSRIs were twice as likely to have a stillbirth, and almost twice as likely to have a premature or low birth weight baby; another study showed a 40 percent increased risk for birth defects, such as cleft palate.
•Brittle bones: One study showed women on antidepressants have a 30 percent higher risk of spinal fracture and a 20 percent high risk for all other fractures.
•Stroke: Your risk for stroke may be 45 percent higher if you are on antidepressants, possibly related to how the drugs affect blood clotting
•Death: Overall death rates have been found to be 32 percent higher in women on antidepressants.
Diabetes or stroke will kill you, but suicide is much quicker. The link between suicide and antidepressants is so strong that these drugs have been mandated to have suicide warnings. Let’s consider one of the newer psychotropic medications that is now being given to people for depression: Abilify (also called aripiprazole).
Abilify is licensed for the treatment of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, and major depression (when taken with antidepressants). It is used to augment the effects of the antidepressants—because, of course, they work so poorly!
But did you know that Abilify has 75 different side effects associated with it?
How absurd is it to take a drug that works about as well as a sugar pill but exposes you to this minefield of ills?
Andy Behrman, a former spokesman for Abilify and Bristol Myers Squibb, which manufactures Abilify, stopped taking the drug in order to avoid the final side effects—coma and death. He made a short video warning you about the drug.
If a former spokesman for the company is sticking his neck out to warn you, how warm and fuzzy does that make you feel about what the pharmaceutical companies are telling you?
Even More Reasons to Avoid Antidepressants, as if You Need Any More
Professor of Medicine Lennard J. Davis wrote an excellent article about SSRIs for the January 2010 issue of Psychology Today. He points out that physicians routinely prescribe not one, but two or three SSRIs and other psychopharmacological drugs in combination—with really no studies to back them up.
Physicians who engage in what is known as “polypharmacy” are hoping that if one didn’t work, maybe two or three will.
“Doctors are in essence performing uncontrolled experiments on their patients, hoping that in some scattershot way they might hit on a solution. But of course drugs have dangerous interactions and most physicians are shooting in the dark with all the dangers that attend such bad marksmanship.”
In fact, the entire serotonin hypothesis for depression should be given a serious review.
You have heard for years that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance of your neurotransmitters, mainly serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, but there’s a serious lack of research to prove it.
This theory has become so indoctrinated into our culture and media that most people just accept it as fact, simply because they’ve heard it so often. Even mental health practitioners!
But there is no way to measure your serotonin or your dopamine without cutting open your head. Scientists can’t even decide on what a “normal” serotonin level is, much less an abnormal one.
Why do some depressed folks have high serotonin levels, while many happy folks have low ones?
Your brain is far too complex for this overly simplistic explanation to work. More and more “psychiatric diseases” are appearing in the literature all the time, and many could be considered “lifestyle disorders”:
•Do you shop too much? You might have Compulsive Shipping Disorder.
•Do you have a difficult time with multiplication? You could be suffering from Dyscalculia.
•Spending too much time surfing the Web? It might be Internet Addiction Disorder.
•Spending too much time at the gym? You’d better see someone for your Bigorexia or Muscle Dysmorphia.
•And my favorite—are your terrified by the number 13? You could have Triskaidekaphobia!
You get the idea.
The point is, each of these new “diseases” gets added to the next edition of the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) if enough people show up with those traits. And increasingly, the criteria for inclusion involves whether or not the disorder responds to a category of drugs.
If it does, the phenomenon is dubbed a disease.
Of the 297 mental disorders described in the DSM, none can be objectively measured by empirical tests. In other words, they’re completely subjective. Mental illness symptoms within this manual are arbitrarily assigned by a subjective voting system by a psychiatric panel.
So, they’re making up diseases to fit the drugs—not the other way around.
It’s almost impossible to see a psychiatrist today without being diagnosed with a mental disorder because so many behavior variations are described as pathology. And you have a 99 percent chance of emerging from your psychiatrist’s office with a prescription in hand.
Why so much reliance on popping a pill for every emotional ill?
Because writing a prescription is much faster and lucrative approach for the conventional model. Additionally most practitioners have yet to accept the far more effective energetic psychological approaches.
If Antidepressants Don’t Work, Then What Does?
There are five important strategies to consider if you are facing depression. These strategies have nothing but positive effects and are generally very inexpensive to implement.
1. Do a Bit of Emotional Housekeeping
It is helpful to view depression as a sign that your body and life are out of balance, rather than as a disease. What you need to do is regain your balance.
One of the key ways to do this involves addressing negative emotions that may be trapped beneath your level of awareness. My favorite method of emotional cleansing is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a form of psychological acupressure.
If you have severe depression, it would be best to consult with a mental health professional who is also an EFT practitioner. But for most of you with depression symptoms, this is a technique you can learn to do effectively on your own. In fact, it’s so easy that children are learning it.
There are other effective stress-management methods you could try as well, such as meditation, journaling, breathing exercises, yoga, or simply sharing your feelings with a close friend.
Experiment with a number of approaches, and then pick the methods you find most helpful but please remember that although it is very easy to learn EFT and far less expensive to use it yourself, it is nearly always better to seek a professional to perform EFT with you as it truly is an art that takes many years of refined practice to maximize its effectiveness.
2. Get Regular Exercise
Regular exercise is one of the “secret weapons” to overcoming depression. It works by helping to normalize your insulin levels while boosting the “feel good” hormones in your brain.
As Dr. James S. Gordon, MD, a world-renowned expert in using mind-body medicine to heal depression, said:
“What we’re finding in the research on physical exercise is that exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed… physical exercise changes the level of serotonin in your brain. And it increases your endorphin levels, your “feel good hormones.”
And also—and these are amazing studies—exercise can increase the number of cells in your brain, in the region of the brain called the hippocampus. These studies were first done on animals, and they’re very important because sometimes in depression, there are fewer of those cells in the hippocampus.
But you can actually change your brain with exercise. So it’s got to be part of everybody’s treatment, everybody’s plan.”
For more information, please review my article about the many ways exercise can benefit your brain.
3. Improve Your General Nutrition
Another factor that cannot be overlooked is your diet. Foods have an immense impact on your body and your brain, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental and physical health.
Avoiding sugar (particularly fructose) and grains will help normalize your insulin and leptin levels, which is another important aspect of depression. Sugar causes chronic inflammation, which disrupts your body’s normal immune function and can wreak havoc on your brain.
Sugar also suppresses a key growth hormone called BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor), which promotes healthy brain neurons and plays a vital role in memory. BDNF levels are critically low in people with depression, which animal models suggest may actually be causative.
4. Supplement Your Diet with Omega-3 Fatty Acids
I strongly recommend taking a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. This may be the single most important nutrient for optimal brain function, thereby preventing depression.
DHA is one of the Omega-3 fatty acids in fish and krill oil, and your brain is highly dependent on it. Low DHA levels have been linked to depression, memory loss, Schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease.
5. Let the Sun Shine Down on You
Have you ever noticed how great it can feel to spend time outdoors on a sunny day? Well, it turns out that getting safe sun exposure, which allows your body to produce vitamin D, is great for your mood.
One study even found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to depression than those who received adequate vitamin D. You can optimize your vitamin D either by sunlight exposure or by using a safe tanning bed, or by taking a high-quality vitamin D3 supplement.
6. Think Twice Before Filling that Prescription
As Davis suggests in his article, “Think twice, be skeptical, and question a simplistic diagnosis you might receive after discussing your condition for a short time with a rushed practitioner.”
This is sound advice indeed.
It is easy to become seduced into thinking a pill might relieve your pain, especially when it comes with the endorsement of your physician. Feeling depressed is never pleasant, and you naturally want to escape it as quickly as possible.
But drugs should always be your last choice, and antidepressants are no exception.
There is a better way! You wouldn’t want to expose yourself to the enormous risks these drugs present, especially for so little gain. Hang in there, and if you implement the healthy strategies above, I bet you’ll soon find yourself feeling better.
The Physical Toll of Loneliness
Can Self-Help Make You Feel Worse?
Dial H for Happiness: How Neuroengineering May Change Your Brain
Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression
Simple Strategy to Remain Happy
The Secret of How to Be Happy
Treatment Options for Healing Depression
Depression and Exercise
Is Exercise the Best Drug for Depression?
5 Mind-Blowing Benefits of Exercise
When Drugs and Therapy Don’t Cure Depression, Running Will
Best Kept Secret for Treating Depression
Depression and Diet
Links Between Sugar and Mental Health
Can Your Diet Prevent Depression?
Can Omega-3 Fats Prevent Depression?
Is Salt Nature’s Antidepressant?
How Eating This Type of Fat Offers New Hope for Depression…
What’s In That? How Food Affects Your Behavior
The Depressing Truth About Vitamin D Deficiency
Other Causative Factors
Early Childhood Stress Can Have a Lingering Effect on Your Health
Warning: Potentially Deadly Vitamin Deficiency Affects 25% Adults
How Vaccines Can Damage Your Brain
Vaccines, Depression and Neurodegeneration After Age 50
The MOST Effective Treatment for Depression Isn’t Drugs… But You’ll Never Hear That From Your Psychiatrist
Five Ways to Help Beat Depression Without Antidepressants
New Study Finds Antidepressants No Better Than Placebo
Antidepressants Linked to Increased Stroke Risk
Why Antidepressants Don’t Work?
Are Psychiatric Drugs Necessary?
Warning! Drug Company Buries Unfavorable Antidepressant Drug Studies
10 Antidepressant Alternatives Proven to Work
Do Antidepressants Make Bones Brittle?
Acne Drug Linked To Suicide Risk
Antidepressants and Violence
The Secret Power of Sugar Pills
Dangerous Antidepressants Elevate Diabetes Risk
Antidepressants Increase Stillbirth Risks
How Antidepressants Affect Your Immune System
Adults Vulnerable to Suicidal Effects of Antidepressants
Was Prozac’s Link to Suicide Intentionally Covered Up?
Suicide Caution Mandated for Antidepressants
Sugar Pills Work as Well as Antidepressants
Prozac Possible ‘Link’ to Brain Tumors