Family Economic Context Linked to Adolescents’ Antipsychotic Use
In a study of the Swedish Medical Birth Registry published in the British Medical Journal, researchers identified all 324,510 single children born between 1988...
No Metabolic Risk for Antipsychotic-Naive Patients
An Austrian study of the baseline prevalence of metabolic abnormalities and changes following treatment with five commonly-used antipsychotic drugs (haloperidol, amisulpride, olanzapine, quetiapine or...
Benzos May Increase Cancer Risk
Researchers in Taiwan found in a retrospective analysis of data from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance system concerning 59,647 patients from 1996 to 2000 that...
Antidepressant Use May Increase Risk of Diabetes
New study confirms previous evidence that antidepressant use is linked to developing type 2 diabetes.
ADHD Medication Does Not Improve School Achievement
The journal Science reviews the current state of research on ADHD medication, finding that the drugs do not improve school performance or achievement in...
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...
Benzodiazepines May Double the Risk of Pneumonia
An editorial in Thorax reviews the evidence for an association between mental illness, benzodiazepine use, and pneumonia. The authors find an equally augmented rate...
Behavioral Therapy (Including Parents) More Effective for ADHD than Drugs
Stimulant medication does not improve the academic performance or test scores of the 9% of all children in the U.S. diagnosed with ADHD, according to...
SSRIs May Cause Bone Loss
An Israeli study of 10,621 women found that those taking an SSRI more than 80% of the time were 1.4 times more likely to...
Antidepressant Use Associated With Menstruation Disorders
In a study of 793 women taking antidepressants and 639 not taking them, researchers in Turkey found that menstruation disorders were significantly associated with...
Antipsychotics for Dementia: Not Justified and Risky
In a study of antipsychotics used to treat 75,445 patients in nursing homes in the United States, researchers from Harvard Medical School, Columbia and...
Increased Bone Fracture Risk from SSRI Antidepressants
"Evidence from longitudinal, cross-sectional, and prospective cohort studies suggests that the use of antidepressants at therapeutic doses is associated with decreased bone mineral density...
Anxiety Medication Associated With Significant Increase in Mortality Long-Term
A study of data from over 11 million patient records in the General Practice Research Database, "the largest anonymized, longitudinal primary care database in...
Cumulative Risk of Impairment and Death From Anticholinergic Medication
The New York Times reports that a two-year longitudinal study of over 13,000 men and women over 65 found that anticholinergic medications, which include many...
Antidepressants Increase Brain Bleed Risk
A study published in this month’s issue of Stroke found that antidepressants may increase the risk of microbleeds in the brain. Both SSRI and SNRI antidepressants can disrupt natural clotting mechanisms and lead to increased adverse bleeding incidents and prolonged bleeding times.
Ritalin Causes Long-Lasting Change in Prefrontal Neurons
Drexel University researchers found that methylphenidate (Ritalin) administered to juvenile rats produced significant depressive effects on pyramidal neurons. The authors conclude that "the juvenile...
Antidepressants and Diabetes Risk
A meta-analysis by researchers from the U.K. finds an association between antidepressant use and a modestly increased risk of diabetes. “Our research shows that...
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...
Children Diagnosed with ADHD Younger are More Likely to get Multiple Medications
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.
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...
Smoking Cessation Drug Suspected in 30 Suicides in Canada
The Pfizer drug has also been linked to more than 1,300 incidents of suicide attempts or thoughts, depression, and aggression/anger across the country in the past seven years.
CDC Reports Increased Psychostimulant Prescriptions in Women of Reproductive Age
Psychostimulant prescriptions have increased by 344% (from 2003 to 2015) for women of reproductive age (15-44 years old).
Benzos Quadruple the Risk of Suicide in Schizophrenia
Finnish researchers found that among 2,588 patients hospitalized for the first time with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, benzodiazepine use predicted almost 4x the rate...
Int’l Task Force Doesn’t Endorse Antidepressants for Bipolar
Noting a "striking incongruity between the wide use of and the weak evidence base for the efficacy and safety of antidepressant drugs in bipolar,"...
High Doses of Antidepressants Increase Self-Harm in Children, Young Adults
A comprehensive meta-analysis of randomized trial data by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health finds that children and young adults who start...
