In the past, Ive told you that antidepressants really are not that effective. Sure, they can numb your emotions so you do not have wild mood swings. But the drugs do not have any real science behind them. And the science that is there is quite alarming. These drugs can kill. And their very existence means very real danger for you – even if you do not take them. This story will shock you.
In the 1970s, drugs like Valium and Librium were very popular. This was the age of anxiety. I can remember several of my teenage girlfriends popping the prescribed pills. However, there came a crisis in the marketing of these minor tranquilizers. Prescribed for anxiety, they were highly addictive. Hundreds of thousands took these chemicals. The economic loss for the drug companies was going to be huge. Anxiety had to be re-marketed. So, the drug companies changed the diagnoses. And they found non-addictive chemicals to put in the new drugs.
Doctors were aware of nervous conditions decades before the mass marketing of anti-depression chemicals. However, they never diagnosed these conditions as depression. With the marketing of the drugs, everyday nervousness became labeled as depression. It was so easy to write off a patient, especially a woman, as depressed. Yet this scheme was not pushed until the drug companies made it happen in the late 70s.
Frank Ayd wrote a book Recognizing the Depressed Patient. Big Pharma giant Merck bought 50,000 copies. It distributed them to physicians. The book argued that depression was going undetected and untreated in the community. It listed lots of signs and symptoms of depression. These include sleep, appetite/eating disorders, and mood, energy, and other disturbances. Simply by widening the alleged symptoms of depression, they could bring more people into this newly created disorder. And doctors could suddenly make a buck diagnosing you as depressed. Coincidentally, the book was nicely timed with Pharmas marketing of a new treatment for depression, the drug amitriptyline (Elavil).
Interestingly, Elavil was nothing more than an antihistamine. But users found that it improved their mood, energy, and anxiety. So now Pharma had a new snake oil to peddle. More importantly, it had a new way to come up with new money streams.
All the drug companies had to do was evaluate all the effects of a chemical. Then build a disorder around those effects. It worked well. In the early 1960s, drug companies estimated about 50 people per million had depression. By the 90s, this had jumped to 100,000 per million. What? One in ten with a psychiatric disorder? That is 10% of the population with an inborn genetic deficiency of a petrochemical. A huge market for Big Pharma.
After Elavil came Prozac. It belongs to the SSRI drug class. Its exponential success blew away Elavil. By the late 90s, Prozac was a household word. Doctors wrote millions of prescriptions for it. It inspired a rash of cult novels, including films and memoirs based around it. By 2005, traces of Prozac were even found in British tap water.
Heres why the anti-depression drugs are so common:
• Percentage increase from 1985-1999 in stimulant psychotropic drugs prescribed to children: 327%.
• Percentage increase from 1991-2000 in stimulant psychotropic drugs prescribed to preschoolers between 2 & 4 years of age: 50%.
• The number of antidepressants prescribed annually for children under 19: 11 million.
• The number of children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD & drugged in 1985: 500,000.
• The number of children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD & drugged in 2002: approximately six million.
Some 10% of the American adult population is now on one of these chemicals. Pharma has conveniently moved us from the era of anxiety to the age of depression.
Today, drug companies market their wares for just about every normal human condition you can think of. All of us have some anxiety, post traumatic stress, insomnia, or eating problem, etc. What a master plot.
Creating a disease out of the fact that your body makes an essential chemical is a stroke of brilliance! We do not have designer drugs anymore. We have diseases whose definitions are designed to fit the metabolic damage caused by a chemical drug. This is especially true for the human condition. We all have moods, emotions, and feelings. They are called the human experience. These are now disease-ified. In fact, your doctor can prescribe a drug for EVERY aspect of the human condition.
But heres the real kicker. Theres no evidence that these drugs really work.
Rather, the exact opposite is true. A new study has finally debunked chemical treatment for depression. Lead researcher Irving Kirsch, a professor of psychology at the University of Hull in Great Britain, said: 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.
Did you catch that? This study found that depressed people can improve without chemical treatments. Dr. Kirschs team showed that patients taking antidepressants fared no better than patients receiving a placebo. There was an exception to this. They did find that antidepressants did help the severely depressed more than the placebo.
In 2006, the FDA conducted a similar study. And had similar results. It reviewed all antidepressant trials, with data from 100,000 patients. The agency reported that five out of 10 people appeared to respond to the chemicals. But four out of 10 responded to placebo. Please connect the dots. The placebo is at least 80% as effective (and without the risks) as a pharmaceutical time bomb. Why are there any doctors still prescribing the chemicals? If placebo is treating depression so well, why are we still calling it a disorder? Follow the money trail!
This unfolding drama is not just a horror to your pocketbook. It could affect your very life as well — even if you never take the drugs. Did you know that every one of the major school shootings we have seen in recent years were perpetrated by young people on antidepressants?
Its true. Eminent board certified psychiatrist Michael Shachter, MD of New York confirms my findings. He practices orthomolecular (nutrition-based) medicine. And the FDA has belatedly recognized the risk. But they are not the only ones.
Swedens National Board of Health and Welfare has issued an alarming report. It says that 80% of all adult suicides reported in 2006 to the National Board of Health and Welfare, were committed by persons treated with psychiatric drugs. Half of those who committed suicide were on an SSRI; 60% were on an antipsychotic.
The number of Swedish women who committed suicide in 2006 was 377. Of these, 197 (52%) had filled a prescription for antidepressants within 180 days before their death. Another 29 women (8%) had filled a prescription for antipsychotics within 180 days before they committed suicide. And, the number of suicide attempts among young people in Sweden is increasing.
Heres what you can do: If you are on a psychotropic drug for mild to moderate depression, know that it is no better than a placebo. Know that it might numb the pain, but it cant really do much more good than that. Know that it can harm you. And know that it could be addicting even if you are told it is not.
You should also know that there are lots of natural supplements that can boost your mood without any of these side effects. Two of my favorites are the omega-3 fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and probiotics. Yes, probiotics — the good bacteria for your gut. Ive written about this in the past and you can get all the details on my website. Combining the right supplements with evaluation of inherited metabolic problems, diet, lifestyle changes, and targeted nutrition will likely cure the problem.
Please consult with an integrative physician to tailor a program for your specific needs.
None of these treatments, chemical or natural, can cure the experience of having lost a loved one, the dramatic emotions of a divorce, or the emotional stress of a lost job. But these natural treatments can help you cope with life better than the drugs or the placebo.
Ref: February 25 in the journal PLoS Medicine.