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Truth
About Antidepressants
From the University of Hull press release. February 26, 2008:
“
Antidepressants are ineffective for most patients, study finds.”
“
There is little reason to prescribe antidepressants to the majority
of depressed patients, according to a group of experts, led by Professor
Kirsch at the University of Hull.”
“
This is one of the most thorough investigations into the efficacy of
new generation antidepressants, Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors
(SSRIs) [including Prozac, Effexor, Serzone, and Paxil/Seroxat].”
From the Editor's summary of the research article in the peer reviewed
journal PLOS Medicine:
“
The researchers obtained data on all the clinical trials submitted
to the FDA for the licensing of fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone, and
paroxetine. They then used meta-analytic techniques to investigate
whether the initial severity of depression affected the HRSD improvement
scores for the drug and placebo groups in these trials. They confirmed
first that the overall effect of these new generation of antidepressants
was below the recommended criteria for clinical significance. Then they
showed that there was virtually no difference in the improvement scores
for drug and placebo in patients with moderate depression and only a
small and clinically insignificant difference among patients with very
severe depression. The difference in improvement between the
antidepressant and placebo reached clinical significance, however, in
patients with initial HRSD scores of more than 28—that is, in the most
severely depressed patients. Additional analyses indicated that the
apparent clinical effectiveness of the antidepressants among these most
severely depressed patients reflected a decreased responsiveness to
placebo rather than an increased responsiveness to antidepressants.
These findings suggest that, compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression, but show significant effects only in the most severely depressed patients. The findings also show that the effect for these patients seems to be due to decreased responsiveness to placebo, rather than increased responsiveness to medication. Given these results, the researchers conclude that there is little reason to prescribe new-generation antidepressant medications to any but the most severely depressed patients unless alternative treatments have been ineffective. In addition, the finding that extremely depressed patients are less responsive to placebo than less severely depressed patients but have similar responses to antidepressants is a potentially important insight into how patients with depression respond to antidepressants and placebos that should be investigated further.”
Click here to read the entire original research
paper
Click here to read the University of Hull summary press release
Copyright 2012 Dr. Peter B. Raabe