Antidepressant Use Linked to Higher Dementia Risk

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From The Telegraph: A major new study has found a strong association between long-term exposure to antidepressants and risk of dementia.

“Researchers warned there may be 20,000 people currently suffering from dementia as a result of taking the medication, part of a wider group called anticholinergics, which is also prescribed for patients with bladder conditions and Parkinson’s disease.

The Government medicines safety regulator said it was scrutinising the new findings and last night leading medics called on colleagues to consider alternative prescriptions, although they cautioned patients not to abandon the drugs before consulting their doctor.”

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  3. As a victim of antidepressant poisoning (what else can you call it?) I am deeply disturbed, but not entirely surprised. What also comes to mind is that this is one of many symptoms of a profound social disease (or maybe something that should go in the next DSM?). I watched the other night a John Oliver piece (actually a quite good source of news) on nuclear waste and it showed barrels of it being duped off the coast of New Jersey in the 50s. (Some of them came back to the surface, so they strafed them with machine guns from a plane–really, what else was there to do?) So you know, develop a technology, pretend against all common sense that it’s safe, and wait for the shit to hit the fan. And now we have these marvelous smart (dumb) phones, that we already know are making people, especially teen-agers, miserable, but I don’t think we’ve even begun to see the full measure of what our life-of-screens is doing, not least making people even more complacent about all of the above. Let us be very, very angry, and then do something about it.

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  6. Rob Howard, professor of old age psychiatry at University College London, said: “It is possible that use of some of these drugs may have actually been to treat the very earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, which can be associated with low mood and lower urinary tract infections, many years before the development of dementia.”

    I think this is a “misinformation” statement.

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