Depression Help's topics - tribe.net

A Pretty Drug Rep Doesn't Pass Out Candy!

libramoon — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:45:47 GMT

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977461128

A Pretty Drug Rep Doesn't Pass Out Candy!
September 27, 2008 07:23 PM EDT (Updated: September 27, 2008 07:43 PM EDT)

Imagine having your brain removed...(lobotomy)...A saw cutting through your skull, followed by a surgical knife cutting into the portion responsible for helping you cope with all the meaness in the world. (You know, things like excessive income tax which makes you work four months out of every year just to pay Uncle Sam. Or inflation that ensures a lifetime of economic slavery for you and your children. Or, the millions of helpless infants who are forced to receive vaccines and subsequently suffer from autism.

Without the ability to cope, all kinds of craziness from the nastiness in the world....depression, suicide, and murder would become a reality...And this is exactly what an "SSRI" (antidepressant) can potentially do at the molecular level - remove that portion of your brain that helps you cope...Maybe that's what happened to 81 year old Jordan Stone.

Thirteen days after taking Prozac, on April 28, 2003, Jordan's wife of 56 years, Kathy, found his lifeless body hanging from a beam in a back room of their shop. Not depressed at the time of his appointment, Jordan was given a free sample of Prozac for "chest pains!" Apparently, a pretty drug rep convinced Jordan's doctor that Prozac could be used for these types of "off-label" purposes. This is totally illegal, by FDA standards. But those standards are never enforced by the consumer watch dog. Regardless of what they are prescribed for, a "chemical lobotomy" is a real and present danger to antidepressant users.

Antidepressant's strive to increase the levels of a "coping" molecule known as serotonin in the brain. It helps us find happiness when it's covered in an avalanche of negative. Antidepressant's attempt to boost serotonin by "selectively" stopping the "re-uptake" of it among brain cells. This is where the whole SSRI acronym came from - "selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor." It's a clever name that seems to "blind" medical doctors into prescribing submission, but it's a really stupid idea.

Not much is selective in the body. While trying to block the re-uptake of serotonin, antidepressant's can also prevent its release. The areas of the brain responsible for release and re-uptake are so incredibly similar (after all, they work on the same molecule) that an antidepressant isn't smart enough to understand which one it's supposed to work on. So it does what any drug would do, it blocks both. The end result is no coping molecules in the brain. Depression, fear or anger can set in. This was observed in the early studies performed on antidepressant's, but test subjects were allowed to drop out or mask the pain that comes with a chemical lobotomy using pain killers and/or muscle relaxants. This served as an easy way for Big Pharmaceuticals to hide the detrimental effects of antidepressant's - FDA approval followed, and so has the ripple effect of suicide.

Truth doesn't stay hidden forever. FDA is proposing a "black box" warning to outline the risk of suicide among all antidepressant's such as Lexapro, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft. If it was a nutritional supplement, they'd throw the manufacturers in prison...But not for the big drug companies, they just get a "black box" warning on their products...

Antidepressant's block another coping molecule in the brain, "dopamine." It's the molecule that lets you FEEL happiness. Dopamine yields the feelings of love, accomplishment and victory. It's also the molecule that keeps you protected from Parkinson's disease.

Aside from being a zombie, the Harvard School of Public Health recently warned that due to lack of dopamine, people taking antidepressants are nearly twice as likely to suffer from Parkinson's compared to those not taking them.

By removing serotonin and dopamine from the brain, users can't FIND or FEEL happiness. (A lobotomy - minus the saw and surgical knife.) Instead, they become buried in the avalanche of negative...And if you can't find or feel happiness in life, what's the point? What's going to keep a person in this position from suicide or lashing out at someone else?

Watch the breaking news from Fox news. The ripple effect of these drugs is staggering!

Watch the video

The ESSENTIAL amino acid L-tryptophan (not 5-HTP) is a much safer alternative than antidepressant's. (Your body requires it, but can't make it) It can be purchased at Go Here- and it won't accidentally remove your coping skills and throw you into suicide or rage.

Supplements that aid in a chemical process known as "methylation" help coping too: Folic acid, trimethylglycine and methylsulfonyl methane. They need to be used properly to work properly.

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

Research Links Serotonin to Autism & Blood Clotting

Leslee — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:23:45 GMT

From Dr. Tracy

Both the information on serotonin and blood clotting and serotonin and
Autism has been out for decades. Why are we treating this as new research? Anyone
could have found it in my book since it was first published in 1994.

It is very difficult to see this type of research come out after I have been
warning of this connection between drugs that increase serotonin levels and
Autism for nearly two decades. I always hope that someone will prove me wrong,
but over and over and over of late study after study has supported most of
my warnings about these SSRIs and the damage they do.

Two examples of Autism:

#1 I recall a call I got from a woman who had read my book years ago who
told me that she had THREE Autisic children before she realized it could be
related to her own use of Prozac during pregnancy and nursing.

#2 A neighbor who had no vaccinations for their son learned he too suffered
autism with the only link being the mother's use of Prozac during pregnancy
and while nursing.

Increasing serotonin is NOT therapeutic, but deadly in far too many ways.

Ann Blake-Tracy, PhD, Executive Director,
International Coalition for Drug Awareness
_www.drugawareness. org_ (http://www.drugawar eness.org/) &
_www.ssristories. org_ (http://www.ssristor ies.org/)
Author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our
Serotonin Nightmare & the audio, Help! I Can't
Get Off My Antidepressant! !! (800-280-0730)

E-mail: _atracyphd1@ aol.com_ (mailto:atracyphd1@aol. com)

Earlier this month, researchers reported a surprising functional connection
between serotonin and blood clotting that may help explain its link to
autism_1_ (http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism#fn: 1)
.
Serotonin is a signaling molecule that relays messages between nerve cells in
the central nervous system. Serotonin is thought to affect several systems,
including mood, sleep and appetite.
Though it’s best known for this neurotransmitter role, serotonin is found
outside the central nervous system, in the digestive tract and blood. In fact,
most of the body’s serotonin is stored in blood platelets, the cells
responsible for blood clotting. In these cells, serotonin has other signaling
functions, such as directing blood vessels to become narrower.
Most serotonin remains in platelets and is released only briefly for
signaling, before proteins called serotonin transporters bind it and take it back up
into the cells – meaning that high levels of blood serotonin don’t
necessarily correlate with greater serotonin signaling.
_http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism_
(http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism)

Research clarifies serotonin's link to autism

_Andrea Anderson_ (http://sfari. org/people/ AndreaAnderson)
13 Mar 2008 12:05 PM

(http://sfari. org/uploads/ 1a041e3e- 29df-dbd4- 5935-b89ac339820 6_800.jpg)

Blues clues: Many people with autism have high levels
of the neurotransmitter serotonin in their bloodstream.

Serotonin is most commonly talked about in association with depression and
anxiety. But for nearly 50 years, hyperserotonemia — an elevated level of blood
serotonin — has been noted in roughly a third of autism cases.
Earlier this month, researchers reported a surprising functional connection
between serotonin and blood clotting that may help explain its link to
autism_1_ (http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism#fn: 1)
.
Serotonin is a signaling molecule that relays messages between nerve cells in
the central nervous system. Serotonin is thought to affect several systems,
including mood, sleep and appetite.
Though it’s best known for this neurotransmitter role, serotonin is found
outside the central nervous system, in the digestive tract and blood. In fact,
most of the body’s serotonin is stored in blood platelets, the cells
responsible for blood clotting. In these cells, serotonin has other signaling
functions, such as directing blood vessels to become narrower.
Most serotonin remains in platelets and is released only briefly for
signaling, before proteins called serotonin transporters bind it and take it back up
into the cells – meaning that high levels of blood serotonin don’t
necessarily correlate with greater serotonin signaling.
The so-called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor or SSRI drugs, a class
of antidepressants, keep serotonin active longer by interfering with its
ability to bind transporters.
In the latest paper, Vanderbilt University researchers and their colleagues
uncovered interactions between the serotonin transporter and a cell-surface
protein called integrin-beta- 3, which signals to other proteins during blood
clotting. The researchers found both physical and functional interactions
between the proteins, with each enhancing the activity of the other in both mouse
and human cells.
Interestingly, genetic studies have found that various mutations in both the
serotonin transporter_ 2_
(http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism#fn: 2) and integrin-beta- 3_3_
(http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism#fn: 3) are more common in people with
autism.
“A genetic link or an association that made no sense in the beginning now
makes perfect sense,” says _Ana Carneiro_
(https://medschool. mc.vanderbilt. edu/student/ appl/viewlab. php?student_ id=2602) , an instructor and postdoctoral
researcher at Vanderbilt. “I think that these two genes — or these two proteins
— are very closely related.”
The new study suggests that the amount of serotonin taken up by platelets
depends on integrin-beta- 3. But the researchers note that this does not mean the
elevated blood serotonin causes autism. “In no way, shape or form can we say
this explains how autism happens,” Carneiro says.
Still, investigating the link may reveal a common cause underlying both the
elevated blood levels of serotonin and autism, says lead investigator _Randy
Blakely_ (http://web.mac. com/rdblakely/ BlakelyLab/ Home.html) . “It may be that
there are new therapeutic targets that we haven’t thought of before.”
Some doctors are already prescribing antidepressants to ease autism symptoms
such as anxiety, and help individuals with autism better engage in behavioral
therapy.
But the drugs don’t help all autistic individuals. And there’s no evidence
that those with higher levels of serotonin in the platelets respond better to
SSRIs than anyone else. “There’s no real clinical indication to check for
serotonin levels before treatment,” says Alexander Kolevzon, a psychiatrist at
Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.
References:

____________ _________ _________ ______

1. Carneiro, A.M.D. et al. J. Clin. Invest. epub ahead of print (2008)
_PubMed_
(http://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/18317590? ordinalpos= 1&itool=EntrezSy stem2.PEntrez. Pubmed.Pubmed_ ResultsPanel. Pubmed_RVDocSum) _↩_
(http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism#fnref: 1)
2. Sutcliffe, J.S. et al. Am. J. Human Genet. 77, 265-279 (2005)
_PubMed_
(http://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/15995945? ordinalpos= 7&itool=EntrezSy stem2.PEntrez. Pubmed.Pubmed_ ResultsPanel. Pubmed_RVDocSum) _↩_
(http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism#fnref: 2)
3. Weiss, L.A. et al. Eur. J. Hum. Genet. 14, 923-931 (2006) _PubMed_
(http://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/16724005? ordinalpos= 1&itool=EntrezSy stem2.PE
ntrez.Pubmed. Pubmed_ResultsPa nel.Pubmed_ RVDocSum) _↩_
(http://sfari. org/news/ research- clarifies- serotonin- s-link-to- autism#fnref: 3)

************ **Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial
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posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

SSRIs increases Infertility Rate

Leslee — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:05:44 GMT

From Ann Blake-Tracy, PhD, Executive Director,
International Coalition for Drug Awareness
_www.drugawareness. org_ (http://www.drugawar eness.org/) &
_www.ssristories. org_ (http://www.ssristor ies.org/)
Author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our
Serotonin Nightmare & the audio, Help! I Can't
Get Off My Antidepressant! !! (800-280-0730)

SSRIs Harm Sperm-One Month's Use More Than Doubles Infertility Rate.

Beyond this we need to ask, "If these drugs are producing broken strands of
DNA to prevent fertility, what harm might they be doing to the offspring of
these men?" - A question I have continued to ask for two decades. Hopefully
someone will be looking at that aspect as well considering how many children
this could affect long term - something that should have been considered LONG
BEFORE humans ever consumed one of these drugs. Yet another one of the many
pitfalls of making ourselves guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical giants!

The scientists examined the men's sperm before treatment and after they had
been taking the antidepressant for a month. Superficially, the sperm appeared
healthy, New Scientist magazine reported. But closer examination using a
sophisticated detection method called Tunel (Terminal deoxynucleotidyl
transferase biotin-dUTP Nick End Labeling) which flags up broken strands of DNA,
revealed a worrying picture.

On average, the proportion of sperm cells containing fragmented DNA rose
from 13.8% before taking paroxetine to 30.3%. Many experts regard a sperm DNA
fragmentation level of 30% as "clinically significant" . In the space of just
four weeks, therefore, the men's sperm had suffered a degree of damage that
potentially could impair fertility.

http://www.thisislo ndon.co.uk/ standard/ article-23559790 -details/ Antidepressant
s+%27could+harm+ sperm%27/ article.do

Antidepressants 'could harm sperm'

24.09.08

Millions of men who take antidepressants could be damaging their sperm and
risking infertility, according to new research.
The findings, described as "alarming" by one leading expert, suggest that
commonly described drugs for depression can break up DNA in sperm.
Outwardly the sperm may appear normal in terms of their numbers, shape and
swimming ability. But similar levels of DNA fragmentation in sperm are said to
have led to fertility and pregnancy problems in the past.
For couples undergoing In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment, fewer embryos
form when the man's sperm has damaged DNA. When embryos do form, they are
less likely to implant in the womb - which is essential for a successful
pregnancy.

The link with antidepressants was discovered by Professor Peter Schlegel and
Dr Cigdem "Cori" Tanrikut at the Cornell Medical Center in New York City.
In 2006, the two fertility scientists reported that two men had developed low
counts of healthy sperm after taking two different antidepressants. Both
were selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the most commonly
prescribed class of antidepressant which work by altering levels of a brain chemical
that influences mood.

Now the team has followed up the research by studying 35 healthy men given
one of the most popular SSRIs, paroxetine. The drug, made by pharmaceutical
giants GlaxoSmithKline, is sold as Seroxat in the UK and Paxil in the US.
The scientists examined the men's sperm before treatment and after they had
been taking the antidepressant for a month. Superficially, the sperm appeared
healthy, New Scientist magazine reported. But closer examination using a
sophisticated detection method called Tunel (Terminal deoxynucleotidyl
transferase biotin-dUTP Nick End Labeling) which flags up broken strands of DNA,
revealed a worrying picture.

On average, the proportion of sperm cells containing fragmented DNA rose from
13.8% before taking paroxetine to 30.3%. Many experts regard a sperm DNA
fragmentation level of 30% as "clinically significant" . In the space of just
four weeks, therefore, the men's sperm had suffered a degree of damage that
potentially could impair fertility.

The new findings will be presented in November at a meeting of the American
Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Francisco.

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

Has Big Pharma Corruption Suppressed Effective Treatment Options?

libramoon — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:14:41 GMT

Has Big Pharma Corruption Suppressed Effective Treatment Options?
By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Posted on July 23, 2008,
http://www.alternet.org/story/92264/
American psychiatry has been rocked by Congress. Congressional investigators first exposed the financial relationships between high-profile psychiatrists and drug companies. "But now the profession itself is under attack in Congress," reported the New York Times on July 12, 2008.

Specifically under attack is psychiatry's premier professional organization, the American Psychiatric Association. The New York Times stated, "In 2006, the latest year for which numbers are available, the drug industry accounted for about 30 percent of the association's $62.5 million in financing. About half of that money went to drug advertisements in psychiatric journals and exhibits at the annual meeting, and the other half to sponsor fellowships, conferences and industry symposiums at the annual meeting."

The American Psychiatric Association is, as the New York Times notes, "the voice of establishment psychiatry." It publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the standard diagnostic manual. It also publishes influential professional journals. And it is the primary lobbying organization for American psychiatry.

The president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association is Alan Schatzberg of Stanford University, and his $4.8 million stock holdings in a drug development company raised a red flag for Congressional investigators. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, informed the American Psychiatric Association, "I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry can shape the practices of nonprofit organizations that purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions."

One example of how psychiatric treatment practices are corrupted by drug-company money was revealed in a 2007 analysis of Minnesota psychiatrists. The analysis showed that psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from makers of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs wrote, on average, three times as many prescriptions to children for these drugs as psychiatrists who received less money or none.

The New York Times did track down one psychiatrist in private practice not on the take from drug companies, William Niederhut. Niederhut said that studies have shown that researchers who are paid by drug companies are more likely to report positive findings when evaluating that company's drugs. Niederhut was upset that drug company influence has pushed psychiatrists to prescribe expensive drugs rather than the off-patent inexpensive ones.

While the truly anti-psychiatry establishment psychiatrists were not quoted by the New York Times, reporters Benedict Carey and Gardiner Harris did provide an important service by using the term establishment psychiatry, which at least gives a clue that there are anti-establishment psychiatrists. Among this group of anti-establishment psychiatrists, two of the most well known are Peter Breggin and Grace Jackson, both of whom have testified at Food and Drug Administration advisory meetings. Breggin and Jackson, for several years, have been reporting that the dangers of psychiatric drugs are downplayed or ignored by establishment psychiatry, that many blockbuster psychiatric drugs are no more effective than sugar pill placebos, and that the chemical imbalance theories that sell these drugs are based on drug-company marketing rather than legitimate science.

Prior to exposing the American Psychiatric Association's financial dependency on Big Pharma, Congressional investigators had focused on individual establishment psychiatrists' financial relationships with drug companies. One high-profile example being Joseph Biedeman, about whom the New York Times reported: "A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007." Biederman and two of his colleagues in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School (who received an additional $2.6 million from drug companies from 2000 to 2007), by failing to report income from drug companies while at the same time receiving federal funds from the National Institutes of Health, violated rules designed to police conflicts of interest, according to Sen. Grassley.

I can only hope that Congress and the mainstream media will get around to the most important issue of all: How Big Pharma corruption of psychiatry has eliminated options for people with severe emotional problems who have been failed by establishment psychiatric treatments. One such option that was eliminated is Soteria House, the creation of psychiatrist Loren Mosher.

Loren Mosher (1933-2004) was chief of the National Institute of Mental Health's Center for the Study of Schizophrenia from 1968 to 1980. Mosher wanted to create an effective and more humane way to help psychiatry's most seriously troubled patients. Using National Institute of Mental Health funds, Mosher opened the first Soteria House in Santa Clara, California in 1971.

Mosher's Soteria House experiment is detailed by former Boston Globe reporter Robert Whitaker in Mad in America. In Soteria House, newly diagnosed schizophrenic patients lived medication-free with a young, nonprofessional staff trained to listen to and understand them and provide companionship. Mosher tested his idea that "schizophrenia can often be overcome with the help of meaningful relationships rather than with drugs, and that such treatment would eventually lead to unquestionably healthier lives."

The Soteria House experiment worked better than Mosher had expected. Over the initial six weeks, patients recovered as quickly as those treated with medication in hospitals. Whitaker notes, "Even more striking, the Soteria patients were staying well longer. Relapse rates were lower for the Soteria group at both one-year and two-year follow-ups. The Soteria patients were also functioning better socially -- better able to hold jobs and attend schools."

Mosher's success with nonprofessional caregivers and without drugs embarrassed establishment psychiatry. The National Institute of Mental Health choked off funding causing Soteria House to close down. By 1998 Mosher was so disgusted with establishment psychiatry that he wrote a widely publicized letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. Establishment psychiatry, which in recent times usually ignores anti-establishment psychiatrists such as Mosher, had to respond and did so by accusing Mosher of wanting to abolish drug treatments. However, abolishing the option of drug treatment was never Mosher's goal.

Loren Mosher remains a hero for many anti-establishment consumer- and patient-rights organizations such as MindFreedom. MindFreedom also does not advocate for abolishing the option of drug treatment but instead advocates for truly informed choice as well as for alternatives beyond establishment psychiatric treatments -- alternatives such as Soteria House. I recently spoke with two members of MindFreedom, a married couple. Both wife and husband had been diagnosed in the past with schizophrenia. The wife chose to stay on psychiatric drugs, while the husband -- who had especially debilitating adverse effects with his psychiatric drugs -- chose to go without drugs. Their different paths initially created tension in the marriage but both ultimately quite graciously accepted each other's decision.

These are the true issues: Do Americans have mental health treatment choices that are informed choices? Why, when Big Pharma corruption has long been known, does it take Congressional investigations for the mainstream media to inform Americans of the financial relationships that drug companies have with high-profile psychiatrists and major psychiatry institutions? And most importantly, when will Americans get real choices when it comes to their mental health?

A real choice is not a choice between Prozac or Zoloft, not between Zyprexa or Risperdal. One example of a real choice is the choice between establishment psychiatry or Soteria House.

Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green, 2007).

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/92264/

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply

One in Twelve Older Men at Risk for Serotonin Toxicity

Leslee — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:58:08 GMT

One in Twelve Older Men at Risk for Serotonin Toxicity
http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=203575

Lives at risk with antidepressant prescribing

by Michael Woodhead

Almost one in twelve older men have been co-prescribed drugs such as SSRIs and tramadol in doses that put them at risk of serotonin toxicity, in some cases life threatening, Australian figures show.

In a retrospective review ( link) of data from almost 250,000 patients receiving medicines under the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, epidemiologists found that almost 21,000 (8%) patients had at least one instance of concomitant use of serotonergic medicine combinations

The most commonly prescribed serotonin combinations were moclobemide with an SSRI or tramadol, say researchers from the University of NSW in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology this week.

Of particular concern was the use of potentially life-threatening combinations of MAOI antidepressants and other serotonergic agents, seen in almost one in a hundred older men, they say.

Of the 937 patients who had the combinations dispensed within the recommended washout period, 317 “were dispensed potentially life-threatening medicine combinations on the same day” the researchers say.

“The individuals potentially at risk of mild to moderate serotonin toxicity were considerable and potentially life threatening combinations were not infrequent … clinicians and patients need to be vigilant regarding inadvertent concomitant use,

1 September 2008

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

drug warnings

libramoon — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:57:46 GMT

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2008/08/11/go_slow_on_medicating_children/

Go slow on medicating children
By Dr. Victoria McEvoy
August 11, 2008
Face beet-red, fists balled up, and back arching, the 6-week-old baby lay on the exam table screaming.

Had I not had my own baby with colic, I would hardly have believed a baby could cry that hard for hours on end, setting everyone's nerves on edge. The baby's mother came to me for advice on whether to medicate her baby.

She had searched the Internet and talked to several neighbors who all recommended Zantac, an acid blocker normally prescribed for adults with heartburn. The data on Zantac as a treatment for colic were mixed, and my own experience with my patients was not convincing. But I could hardly blame the mother for wanting some relief - any relief - from this distressing situation.

Children now take drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, vitamin D deficiency, iron deficiency, lack of fluoride, calcium deficiency, heartburn, slow gastric emptying, urinary backup, menstrual regulation, recurrent ear infections, constipation, bed wetting, headache, obsessive compulsive disorder, and anorexia - the list goes on.

Obviously, some of these drugs are essential, but physicians are increasingly putting young children on multiple medications that often are taken for weeks or months - sometimes years - and that's cause for concern.

Recently the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended diet modifications, exercise, and possibly medication for children over 8 years old with elevated levels of overall cholesterol, particularly the bad kind, known as LDL. High cholesterol is clearly a danger sign in an adult, and may be for a child. But for young people, the long-term consequences of elevated cholesterol - or cholesterol-lowering medications - are unclear.

Just because we have a drug to lower cholesterol or improve behavior or reduce anxiety, and just because adults are taking those drugs, that doesn't mean we should be giving them to children. When is a disorder part of the human condition and when is it something we really have to treat? I think we've lost sight of that line.

Yes, some people will blame the problem on pediatricians like myself. And yes, we are part of the problem. For instance, we used to put children with recurrent ear infections on low-dose antibiotics for months at a time to prevent infection; we now know that they are unnecessary and may increase a child's risk of later antibiotic resistance.

But there is plenty of blame to go around, including the specialists who feel the need to "do something," the parents who are searching for solutions, and, of course, the drug companies that remind us in every media outlet - and in my own office with donations of pens and free lunches - that there is a "cure" for everything.

One recent example is the push to treat girls 13-16, whose periods come at unpredictable times, with Yasmin, a pill made by Bayer Schering Pharma. Yes, we can give them the pill to regulate their periods and reduce cramping, acne, and mood swings. But should we treat something that's so clearly part of normal physiology?

Given the ever-changing science of medicine, it is prudent to adopt new medications for children carefully, especially when they are to be given for a long period of time. All medications have potential side effects. I often see children with diarrhea, rashes, fatigue, abdominal pain, weight loss or weight gain, headache, vomiting, or mood disorders - that turn out to be side effects from medications. And, of course, long-term data on these medications are often unavailable for children.

I have also seen children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder go from a wall-bouncing, disruptive whirling dervishes to a thoughtful, calm students with improved self-image, thanks to medication. And in my early days of practice, it was not uncommon to see children die from acute lymphoblastic leukemia; today, if diagnosed early, most of these children do well. "Big pharma" has given us wonder drugs that do help children.

But since heart disease, for instance, is still a puzzle - does cholesterol cause cardiac illness or is it underlying inflammation - we had best go slowly before sentencing children to a lifetime of medication. As the medication list for our young patients grows longer, we need to continually analyze the data and consider the long term consequences of each new recommendation.

Drugs are lifesaving, pain-saving tools, but sometimes they're not necessary, and where we draw the line is critical.

Dr. Victoria Rogers McEvoy is chief of pediatrics of the Mass. General West Medical Group and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2008/09/01/watch_out_for_drug_names_that_look_sound_alike/

Watch out for drug names that look, sound alike
By Lauran Neergaard
AP Medical Writer / September 1, 2008
WASHINGTON—Take the generic drug clonidine for high blood pressure? Double-check that you didn't leave the drugstore with Klonopin for seizures, or the gout medicine colchicine.

Mixing up drug names because they look or sound alike -- like this trio -- is among the most common types of medical mistakes, and it can be deadly. Now new efforts are aiming to stem the confusion, and make patients more aware of the risk.

Nearly 1,500 commonly used drugs have names so similar to at least one other medication that they've already caused mix-ups, says a major study by the U.S. Pharmacopeia, which helps set drug standards and promote patient safety.

Last week the influential group opened a Web-based tool to let consumers and doctors easily check if they're using or prescribing any of these error-prone drugs, and what they might confuse it with. Try to spell or pronounce a few on the site -- http://www.usp.org -- and it's easy to see how mistakes can happen. Did you mean the painkiller Celebrex or the antidepressant Celexa?

Due out later this fall is a more patient-oriented Web site, a partnership of the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices and online health service iGuard.org, that will send users e-mail alerts about drug-name confusion.

And the Food and Drug Administration -- which currently rejects more than a third of proposed names for new drugs because they're too similar to old ones -- is preparing a pilot program that would shift more responsibility to manufacturers to guard against name confusion. The goal is to spell out how to better test for potential mix-ups before companies seek approval to sell their products.

"There are so many new drugs approved each year, this problem can only get worse," warns USP vice president Diane Cousins.

At least 1.5 million Americans are estimated to be harmed each year from a variety of medication errors, and name mix-ups are blamed for a quarter of them.

Rarely does a company change a drug's name after it hits the market, although it's happened twice since 2005. The Alzheimer's drug Reminyl now is named Razadyne, after mix-ups, including two reported deaths, with the old diabetes drug Amaryl. The cholesterol pill Omacor is now named Lovaza, after mix-ups with blood-clotting Amicar.

Doctors' notoriously bad handwriting isn't the only culprit. A hurried pharmacist faced with alphabetized bottles on a shelf might grab the wrong one.

Nor are computerized prescriptions a panacea. A doctor who e-prescribes still can click the wrong row on the alphabetized screen, picking the bone drug Actonel instead of the diabetes drug Actos.

Phone or fax a prescription, and static or smudged ink can turn the epilepsy drug Lamictal into the antifungal pill Lamisil.

Harder to measure but perhaps more common: A doctor means to prescribe a new drug but spells out a similar-sounding old one out of habit. Or the patient misspells or mispronounces one of his drugs, and a health worker assumes it's the schizophrenia drug Zyprexa, not the antihistamine Zyrtec.

"We've had cases where a health care professional repeats what they think the patient's on, and the patient thinks they must know what they're talking about and agrees," says USP's Cousins.

Enter the new Web tool. Cousins advises consumers to check it against their current medications, so they know to pay more attention to confusing ones at refill time.

Question the pharmacist if the tablets look different than last time -- it might just be a new generic, or it might be the wrong drug altogether, says pharmacist Marjorie Phillips, medication safety coordinator at MCGHealth, the Medical College of Georgia's health system.

Patients also can ask their doctors to write the diagnosis on the prescription, a step that pharmacists told the Institute for Safe Medication Practices would help them prevent errors.

"What they consider most important is knowing why the medication is used," says institute president Michael Cohen. "It would go a long way to interrupt a lot of these mix-ups."

Write "for heart" next to "clonipine," for example, and a pharmacist is less likely to grab similar-sounding gout pills.

But specialists are urging more research on another widely touted solution: Writing drug names in an eye-catching mix of upper- and lower-case letters. It sometimes helps but can backfire, warns Dr. Ruth S. Day, director of Duke University's medical cognition laboratory. She found users of a heart drug got even more confused with it was written NIFEdepine -- because the change made them pronounce it "KNIFE-duh-peen" instead of "nie-FEH-duh-peen."

------

EDITOR's NOTE -- Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

© Copyright 2008 Associated Press.

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply

Exercise as Medicine for Depression

Leslee — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:05:06 GMT

http://ownyourhealth.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/exercise-as-medicine-for-depression/

APRIL 21, 2008
Exercise as Medicine for Depression

Today’s Boston Globe cites several studies demonstrating the effectiveness of exercise in the treatment of depression and other mental health problems. Dr. James A. Blumenthal–a professor of medical psychology at Duke University and the principal investigator of several of these studies–is quoted in the Globe as saying, “There is growing evidence that exercise may be comparable to other established treatments such as antidepressant medications.” He also found that depressed patients who were helped by exercise were less likely to relapse after 10 months than those helped by antidepressants, according to the article. In consultation with your doctor, experts cited in the Globe suggest 20-40 minutes of exercise, including weightlifting and aerobics, 3 times a week, at a level that “makes you break a sweat,” for treatment of depression, anxiety, ADHD, addiction, stress, and aggression.

We have already seen evidence that exercise can help prevent chronic disease and hospitals around the country now have “boot camp” programs for chronic back pain. Now, there is evidence that exercise is also “medicine for the brain,” in the words of Cambridge psychiatrist and author, John Ratey, MD. So let’s get out and move our bodies! Here is the link to the article.

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2008/04/21/mood_lifting/

posted in Depression Help - 3 replies

Why I work to inform people of the dangers.

Leslee — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:33:22 GMT

One reason is because almost every day there is a new story like this one. You can read thousand of similar stories at

http://www.ssristories.com/index.php

Paragraph 7 reads: "A second blood test determined Geske had two antidepressant drugs in her system: fluoxetine, often known by the brand name Prozac, and venlafaxine, known by the brand name Effexor. Liddicoat said the drugs would have an added effect when combined with alcohol."

Paragraph 6 reads: "Laura Liddicoat, a forensic toxicologist with the state Crime Lab, testified Geske's blood-alcohol level taken two hours after the crash was 0.072 percent, just short of the 0.08 percent threshold for legal intoxication in Wisconsin. Adjusting for alcohol eliminated from the body over time, her blood-alcohol level would have been about 0.10 percent at the time of the crash, Liddicoat said."

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080830/GPG0101/808300641/1207/GPG01

Geske ordered to stand trial for fatal crash

June accident killed two teens in Ashwaubenon

By MIKE HOEFT • mhoeft@greenbaypressgazette.com • August 30, 2008

A 45-year-old Ledgeview woman accused of street racing her Porsche and killing two teens in a June 3 crash in Ashwaubenon was ordered Friday to stand trial.

Prosecutors think Anrietta "Monique" Geske was traveling more than 90 mph while racing another car on South Oneida Street when she ran a red light and broadsided the victims' car. Ashley Britsch-Knetzger and Talhia Heroux, both 18, were killed in the crash.

About 50 people many of them friends or family members of the two women filled the courtroom, where after about one hour of testimony from a state Crime Lab official, Brown County Court Commissioner Christopher Paquet found probable cause to bind Geske over for trial.

Geske appeared in court in a wheelchair wearing a green prison uniform. She is recovering from injuries suffered in the crash.

Laura Liddicoat, a forensic toxicologist with the state Crime Lab, testified Geske's blood-alcohol level taken two hours after the crash was 0.072 percent, just short of the 0.08 percent threshold for legal intoxication in Wisconsin. Adjusting for alcohol eliminated from the body over time, her blood-alcohol level would have been about 0.10 percent at the time of the crash, Liddicoat said.

A second blood test determined Geske had two antidepressant drugs in her system: fluoxetine, often known by the brand name Prozac, and venlafaxine, known by the brand name Effexor. Liddicoat said the drugs would have an added effect when combined with alcohol.

Brown County Assistant District Attorney Tom Coaty said the evidence proved probable cause for reckless homicide, homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle as well as reckless endangerment.

"Her actions served as a danger to the community," Coaty said.

Geske's attorney, Jerome Buting, said the only concrete evidence of intoxication was that of 0.072 percent, and the rest were nothing more than estimates. He also said no evidence was presented to show utter disregard of human life, a requirement for the reckless endangerment charge.

Detective Lt. Jody Crocker of the Ashwaubenon Public Safety Department told news media later that a jury will hear from both sides.

"We feel it was a homicide. This was about speed, about alcohol and about recklessness," he said.

Geske is scheduled to enter a plea Sept. 15 on two counts of first-degree reckless homicide, two counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle, two counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle with a prohibited alcohol concentration and one count of first-degree reckless endangerment.

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply

Antipsychotic drug 'stroke risk'

libramoon — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:21:41 GMT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7586627.stm
Page last updated at 23:06 GMT, Thursday, 28 August 2008 00:06 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version

Antipsychotic drug 'stroke risk'

Antipsychotic drugs are given to people with schizophrenia and dementia
More people than previously thought could be at higher risk of having a stroke caused by their antipsychotic drugs, say UK scientists.

Previous research suggested only some types of the drug increased the risk, particularly for people with dementia.

However a study published in the British Medical Journal says all forms of antipsychotics boost the risk, in all patients.

A mental health charity said patients on the drugs must be closely monitored.

This is another warning that all antipsychotics should be prescribed with great thought and care

Marjorie Wallace
Sane

Antipsychotic drugs are generally used to control psychotic symptoms in patients with disorders such as schizophrenia, and some severe forms of depression.

They are also thought to be widely used to control symptoms of dementia such as aggression, leading to accusations they were being used unnecessarily as a "chemical cosh" in some circumstances.

They fall into two types - newer "atypical" and older "typical" antipsychotics.

When the first concerns were raised in 2002, these focused on the "atypical" drugs.

These worries led to a recommendation from drug safety watchdogs in the UK that they not be given to people with dementia, and the government has been urged to strengthen this in England in its forthcoming dementia strategy.

The latest findings, from researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, confirm the fears over dementia patients, but raise wider concerns.

They identified 6,700 patients from a GP database, all with an average age of 80, and concluded that there was more than a tripling of risk for dementia patients taking any sort of anti-psychotic drug.

Patients without dementia taking any sort of antipsychotic had a 40% increase in risk.

The researchers repeated the recommendation that patients with dementia should not be prescribed these drugs.

'Last resort'

Neil Hunt, from the Alzheimer's Society, said that doctors now needed to heed these warnings.

"The over-prescription of antipsychotics is a serious breach of human rights, these drugs should only be a last resort.

"The forthcoming National Dementia Strategy is a crucial opportunity to stop this dangerous over-prescribing and we look forward to its launch in the autumn."

Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said that while the drugs were capable of transforming lives, different patients reacted differently to their side-effects.

"This study should remind us all that antipsychotics are powerful drugs which can both be essential for some people, while carrying other risks.

"This is another warning that all antipsychotics should be prescribed with great thought and care and be subject to rigorous follow-up."

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply

You may lose your right to sue big pharma

Leslee — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:19:57 GMT

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fdapreemptionbadmedicine/index.html

Hoping to draw some attention to the issue.

posted in Depression Help - 2 replies

How the myth of chemical depression keeps us depressed.

Leslee — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:03:15 GMT

How the myth of chemical depression keeps us depressed.
Sara Harfield

http://www.genetics.com/depression.

The drug industry has created a myth about depression and spent a great deal of money to convince us that the myth is a proven fact. The fact is, there is little hard evidence to support this myth.

The problem with this myth is that believing in it, will greatly increase your chance of being depressed. As well as increasing the chance of drug induced health problems, (To say nothing of greatly increasing big pharmas’ profits.)

Several studies have shown, that what you believe about depression, will have a strong impact on your chance of getting depressed.

If you believe that depression is inherited and some one in your family has suffered from depression, you are much more likely to become depressed and to become a drug consumer.

How ever if you were adopted and never knew that your father was depressed, your chance of becoming depressed will be far less then the person who believes they are fated to become depressed, due to genetics.

If you believe that depression is caused by some chemical flaw in your brain. Then your only hope is to take drugs with a long list of negative side effects. Feeling powerless has been shown to cause depression.

When drug ads for antidepressants that promoted the myth, were introduced in Japan, the rate of depression suddenly shot up.

The most recent studies show that the positive effects of antidepressants are for the most part duplicated by placebo.

Placebos work thru belief.

It is important to understand that the drug industry has a long history of being caught lying to us.

If you knew a person who repeatedly lied to you for profit, would you continue to trust that person?

The lies the drug industry tells, can have dire consequences. Antidepressants are not by any means risk free.

The drugs work because placebos work.

What you believe about depression has a strong impact on your mental health.

posted in Depression Help - 9 replies

12 Things to Do When You're Depressed

Leslee — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:23:32 GMT

DAILY DOZEN for DEPRESSION:

12 Things to Do When You're Depressed
Compiled from the book
Depression is a Choice:
Winning the Battle Without Drugs
by A. B. Curtiss

Recognize and verbalize to yourself that you are depressed as soon as possible.. "Oh, I know what this is. This is depression. Okay, I can handle this."This will start to break up the tendency to identify with depression as "your life" instead of seeing it as it really is, a body alarm system gone out-of-whack. You are not your depression. You are you, and your depression is just your depression. It is something that is happening to you. You should not be something that is happening to it.
Have a mental list ready, ahead of time, of neutral or positive thoughts to think instead of the thought "I am depressed." A nursery rhyme, a mantra, a prayer, a word. Even row, row, row, your boat works. Or yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Any downer thought strengthens the mind-set of depression. Any neutral or positive thought lessens the power of depression because it is a break in your direct neuronal connection with depression for as long as you are able to think it.
Do just the opposite of what you normally do when you are depressed to break up the depressive mind set. If you normally sigh a lot, every time you start to sigh, sing a few "la, la, la's" instead, or say "ho, ho, ho" as if you were Santa Claus. If you normally sit in the dark, turn on all the lights. If you normally curl up immobilized in the fetal position, get up and dance. Your depression will not want you to dance. Do it anyway.
Try to recognize and verbalize the habitual thoughts that come with your depression. When you catch yourself in a habitual thought have a substitute thought ready to replace it. Now try and replace the habitual feelings with a thought. Concentrate on the thought instead of the feeling. Scream the thought in your mind, if you have to, as if you could drown out the feeling with the thought.
Add one item to personal grooming that would ordinarily not be done just for "work" or "around the house." It doesn't matter how small a change. The goal is strengthening the process of doing something our depression doesn't want us to do in order to exercise our will over depression. Already we will feel less powerless.
Look around for the next task at hand. Do the thing closest to you and your second task will already appear clearer. There is great sanity in knowing that you although you might feel utterly abandoned and lifeless in your depression, Life will never leave you without the next thing to do.
Do a small thing. Don't try to clean the house. Just clear off a small part of your desk. Don't try to jog for a half hour, just start jogging and commit to the first five steps. Then you can commit to five more steps. Again the idea is to force your power over the power of your depression.
Call someone you know is not home and leave a cheery message on their answering machine. The very cheerful sound of your own voice will break up the habitual mind-set of depression. Don't talk in a weak, sad voice. Talking in a weak sad, voice and sighing are habits of depression, they are habits you should break immediately.
Leave your house and go someplace where you will have a chance to hook-up with regular life in some small way. Just open the door and walk out. See where you go. See what happens. Depression is not regular life. Depression is a state of alarm that gets stuck in itself like an auto horn that keeps blowing. Isolating yourself is another habit of depression that you should start to break.
Look up jokes on the Internet. Laugh out loud. Smile. Force the corners of your mouth up. Whether you feel like it or not. You are not laughing and smiling because anything is funny. You are laughing and smiling because it breaks your direct neuronal connection with your depression. The longer you can laugh and smile, the bigger the break.
Ignore your depression. Paying attention to your depression maintains a direct neuronal connection to your depression. Paying attention to anything else breaks the direct neuronal connection to your depression for as long as you can pay attention to something else.
Especially don't think about yourself. You are not really thinking about yourself when you are depressed, you are just thinking about your depression. The way you don't think about yourself is to think about someone else. Send someone a silent blessing or healing. Imagine their pain melting away, their tumor disappearing, their wound healing. Remember, being depressed is going in the wrong direction. If you take just the smallest, tiniest baby step in the right direction and you will see that you have just turned yourself 180 degrees around.

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

Depression myths

Leslee — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:33:19 GMT

Depression myths

Myth 1: Difficult life situations cause depression

Difficult life situations are not the cause of depression, what causes depression is how we cope with the difficult life situation. One person can suffer from a tragic experience and not be depressed, while a relatively trivial problem can send someone else into a severe depression.

Myth 2: Depression is an illness you can get again and again

It isn't depression that is recurrent, but the difficulties that life throws at us that keep on producing depression. If you react to difficult circumstances in the same way each time, depression will keep manifesting.

Myth 3: Depression is passed down to children genetically.

Despite extensive research, a 'depression gene' which makes more than a marginal contribution to depression has never been found. And it seems unlikely that it ever will be. What may be picked up by children from their parents are inadequate ways of coping with difficult life situations, which makes them more prone to depression themselves, should they go on to experience difficulties.

Myth 4: Depression is always an unnecessary additional problem

Depression is a sign that something is wrong. It should be viewed as a signal from the person about their current situation, not as an extra, unrelated condition that needs to be managed throughout their lives by long-term therapy or anti depressant drugs. Although drugs can be helpful in some situations, they should be viewed as a last resort.

Myth 5: Depression is anger turned inwards

The myth that depression is 'anger turned inwards' has no biological basis. As we know from the expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming, every night we dream to dearouse emotions from the day before, so anger cannot be 'turned inwards' in the long-term.

Myth 6: Depression is a biological illness

Depression is NOT a biological illness. Of course there is a biological element to depression (every thought and emotion we feel affects the levels of the feel-good brain chemical serotonin), but there is no evidence that the cause is biological. Research shows that the vast number of depressions lift when treated with effective psychological therapy. This could not happen if depression were a biological illness. If you have been told that you have an illness caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain that you can't help, this is disempowering you. Our position – that worrying about emotional needs that are not being met in your life causes depression – is not only more scientifically accurate, it is the most empowering thing you could know about depression. The reason being that it means, either that you can be in charge of your own recovery, or that someone else who understands why people get depressed can help you recover.

Myth 7: Depression is caused by a chemical imbalance

For the same reason, it is a myth that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Our levels of serotonin fluctuate constantly depending on our mood and how we feel about ourselves. If we are depressed, we have low levels of serotonin, whereas, when we are positive and acting positively, levels of serotonin are high. It is the depressed mood that causes changes in brain chemistry, not the other way around. Another fact that confirms the chemical imbalance idea is wrong is that, in 75 percent of cases, depression gets better on its own within 6 months without chemical intervention.

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply

alternative approaches to mental health care

libramoon — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:30:18 GMT

see whole article at website:

http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/ken98-0044/default.asp#dance

What are alternative approaches to mental health care?

An alternative approach to mental health care is one that emphasizes the interrelationship between mind, body, and spirit. Although some alternative approaches have a long history, many remain controversial. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health was created in 1992 to help evaluate alternative methods of treatment and to integrate those that are effective into mainstream health care practice. It is crucial, however, to consult with your health care providers about the approaches you are using to achieve mental wellness.

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

Must see videos & How to End Depression

Leslee — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 07:27:35 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxRawzofx6Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaq54C2R-GY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bzwx5HcurM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBBc3fEnwOw&feature=related

How to End Depression

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c4CmhwD80w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJNjhYYhf0Q&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJLLZcZXWB0&feature=related

Funny > Chris Rock - Cure for Depression
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewRdf9GWuSo&feature=related

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

Your liver is chronically stressed by taking any drug every day.

Leslee — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:38:56 GMT

http://www.NaturalNews.com/022322.html

Just Say No to Prescription Drugs
by: Virginia Hopkins

Assuming you’re eating well, sleeping well, exercising and tending to your relationships, the next best optimal health step you can take after the age of fifty is to avoid prescription drugs. All prescription drugs - without exception - have side effects. The most common cause of side effects is the simple fact that prescription drugs are highly concentrated and usually not found in nature, so they’re hard on the liver. Once your liver is chronically stressed by taking a drug every day, any other stress you put on it, such as exposure to toxins (think car exhaust, paint fumes, pesticides, excess alcohol etc) can compromise your health. As we age, the liver loses some of its efficiency, so prescription drugs add insult to aging.

Once you start mixing drugs the side effects multiply and magnify. Side effects can be subtle at first, and you may not attribute them to the drug you’re taking. Common examples include mild symptoms of:

Fatigue

Muscle weakness

Forgetfulness

A bit of dizziness when you first stand up

Trouble thinking clearly

Uncharacteristic depression

I’m convinced that millions of Americans over the age of fifty are tired, weak, depressed and mentally dulled out because of prescription drug side effects, and yet are blaming it on aging. Yes, aging can have all those effects on us, but prescription drugs can advance and accelerate the process.

There are times in all our lives when we need a quick patch or remedy for a few days or a few weeks, but the minute your doctor suggests that you need to be taking a drug every day indefinitely, the hairs on the back of your neck should stand up.

Drugs that can Cause Osteoporosis

A perfect example of how prescription drugs can ruin your health without you or your doctor even realizing it, is drugs that cause osteoporosis.

We’ve known for decades that certain medications can contribute to bone loss. They include steroids such as prednisone, and calcium-channel blocking drugs for hypertension such as Procardia and Norvasc. Now we can add two other drugs to the list: acid-suppressing drugs used for heartburn, such as Prilosec, Prevacid and Nexium; and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants such as Celexa, Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil.

Heartburn or Hip Fracture?

The heartburn drug study examined the medical records of 13,000 people who had suffered a hip fracture, and compared them with 135,000 similar people who had never had a hip fracture.

Those who had used the family of heartburn drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) for more than a year had a whopping 44 percent higher risk of hip fracture. Those taking the drugs at the highest doses for the longest period of time had the highest risk of hip fracture. Critics of the study point out that so-called “retrospective” research looking back at medical records tends to be less accurate, but even if the PPI users had a 22 percent risk instead of 44 percent risk, it would still be a very high number.

It’s theorized that the PPIs probably cause bone loss that leads to hip fracture by interfering with the absorption of nutrients that build bone, such as calcium and other minerals.

The PPIs can be a very useful short-term solution for stopping heartburn, but it’s important to make the lifestyle changes that can prevent heartburn and get off the drugs. For more information on preventing heartburn, here’s an article by Dr. John Lee and myself: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You about Heartburn.

The Antidepressants

The research on SSRIs and bone loss is smaller but still important. This was a Canadian study done at McGill University that began with a pool of 5,008 randomly selected people over 50 and followed them for five years. Of that group, 137 were taking SSRIs, and they were found to have 2.1 times the risk of bone fractures. Although this was a relatively small group taking the SSRIs, the researchers took into account many other risk factors for bone fractures and still got the same result. Some critics argue that people who are depressed fall more often, but the study showed that the SSRI users had “fragility” fractures, meaning broken bones caused by relatively minor incidents like falling out of bed - in other words, it didn’t take much for their bones to break.

The Prescription Drug Triple Bone Whammy

It’s not uncommon at all to find senior citizens on multiple prescription drugs. Some of the most common include prednisone, calcium channel blockers and proton-pump inhibitors - all now linked to bone fractures. There are many reasons to avoid prescription drugs in general, and now we can add bone loss to the list. Prescription Alternatives, a book I wrote with Dr. Earl Mindell, gives many alternatives to prescription drugs, as well as detailed descriptions of common drug side effects and interactions.

www.virginiahopkinstestkits.com

Yang YX, Lewis JD et al, “Long-term proton pump inhibitor therapy and risk of hip fracture,” JAMA. 2006 Dec 27;296(24):2947-53. University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Richards JB, Papaioannou A et al, “Effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors on the risk of fracture,” Arch Intern Med. 2007 Jan 22;167(2):188-94. Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

Antidepressants impair driving ability

Leslee — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:03:03 GMT

Antidepressants impair driving ability in the depressed
Depressed people who take medication such as Prozac to control their condition have a significantly impaired ability to drive, a study has claimed.

By Rob Davies
Last Updated: 11:06PM BST 17 Aug 2008
In a controlled test, researchers found that a combination of the mental illness and the medication led to the deterioration in their driving ability.
"They are far more affected that people taking antidepressants who did not report continuing symptoms of depression," it said.
The 60 participants were asked to complete a variety of driving manoeuvres, including reacting to brake lights or traffic signals while being distracted by cyclists, speed limit signs, animals or other hazards.
The simulation tested the ability to steer, concentrate and scan the road for obstacles.
The study found that of the 31 participants who were taking anti-depressants, those who reported a high level of depressive symptoms, performed significantly worse on several of the tasks.
Test subjects who were taking the medicines but were not depressed performed no worse than non-medicated individuals.
The research, led by pyschologists Holly J. Dannewitz PhD and Thomas Petros PhD, of the University of North Dakota, found that one's mood plays a greater role than medication in affecting the ability to perform complex tasks.
"Individuals taking antidepressants should be aware of the possible cognitive effects as [they] may affect performance in social academic and work settings," wrote researchers.
"However, it appears that mood is correlated with cognitive performance, more so than medication use."
The results of the study were published yesterday at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.
Americans' use of antidepressant medication has tripled in the last decade and according to the US government, one in ten American women now takes some form of antidepressant drug.
Earlier this month, the National Association for Premenstrual Syndrome (Naps), said that doctors were needlessly prescribing drugs such as Prozac for PMS.

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply

Doctor says 'No' to drug money

Leslee — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:27:08 GMT

http://psychdata.blogspot.com/2007/05/doctor-says-no-to-drug-money.html

'No' to drug money
Dr. Daniel J. Carlat wants to limit corporate sway over psychiatry By
Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff | May 7, 2007

NEWBURYPORT -- There are names for what Dr. Daniel J. Carlat once was,
and he does not hesitate to use them: "Drug whore," he suggested calmly.
"Hired gun."

"There's really no nice way to say it. If you're being paid to offer an
opinion you're not all that confident that you believe, you're corrupt,"
he said.

Six years ago, Carlat, a psychiatrist and textbook author who trained at
Massachusetts General Hospital, found himself in demand by drug
companies.
Like a great many prominent psychiatrists, he was offered generous sums
to give instructional talks about medications at lunches and dinners
with his colleagues: $500 or more per "lunch-and-learn," $1,000 or more per
dinner.

He did it for about a year, speaking mainly about antidepressants, for a
total of $30,000 or so beyond his salary of about $120,000.

But then his conscience rebelled. A drug salesman chided him one day for
showing "less enthusiasm for our product" than usual and "I had a kind
of epiphany," said Carlat, also on the faculty of the Tufts University
School of Medicine. "I realized the obvious -- that I was being paid to
say good things about drugs, regardless of what my actual opinions
were."

He not only walked away from the extra money and perks, he resolved to
fight what he saw as an increasingly pernicious influence on psychiatric
practice.

These days, operating from an old brick building in this quaint seaside
town, he sees patients and puts out The Carlat Psychiatry Report, a
monthly newsletter on psychiatric developments that aims to be more
aggressively free of drug-company influence than any other, from its
content to the financial ties of its writers.

Potential conflicts of interest are a growing concern in all of
medicine, from cancer doctors who own scanning centers to cardiologists
who prescribe specific blood-pressure drugs while accepting payments
from companies that make them. Several states have recently passed laws
mandating that drug-makers report such ties, but the great majority of
payments remain undisclosed.

By all indications, "psychiatrists are among the most conflicted of the
medical specialties," said Dr. Jerome P. Kassirer , a Tufts University
professor and author of "On the Take," a book about what he describes as
medicine's complicity with big business. With new drugs available for
common conditions such as anxiety and depression, the pharmaceutical
industry has been recruiting armies of psychiatrists to market them in
recent years, he said.

He has met Carlat, Kassirer said, and "I'd say he's the real thing. He
honestly believes that psychiatry has gone too far, and by the way, so
do I."

Not everyone agrees that company payments are a problem in psychiatry.
Like many doctors, psychiatrists who accept money tend to argue that
they are not about to be swayed by the consulting fees or research
grants they get from companies.

From the industry point of view, drug companies are simply paying the
market rate for bona-fide services and the expertise that prominent
psychiatrists can provide, said Scott Lassman , a spokesman for PhARMA,
the national trade association for pharmaceutical companies.

"The people who are doing this are professionals and care a lot more
about their reputation in the community than about whatever money
they're making by providing these services," he said. "I don't think
they're going to say anything that they don't believe, and the companies
certainly wouldn't want them to."

In psychiatry, Carlat said, one drug tends to be much like another, and
a psychiatrist may -- as he once did -- rationalize that it does no harm
to patients to push one drug over another.

But when he started to look around at the bigger picture of drug
companies'
influence on psychiatry, "I said, 'This is unbelievable! Our field as a
whole is progressively being purchased lock, stock, and barrel by the
drug
companies: this includes the diagnoses, the treatment guidelines, and
the national meetings."

Perhaps worst of all, Carlat said, drug companies have come to sponsor
so much of continuing medical education -- the courses that doctors must
take to retain their licenses -- that the companies can set much of the
agenda.

"Instead of getting educated about psychotherapy, about how to better
manage our practices, about epidemiology and the public health concerns
of underserved populations, what we're getting is lecture after lecture
about how to diagnose depression and use antidepressants to treat it;
how to diagnose insomnia and use sleeping pills to treat it; how to
diagnose bipolar disorder and use mood stabilizers to treat it," he
said.

In particular, Carlat said, he is appalled that his prestigious former
employer, Mass. General, has chosen to accept millions of dollars of
drug-company money to sponsor its continuing psychiatry courses. MGH
says that its pharmaceutical sponsors have no input on the courses.

Carlat's newsletter is by no means anti psychiatry; it is meant for
psychiatrists and their patients. Nor is it anti medication; Carlat
himself prescribes drugs in his private practice all the time, he said,
"because they work."

But it aims to cut through layers of drug advertising and studies
sponsored by drug companies to a relatively spin-free bottom line.

The Report might warn, for example, that a new drug is merely a tweaked
version of an older drug whose patent is about to expire -- meaning the
new drug is probably not worth its sticker price.

In 2004, the Report concluded that a new anti depressant, Cymbalta,
offered no significant advantages over existing drugs, and that its
maker, Eli Lilly, was massaging the data to make it look better than it
was. The article and its headline, "Cymbalta: Dual the Reuptake, Triple
the Hype,"
drew a lengthy complaint from Eli Lilly, replete with 24 footnotes that
Carlat then published on the Report's website, with his own rebuttal.

The Report (online at thecarlat report.com) does carry interviews with
psychiatrists who have financial ties with drug companies, Carlat said,
but only because it is simply impossible to find prominent psychiatrists
without such ties. He asks experts to disclose any financial ties in
print.

Carlat seems to have struck a nerve. From a tiny 2002 start-up, the
newsletter has grown to a circulation of 2,300 -- almost enough to begin
paying himself a salary for his three days a week of writing and
editing, Carlat said. Subscriptions range from $89 a year for
individuals to $149 for institutions.

Dr. Steven Sharfstein , immediate past president of the American
Psychiatric Association, the field's major professional group, said he
believes that Carlat may be part of a larger movement, "a change in
sensitivity and sensibility" about pharmaceutical industry involvement
in psychiatry.

Sharfstein said he has no hard data, "but I believe there's a trend that
people are moving away." His own hospital, Sheppard Pratt Health System
near Baltimore, has stopped letting drug companies sponsor lectures.

"So now we just don't have fancy snacks," he said. "It just didn't feel
right."

Carey Goldberg can be reached at goldberg (at) globe.com.

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply

What is a me to drug?

Leslee — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:37:18 GMT

http://stanmed.stanford.edu/2005summer/drugs-metoo.html

Me-too drugs
Sometimes they're just the same old, same old

By ROSANNE SPECTOR

It’s expensive to produce an innovative drug. On average, the bill runs to more than $400 million. So drug companies often take a less costly route to create a new product. They chemically rejigger an oldie but goodie, craft a new name, mount a massive advertising campaign and sell the retread as the latest innovative breakthrough.

This strategy has shown great success for turning profits. Nexium, a “me-too” drug for stomach acid, has earned $3.9 billion for its maker, AstraZeneca, since it went on the market in 2001. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classified three-fourths of the 119 drugs it approved last year as similar to existing ones in chemical makeup or therapeutic value.

Though there are hints that consumers are more aware of drug marketing ploys, many fall for the sales hype, despite an absence of evidence that the new drug is better than the tried-and-true remedy. In 2003, the industry spent $25.3 billion marketing drugs, according to the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacurers of America.

Nexium illustrates the drug makers’ strategy. Many chemicals come in two versions, each a mirror image of the other: an L-isomer and an R-isomer. (The “L” is for left, the “R” is for right.) Nexium’s predecessor Prilosec is a mixture of both isomers. When Prilosec’s patent expired in 2001, the drug maker was ready with Nexium, which contains only the L-isomer.

Is Nexium better? So far, there’s no convincing evidence that it is, says Stanford drug industry watcher Randall Stafford, MD, PhD.

“Newer isn’t always better, when it comes to drugs,” says Stafford, associate professor of medicine with the Stanford Prevention Research Center.

“The FDA approves drugs on the basis of their superiority to placebo, not their superiority to existing drugs,” Stafford says. “I think people misunderstand the nature of FDA approval and the criteria used to allow drugs to enter the market.”

The findings of an annual survey on direct-to-consumer advertising released in April suggest consumers are becoming less gullible. The national Rodale survey, which polled 1,504 adults from Dec. 28 to Jan. 12, found that among those who asked their doctors about an advertised drug, the portion asking directly for the drug fell to 21 percent — 5 percentage points lower than last year. The poll’s analysts interpret this drop as evidence that consumers are paying less attention to the likely benefits of advertised drugs and more to the potential risks.

Experts also believe consumers are beginning to take steps to weed through the marketing mumbo jumbo and find the most effective drug at the best price. The new drug information Web site — www.CRBestBuyDrugs.org — launched in December by Consumers Union racks up between 2,000 and 5,000 visits a day, according to Gail Shearer, the program’s project director.

The site compares the effectiveness and cost of drugs for prevalent health problems including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, pain and depression. The underlying source of analysis for the site is the Drug Effectiveness Review Project, a highly-regarded, evidence-based review of clinical effectiveness carried out by Oregon Health and Science University. Twelve states use this same data to choose which drugs to make available in their markets.

But in the end, the real question is about pharmaceutical innovation. While me-toos fill the development pipeline, the benefits flow largely to the haves of this world. Few resources go toward drugs targeting diseases that primarily affect developing nations. So, what about the rest of the world?

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

Pristiq, Wyeths" "New" me-too anti-depressant

Leslee — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:54:04 GMT

http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2008/02/

February 29, 2008

Pristiq, "New" Anti-Depressant, Approved
This is certainly a fabulous Friday for pharma execs in the land. Abilify gets approved for kids this morning and this afternoon we learn that the FDA just approved Pristiq for depression. The drug is made by Wyeth and is essentially a rejiggered Effexor, only this one was originally developed to help women with hot flashes. You know Wyeth is going to give this drug a huge roll out since Effexor goes off-patent fairly soon and I'm sure that the made-for-hot-flashes-but-good-for-depression sales pitch is going to work wonders with men and women of every age.

As CL Psych and I noted last year, this smells like another episode of Celexa gets tweaked and becomes Lexapro. In other words, this is another me-too anti-depressant that will probably not have an unique features or efficacy.

One hopes that the drug proves less gnarly to take than does Effexor and that patients can actually get off the drug without going through the Effexor joneses.

Danny Carlat had these thoughts:

"And Dr. Daniel Carlat, a psychiatrist in Newburyport, Mass., who publishes the Carlat Psychiatry Report, said the release of Pristiq appeared mainly to be an effort by the company to, in effect, extend its patent for Effexor XR.
"That is because Pristiq is a metabolite of Effexor — meaning it is the chemical compound that results after Effexor is swallowed and processed in the body.

'"Is there a compelling public health reason for Wyeth to be releasing another antidepressant into the market, with no clear advantages over others?' Dr. Carlat said. 'Not that I can see.'"

posted in Depression Help - 4 replies

Krill Oil 48 Times Better Than Fish Oil?

Leslee — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:30:17 GMT

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/08/14/is-krill-oil-48-times-better-than-fish-oil.aspx?source=nl

Krill oil is made from krill, a small, shrimp-like crustacean that inhabits the cold ocean areas of the world. Despite their small size, krill make up the largest animal biomass on the planet. There are approximately 500 million tons of krill roaming around in northern seas..

Krill oil, like fish oil, contains omega-3 fats such as eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA). However, in fish oil, these omega-3 fats are found in the triglyceride form. In krill oil, they are found in a double chain phospholipid structure. The fats in human cell walls are in the phospholipid form.

The phospholipid structure of the EPA and DHA in krill oil makes them much more absorbable. Krill oil also contains vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin D and canthaxanthin, which is a potent anti-oxidant.

The anti-oxidant potency of krill oil is, in terms of ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorptance Capacity) values, 48 times more potent than fish oil.

The astaxanthin found in krill oil provides also excellent protection against ultraviolet light and UV-induced skin damage.

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply

Effectiveness of antidepressant medication

Leslee — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:20:51 GMT

Canadian Psychological Association

Effectiveness of antidepressant medication

http://www.cpa.ca/cpasite/userfiles/Documents/Effectiveness%20of%20antidepressant%20medication.pdf

Effectiveness of antidepressant medication: Implications of recent meta-analytic findings
Alan Scoboria, PhD, C.Psych
University of Windsor

A recent meta-analysis upon the effectiveness of antidepressant medication hasreceived considerable media attention (Kirsch, Deacon, Huedo-Medina,

Scoboria, Moore & Johnson, 2008). The following summary is provided to clarifyand contextualize the study and related issues.
The paper is open-access and can be viewed on-line at:
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-
1676/5/2/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0050045-S.pdf

This article is for informative purposes, and is not intended to provide specifictreatment recommendations or medical advice.

What did this study find?

This study shows that while modern antidepressants do produce substantial improvements in depression,

people receiving a placebo improved nearly as much as those receiving the drug.

Only for the most severe depressions did drug show an advantage over placebo. The finding that placebo response is high in antidepressant trials is consistent with prior research (Joffe, Sokolov, & Streiner, 1996; Kirsch & Sapirstein, 1998; Kahn et al., 2000; Kirsch et al., 2002; Walsh et al., 2002).

What is novel about this study?

This study analyzed drug trials from arguably the most comprehensive
dataset available. The Federal Drug Administration in the United States requires that drug manufacturers report all data available when evaluating the effectiveness of a new drug. Thus some of the problems with publication bias,
where studies which show effects are published and those which do not show effects are not published, are avoided (Turner et al., 2008). The analyses were conducted for modern antidepressant drugs in the FDA database for which all data was reported. This results in the most objective estimate of drug and placebo effects possible.

Effectiveness of antidepressant… 2

March 25, 2008

The study then examined drug and placebo effects based upon the
severity of initial depression. Analyses showed that the clinical significance of the difference between drug and placebo was not meaningful for mildly to highly depressed patients. Only for the most severely depressed patients did drug show a notable clinical difference over placebo.

However, this was not due to drug being more effective, but rather because the placebo response was lower for
severely depressed people.

Why do physicians, researchers, and patients think these drugs are
effective?

Because they appear to be effective – some people do report feeling quite
a bit better. However, the data indicate that it is questionable whether this is due to the pharmacology of the drug. Improvement in depressive symptoms are highly influenced by people’s beliefs that they are receiving an effective treatment. It is important to note that this study does not prove that drugs do not have a pharmacological effect; rather it shows that other factors produce effects that are equally strong.

So why were these drugs approved as being more effective than placebo?
Central to this issue is the distinction between statistical and clinical
significance. In many studies drugs do result in greater change on average than placebo, using conventional statistical significance criteria. However, the magnitude of the difference between drug and placebo tends to be small. For example, in this study the average difference between drug and placebo groups was a rather small 1.8 points on the Hamilton Rating Scale of Depression (HRSD).

Consider two groups of individuals whose scores on the HRSD are 20 on
average prior to treatment. Half receive drug and half receive placebo. After 6 weeks of treatment, the drug group’s average score on the HRSD is 9 and the placebo group’s average score is 10.8. These two scores may be statistically different. However, from the point of view of clinical utility the changes in scores are virtually identical – both groups improved substantially.

It has also been suggested that these drugs may not in fact produce long
term improvements in mood, but rather provide mild non-specific stimulating and sedating effects. If this is the case, these drugs may be helpful early in treatment to reduce distress, agitation, and sleep problems, but these types of issues are not specific to depression (Moncreiff, 2007)

Why do depressed people respond to placebos?

The reasons behind the placebo response for depression are complex.
Clearly, expecting that one is receiving a beneficial treatment is helpful.
Depression is a disorder that is characterized by hopelessness for some patients (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989; Joiner et al., 2001). The very act of seeking help and receiving a treatment from an expert likely instils hope which may spur improvement for some individuals.

Effectiveness of antidepressant… 3

March 25, 2008

Furthermore, the very side effects that the drugs produce may enhance
someone’s belief that they are receiving a beneficial treatment (Moncrieff,
Wessely, & Hardy, 2004). Someone who takes an antidepressant and begins to experience side effects is more likely to believe they are getting a treatment that will help. This may also explain the small differences that are observed on average between drug and placebo groups in clinical trials: individuals with side effects (on drugs) may have stronger beliefs that they are receiving a beneficial treatment than those without side effects (on placebo).

The status that people ascribe to drugs due to factors such as marketing,
prestige of brand names, or cost likely influence beliefs about the effectiveness of drugs. For example, a recent study showed that people reported lower levels of pain when administered an expensive placebo pain medication as contrasted with an inexpensive placebo medication (Waber, Shiv, Carmon, & Ariely, 2008).

One clear message that this and similar work conveys: depression is highly related to one’s beliefs about being depressed and one’s beliefs about treatment. Changing how one thinks about and experiences one’s depression can result in improvement.

How is depression treated most effectively?

A variety of treatments are available. To understand which treatments may be most beneficial, it is important to understand the nature of depression. Depression is a cyclical disorder: 85% of people who have a diagnosable major depressive episode will have another episode at some point in the future.

The median number of lifetime episodes for individuals experiencing one episode is 4. (Judd, 1997; Mueller et al., 1999). Furthermore, the natural course of the first untreated depressive episode is estimated to be from 3 to 9 months (Solomon et al., 1997; Eaton et al., 1997).
Thus demonstrating that any treatment affects a current episode is difficult.

Presumably individuals are feeling depressed for some period of time prior to seeking help. In fact, the DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria for major depressive episode requires that symptoms are present at minimum two weeks prior to diagnosis. Thus any treatment that is thought to takes 8-12 weeks to show effectiveness may reflect change that would have occurred if the disorder was permitted to run it’s course. This is the case for both drug and therapy administration. When first prescribed, a drug is typically tried for 6-8 weeks. If benefit is not observed, the dosage is revised, or a second drug is attempted. The same of course holds for therapies – for example, 12 weeks of CBT is common for the treatment of depression. It is thus difficult to demonstrate that a treatment has an effect on the current depressive episode.

In light of these observations, the treatment of depression is best targeted
at preventing future depressive episodes. In preventing relapse, therapy has proven to be an essential component: therapy alone and drug therapy
combinations produce the best results in terms of preventing re-occurrence (Evans et al., 1992; Thase et al., 1997; Jarrett et al, 2001; Hollon et al., 2006).

Effectiveness of antidepressant… 4
March 25, 2008

What alternative treatments are available?

There are a variety of treatments for depression which show benefits
similar to drugs, without the associated side effects. For further information about each approach and why they are thought to work, please see the cited material.

This is not intended to represent an exhaustive list of options.

Exercise. A highly effective treatment for depression is exercise. Recent
work suggests that exercise provides a variety of benefits when treating
depression. (Stathopoulou et al., 2006). Therapy.

A variety of psychological treatments have been demonstrated to effectively treat depression.

Examples with clearly demonstrated efficacy include:
cognitive behavioural therapy (Beck, 1976), emotion focused therapy (Greenberg & Watson, 2005), and interpersonal therapy (Klerman et al., 1999). Bibliotherapy. A number of self-administered workbook based therapies for depression have shown efficacy, when adherence is sufficient (see Gregory, Schwer Canning, Lee, & Wise, 2004).

What should people who are taking one these drugs do?

Nobody should stop taking any prescribed medication without consulting
with their treatment provider(s). Remember, this research does not say that antidepressants never work. People should talk with their treatment providers about seeking the combination of treatment options which they believe will work best for them.

Should these drugs be used to treat depression?
These drugs are effective, but not necessarily due to their
pharmacological characteristics. Their primary disadvantages are cost, and that they cause side effects which many patients find seriously discomforting. Because there are highly effective and safe alternative treatments, medication might be reserved for cases in which alternative treatments do not work, or in cases of severe depression. Other treatments appear to be more cost effective than drug treatment. For example, therapy has been shown to be more cost effective than antidepressant medication (Dobson, et al., in press).

Antidepressant drugs will continue to serve an important role in the treatment of depression, particularly with severe, chronic, and recurrent cases. However, moving away from medically based models and towards comprehensive healthbased models which consider the costs and benefits of all available treatment options and the rights of individuals to choice are needed.

References
Abramson, L.Y., Metalsky, G.I. & Alloy, L.B. (1989). Hopelessness depression: A theory-based subtype of depression. Psychological Review, 96, 358-372.
American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ofMental Disorders, 4th ed., Text Revision.
Beck, A.T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. New York:
International Universities Press.
Effectiveness of antidepressant… 5
March 25, 2008
Dobson KS, et al. (in press). Randomized trial of behavioral activation, cognitive therapy, and antidepressant medication in the prevention of relapse and recurrence in major depression. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology.
Eaton, W.W., Anthony, J.C., Gallo, J., Cai, G., Tien, A., Romanoski, A., Lyketsos,
C., & Chen, L.S. (1997). Natural history of Diagnostic Interview
Schedule/DSM-IV major depression. The Baltimore Epidemiologic
Catchment Area follow-up. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 54, 993-999.
Gregory, R.J., Schwer Canning, S., Lee, T.W., & Wise, J.C. (2004). Cognitive bibliotherapy for depression: A Meta-Analysis. Professional Psychology:
Research and Practice, 35(3) 275-280.
Greenberg, L.S., & Watson, J.C. (2005). Emotion-Focused Therapy for
Depression. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press.
Hollon, S.D., Stewart, M.O., & Strunk, D. (2006). Enduring effects for cognitive behavior therapy in the treatment of depression and anxiety. Annual
Review of Psychology, 57, 285–315.
Joffe, R.T., Sokolov, S., & Streiner D. (1996). Antidepressant treatment of
depression: A meta-analysis. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 41, 613-
616. Joiner, T.E. Jr., Steer, R.A., Abramson, L.Y., Alloy, L.B., Metalsky, G.I., & Schmidt, N.B. (2001). Hopelessness depression as a distinct dimension of depressive symptoms among clinical and non-clinical samples. Behaviour
Research and Therapy. 39(5), 523-536.
Judd, L.L. (1997). The clinical course of unipolar major depressive disorders.
Arch Gen Psychiatry, 54, 989-991.
Kahn, A., Warner, H.A., Brown, W.A. (2000). Symptom reduction and suicide risk in patients treated with placebo in antidepressant clinical trials. Archives of General Psychiatry, 458, 311-317.
Kirsch, I., Deacon, B.J., Huedo-Medina, T.B., Scoboria, A., Moore, T.J., &
Johnson, B.T. (2008). Initial severity and antidepressant benefits: A meta-
Analysis of data submitted to the FDA. PLoS: Medicine, 5, 260-269(e45).
Kirsch, I., Moore, T.J., Scoboria, A., & Nicholls S.S. (2002). The emperor's new drugs: An analysis of antidepressant medication data submitted to the U.S. food and drug administration. Prevention & Treatment, 5.
Kirsch, I., & Sapirstein, G. (1998). Listening to prozac but hearing placebo: A meta-analysis of antidepressant medication. Prevention & Treatment, 1.
Klerman G. L., Weissman M. M., Rounsaville B. J., & Chevron E. S. (1999).
Interpersonal psychotherapy of depression: A brief, focused, specific
strategy. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc.
Moncrieff, J., Wessely, S., & Hardy, R. (2004). Active placebos versus
antidepressants for depression. The Cochrane Database of Systematic
Review, 1, CD003012
Moncrieff, J. (2007). Are antidepressants as effective as claimed? No, they are not effective at all. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 52, 96-97.
Solomon, D.A., Keller, M.B., Leon, A.C., Mueller, T.I., Shea, M.T., Warshaw, M., Maser, J.D., Coryell, W., & Endicott, J. (1997).

Effectiveness of antidepressant… 6
March 25, 2008
Recovery from major depression. A 10-year prospective follow-up across multiple episodes. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 54, 1001-1006.
Stathopoulou, G., Powers, M.B., Berry, A.C., Smits, J.A.J., & Otto, M.W. (2006).
Exercise Interventions for Mental Health: A Quantitative and Qualitative
Review. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 13(2), 179-193
Thase, M.E., Greenhouse, J.B., Frank, E., Reynolds 3rd, C.F., Pikonis, P.A.,
Hurley, K., Grochocinski, V., & Kupfer, D.J. (1997). Treatment of major
depression with psychotherapy or psychotherapy-pharmacotherapy
combinations. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 54, 1009-1015.
Turner, E.H., Matthews, A.M., Linardatos, E., Tell, R.A., & Rosenthal, R. (2008).
Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on
Apparent Efficacy. New England Journal of Medicine, 358, 252-260.
Waber, R.L., Shiv, B., Carmon, Z., Ariely, D. (2008). Commercial features of placebo and therapeutic efficacy. Journal of the American Medical
Association, 299, 1016-1017.
Walsh B.T., Seidman, S.N., Sysko, R., & Gould, M. (2002). Placebo response in studies of major depression: variable, substantial, and growing. Journal of the American Medical Association, 450, 1840-1847.

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

On line radio show on stress

Leslee — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:06:50 GMT

http://www.thekathleenshow.com/Guest/ElizabethLesser/tabid/55/xmmid/388/xmid/2517/xmview/2/Default.aspx

Stressed out? Give peace a chance (ditching the drama and finding your purpose)

Sometimes life feels like a never-ending rollercoaster filled with stress and anxiety. Even small annoyances (like losing our keys, forgetting our wallets or the dog peeing on the floor) can turn into heart-pounding, stress-inducing dilemmas—if we let them. The truth is, much of our stress is a choice—it’s how we choose to label and react to a situation. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and unfulfilled, take note: there is more to life than the drama and busyness we create for ourselves and even our darkest hours can be used as opportunities for growth and rebirth.
Kathleen talks to Elizabeth Lesser, author and eminent authority on the areas of wellness, health and spiritual growth. Elizabeth shares strategies to help overcome fear, stress and anxiety in all key areas of our lives. She reveals how taking risks, moving with life’s current, and opening the heart and mind can transform every day into a journey of self-discovery and happiness.

Elizabeth Lesser is the co-founder of the Omega Institute and author of two books, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow and A Seeker’s Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure. For more than 30 years, Elizabeth has collaborated with leading figures in the areas of health, wellness and spiritual healing. Most recently she has worked with Oprah Winfrey and Echkart Tolle on Oprah’s uber successful online class, the book review for A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.

posted in Depression Help - 0 replies

pharmaceutical warnings

libramoon — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:15:28 GMT

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080803/BUSINESS/308030008/1003

Lawsuits claim Seroquel marketed to doctors illegally

http://groups.google.com/group/misc.activism.progressive/browse_thread/thread/b2cc7e3842088524

FDA Faulted for Human Drug Experimentation - Unapproved Uses of Drugs

http://groups.google.com/group/misc.activism.progressive/browse_thread/thread/7bd250fb20c2d1f5#

anthrax vaccines --> increase psychiatric illness

posted in Depression Help - 1 reply