Ritalin Increases Risk-Taking in Women
Women who were asked to play a gambling were significantly more likely to keep betting when the stakes increased if they had taken Ritalin...
2nd-Generation Antipsychotics Cause Extrapyramidal Side Effects as Much as 1st-Generation
According to researchers from Yale and the U.K., the improvements in extrapyramidal side effects expected from 2nd-generation antipsychotics has not been realized, while the...
Benzodiazepines Associated With 3.5x Greater Dementia Risk
Researchers in the U.K. find in a 22-year prospective study of 1134 men, 103 of whom took benzodiazepines regularly for one or more period...
Antidepressants Associated With Increased Driving Risk
Researchers from the Taiwan and the United States find through a study of 5,183 subjects with motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) and 31,093 matched controls...
Off-Label Antipsychotic Use Among Children Soaring
Researchers from Philadelphia and Baltimore find, in a study of Medicaid records for 50 states and the District of Columbia, that antipsychotic prescribing to...
More Evidence That Antipsychotics Shrink the Brain
European researchers who reviewed 43 imaging studies of first-episode psychosis found evidence that antipsychotics cause a decrease in gray matter volumes in the brain....
Antipsychotics Rise in Youth, But Hospitalization Rates Stay the Same
Researchers from Tufts and Harvard find in a review of 233 medical charts of psychiatrically hospitalized youth at three points in time (1991, 1998...
BJP Announces “The End of the Psychopharmacological Revolution”
The editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry, in a comment on Morrison et al.'s "Antipsychotics: is it Time to Introduce Patient Choice," announces...
Antipsychotics for Childhood “Behavioral Problems” Skyrocket
Researchers from Columbia University and other New York institutions found a dramatically increasing use of antipsychotics to treat ADHD and other behavioral problems in...
British Journal of Psychiatry Editorial Urges Rethinking the Use of Antipsychotics
The August issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry offers an editorial stating that, as "mental health services appear to have overestimated the strength...
Antidepressant is Toxic to Fungus
Zoloft isn't just for depression any more; it also kills fungal meningitis. Researchers from Texas A&M find that "The problem for many current antifungal...
Information on PRN Medication Practices is Lacking
The authors of an article in Journal of Psychosocial Nursing reviewed the literature on psychotropic PRN medications in order to respond to a request to...
Increased Risk of Heart Defects with SSRIs
Danish research found a significantly increased risk of congenital heart defects in both the 4,183 pregnancies exposed to SSRIs throughout the first trimester and the...
Antipsychotics Not Helpful for Anorexia
A review of all research on the use of antipsychotics for the treatment of anorexia nervosa found no demonstrable efficacy in terms of body...
Nurses Confront the Myths of Psychiatric Drugs
The July issue of Nursing Ethics takes on the myths of psychiatric drugs, saying that "psychiatric drugs are used only to control ‘patient’ behaviour...
Antipsychotics During Pregnancy Raise Diabetes Risk
Swedish researchers find, in a study of all women giving birth in Sweden from July 1, 2005 through December 31, 2009 that those taking...
New Zealand Asks: “How is Your Antidepressant Working For You?”
Researchers at Auckland University have launched a study that "positions the people who are prescribed antidepressants as the experts" and which aims at asking...
Antidepressants Increase Risk of Death in ICU
An analysis of electronic records from admissions to four ICU's in 2001-2008 showed that the 1,876 patients who were on an SSRI or SNRI...
Prenatal Prozac Alters Stress Response in Male Rats
Researchers from Belgium and the Netherlands, publishing online June 20 in Neuroscience, found that prenatal fluoxetine (Prozac) differentially affected the development of glucocorticoid receptors...
Antidepressants Associated with Preterm Birth, Infant Convulsions
A study of 228,876 pregnancies, published in the July issue of the American journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, finds that maternal antidepressant use is...
Little Evidence on Effectiveness or Risks of Antipsychotics in Young People
Evidence-Based Mental Health reviews studies (from 1987 to 2011) of antipsychotics in people under 24 years old, finding weak evidence on comparative effectiveness of antipsychotics or...
Atypicals Associated with Diabetes in Adults Without Schizophrenia or Bipolar Diagnoses
Writing in Evidence Based Mental Health, researchers from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital found that use of medication for diabetes was significantly...
Antipsychotics Aren’t Helpful to Children
Researchers from London, writing in European Psychiatry, reviewed "all RCTs involving children and young people with a diagnosis of childhood onset schizophrenia comparing any...
Treating Anxiety by Tapering Off Antidepressants
Researchers from Samaritan Mental Health in Corvallis, Oregon successfully treated 12 patients for anxiety by discontinuing their antidepressant medications. Some received alternative medications for...
Long-Acting Risperidone (Consta) Increases Costs, Lowers Outcomes
Writing in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, researchers from the Health Economics Resource Center studied the effects of long-acting injectable risperidone (Consta) on 369 patients...
