No Easy Way Out: The Depressing Reality of Anti-Depressants

The drawing to the rightis something I created in response to a disorder that I have experienced first hand: clinical depression. It is a work I created in expression of my fundamental belief that the power to overcome hardship and emotional trauma lies within nothing so much as the self. Depression is one of the most commonly treated psychiatric disorders in the United States, with anti-depressants being among the leading medications in sales within the pharmaceutical market. However, despite their popularity, the effectiveness of these drugs in the treatment of depression is not as miraculous as consumers would be led to believe. This is because no matter how well anti-depressants treat depression’s symptoms, they cannot treat the cause.

It is widely held that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance of the brain; that, because depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, it is something that a victim suffering from this illness has no control over. However, in spite of this common belief, there is little evidence to support it outside of research funded by the pharmaceutical companies which produce these drugs themselves. According to neuroscientist Elliot Valenstein “no biochemical or anatomical traits have been found to reliably distinguish the brains of the depressed, and attempts to prove the chemical deficiency hypothesis of depression have been in vain.” This would suggest that clinical depression is a very natural condition caused primarily by life experiences.

Whether or not antidepressants treat the cause, however, they will remain titans within the pharmaceutical market for the treatment of depression’s symptoms due to their heavily marketed effectiveness; for, as my previous posts have shown, the majority of psychiatrists and patients in the United States are already more concerned with alleviating the symptoms of mental illnesses rather than finding ways to cope with them. The majority of patients just want to feel better, whether their problems get solved or not. However, unlike anti-psychotics, an overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that antidepressants fail to treat even the symptoms of depression at a significantly higher rate than placebos. One of the largest studies ever done on anti-depressant drugs has concluded that they have “no clinically significant effect.” In this study, researchers conducted an analysis of the 47 published and unpublished clinical trials submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the US made in support of the best known antidepressant drugs, including: Prozac, Seroxat and Efexor. The results proved the drugs ineffective in all but a very small portion of the most severely depressed.

It is of such importance for patients to be aware of what antidepressants do not do because of what they have been proven to be capable of. Long term doses of anti-depressants can actually lead to the patient becoming more depressed. This is because many of the side effects of antidepressants such as weight gain, sexual dysfunction and anxiety can cause a depressed state in people or make their depression more severe. Since depression is often if not always the result of life problems, adding more difficulties and stress on to those that drove the patient to take the medication in the first place can only cause the psychological state of the individual to worsen. Not only this, but according to Peter Breggin, M.D., the methods by which antidepressants reach–or attempt to reach–their desired effect inhibits the brain’s function and can lead to permanent, irreparable brain damage. There are also several published research studies which suggest that antidepressants increase a patient’s likelihood of attempting suicide–especially in the case of adolescents. These results can be especially problematic due to the deceiving nature of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms such as crying spells, irritability, anxiety and agitation. These symptoms can lead a patient to believe their depression has actually worsened and further medication is needed when such is not the case.

Although it is puzzling that antidepressant medications remain so widely trusted, believed in, and consumed in light of all the research that suggest their relative ineffectiveness, even more confounding is the use of off-label anti-psychotic drugs to treat depression. Currently twenty-one percent of anti-psychotics are prescribed for symptoms not indicated on the label and one of the few other disorders for which they are prescribed is depression. Considering several studies have shown, with little opposition, that anti-psychotics have absolutely no positive effect on depression, one need only read my prior posts on the negative effects of anti-psychotic pharmaceuticals to understand how grave an issue this is.

Why are antidepressants being prescribed when their effectiveness has such limited value and their side effects are so severe? Why are anti-psychotics being prescribed for something they do nothing about? For the same reasons that children younger than five are being prescribed them before they can say “I’m sad” and 67% of pharmaceutical companies negative research results remained unpublished (see chart). The majority of researchers involved in data collection are being sponsored by - or hold shares in - the very corporations producing the drugs, the doctors are getting paid to prescribe them, and the patients demand expensive placebos that make them feel better about the situations they don’t want to cope with.