Tuesday 21 December 2021
Pills, pills and more pills
Antidepressants might be largely ineffective, study suggests
Antidepressants should be prescribed less routinely by doctors, scientists have said, after a study concluded there was no strong evidence that the drugs were effective...
New research has indicated the side effects many patients suffer from the treatment may be disproportionate to the benefits it gives them.
Analysis of trial data did not establish any "clinically relevant" difference between volunteers given antidepressants and a group given a placebo, according to a review published in the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin...
England has one of the highest rates of antidepressant use in the world, with one in seven estimated to be taking the pills. More than 79 million antidepressant drugs were prescribed in England 2020-21, up from 43million in a decade.
Not a surprise, but 79 million antidepressant drugs prescribed in England 2020-21 is a heck of a lot. Even when we consider what the government is putting us through at the moment, it's still a heck of a lot. A comment on the piece was interesting though. A long-term user who seems to be saying that the placebo effect works.
Been on them for over 25 years. Not sure that they do very much. I think sometimes the fact you're actually prescribed something by the Doctor improves your mood.
Makes a chap wonder where on earth we think we are going. Maybe there is some kind of connection with pessimistic politics, because optimism isn't an easy sell politically. The media aren't too keen on it either.
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7 comments:
The media are keen on whatever they are paid and/or ordered to be keen on . . .
It's hard to understand what's going on here. Are things really so much worse than they used to be? I mean, total war, grinding poverty, high infant mortality, domestic violence, sexual and other emotional frustration: in all these areas we are doing so much better now, and should be experiencing far more well-being.
So the main explanation is that relatively trivial feelings have been medicalised and made much of, usually coupled with the claim that big pharma has made enormous profits out of our needless visits to the doctor.
But so many people on antidepressants are vehement about how they could not cope without them; that their malaise is real, a very serious illness, something that would otherwise incapacitate them. And I've had colleagues and friends in that category - people that I trust and believe. In that context, the admissions by patients that there might be a widespread placebo effect is interesting.
I self prescribe a little whisky.
It may be a placebo effect, but it works for mee.
Sometimes I try whiskey. The extra "e" sometimes helps. As in 'Eee, that wor good. "
I've always been sceptical of the so called placebo effect, not because it doesn't exist but because too much is ascribed to it. The case has been made for years by certain sections of the medical profession that anti depressants are no better than placebos but they are quite simply wrong.
I've read that some common anti-depressants are not particularly effective - but they work rather better as anti-anxiety drugs.
When you add together the difficulty of getting off some (so called) anti-depressants once prescribed plus the deliberate anxiety generating nature of 'the news' perhaps the numbers of prescriptions are not so surprising.
I agree with DJ. The decades of a diet of constant media driven bad news has got to have a demoralising effect on the public consciousness. I have speculated along these lines,for the last thirty five years as I'm sure others have.
I can testify to the genuineness of SSRIs though.
Jannie - paid in clicks, which is the Mail has click chicks.
Sam - yes, we also know people on antidepressants who seem to need them in order to cope. For some it seems to be tablets or alcohol but not needing either myself, I find sympathy quite problematic.
Doonhamer - it's mince pies and coffee for me at the moment.
Tammly - it may be that vitamins and herbal remedies have a placebo effect in that people feel better using them even though they could never demonstrate a physical effect.
DJ - yes, it seems likely that the media have something to do with it. To my mind, what they do is immoral in that they take advantage of a natural tendency to believe.
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