Antidepressants

New research demonstrates that children diagnosed with ADHD at younger ages are more likely than those diagnosed later to receive multiple medications within five years of their diagnosis.

The effects of antidepressants and mood stabilizers on young people's psychosexual development receive little attention or research, says Kaitlin Bell Barnett (author of "Dosed:...

From Scientific American: "A commercial sponsored by Pfizer, the drug company that manufactures the antidepressant Zoloft, asserts, “While the cause is unknown, depression...

A phase 1 study for a stem cell derived agent that promotes the growth of new nerve cells in the brain demonstrated efficacy in a very small sample of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD). The phase 1B study was published online December 8 in Molecular Psychiatry.

Researchers experimenting on mice found that exposure to fluoxetine (Prozac) in utero resulted in behaviors considered in animal studies to be analogous to autism in humans.

MedicalXpress and Science 2.0 interview MiA blogger Jeffrey Lacasse about his recent paper, "Prescribing of Psychiatric Medication to Bereaved Parents Following Perinatal/Neonatal Death: An Observational Study." Article →

Manasa Ayurveda has launched a new harm reduction based program that will support people in tapering from antidepressant drugs. "Manasa Ayurveda aims to work collaboratively,...

A Nigerian study finds that more than three-quarters of patients improved, even when only 13% were prescribed medication.

From The Washington Post: Doctors often turn first to antidepressants when treating patients with depression. However, the evidence shows that alternative treatments such as therapy...

While publication bias has been known to overestimate the efficacy of antidepressant treatments, a new study suggests that research on the use of psychotherapy in depression suffers from a similar bias.

The largest-ever meta-analysis of antidepressant trials appeared yesterday in the British Medical Journal. Researchers from the Cochrane Collaboration reviewed 70 trials (involving 18,526 subjects), to find that - counter to the initially-reported findings - antidepressants doubled the risk of suicide and aggression in subjects under 18. This risk had been misrepresented in the original study reports, the authors say, and suggest that the risks to adults may be similarly under-reported.

The results of the nationwide study, analyzing data from over one million women, suggest that hormonal contraceptive use may increase the risk of depression and use of antidepressants, especially for adolescents.

Researchers challenge the recommendation of starting two antidepressants simultaneously to increase preventative effects against suicide.

Ever higher levels of pharmaceutical drugs are turning up in drinking water supplies, and an op-ed in the UK Mirror discusses a study that...

New study finds that antidepressants may negatively impact recovery after psychiatric hospitalization.

Dr. Peter Breggin, acting as an expert witness for the defense in former police officer Anthony Orban's California trial for kidnapping and rape, testified...

In a large review study published this week in The Lancet, researchers assessed the effectiveness and potential harms of fourteen different antidepressants for their use in children and adolescents. The negative results, familiar to MIA readers, are now making major headlines.

Dr. Oz looks at the research on antidepressants today, finding that they are over-prescribed, may be counter-productive or harmful, may not work at all,...

A new meta-analysis finds that the large antidepressant effects of exercise may have been underestimated in previous reviews. This latest report, published this month...

Researchers from Samaritan Mental Health in Corvallis, Oregon successfully treated 12 patients for anxiety by discontinuing their antidepressant medications. Some received alternative medications for...

Antidepressants may be effective over the short term, but research is showing that treatment resistant depression has risen dramatically in the past 30 years; evidence that the drugs may be inducing chronic depression.

While an estimated 74-percent of patients diagnosed with major depression receive a prescription for an antidepressant, new research reveals that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)...

There used to be a wonderful cartoon series called 101 Uses for a Dead Cat, which led me 25 years ago to give a talk at a British Association for Psychopharmacology meeting entitled 101 Uses for a Dead Psychiatrist. That was back in the days when Psychopharmacology meetings were places of debate and the British Journal of Psychiatry was guaranteed to have something of real interest in every issue.

A new study in JAMA reveals that, on average, 25% of beginning physicians meet the diagnostic criteria for major depression. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Thomas Schwenk, added: "Everybody asks me, because of some of my prior studies, should we have more intense work in diagnosing depression in students? Of course, the answer is 'yes,' but how do you go about that without further stigmatizing them, further labeling them, further singling them out to even greater stigma? It's not just an issue of, 'Let's make better diagnoses and let's provide better treatment'; it’s more complicated than that."