Posts tagged with drug therapy


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Happy New Year?

December 30, 2011 by .

According to today’s Guardian

“The use of antidepressants has risen by more than a quarter in England in just three years, amid fears that more people are suffering from depression due to the economic crisis. The number of prescriptions for antidepressants increased by 28% from 34m in 2007-08 to 43.4m in 2010-11, according to the NHS information centre”.

But elsewhere of course there are doubts regarding the usefulness of such treatments, for example according to a “meta-analysis carried out by evolutionary psychologist Paul Andrews, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour. His findings suggest that people who have not taken medication for depression are at a 25 per cent risk of relapse, compared to 42 per cent or higher for those who have taken and gone off an anti-depressant”.

Furthermore “Paul believes that anti-depressants interfere with the brain’s natural self-regulation of serotonin and other neurotransmitters, and that the brain can overcorrect once medication is suspended, triggering new episodes.”

(See links here and here for full details)

 

 

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Costs and Benefits of Drug therapy

September 14, 2010 by .

Insomnia and anxiety disorders are very different problems, each making normal, everyday life difficult, and drug therapy can usually help with both of these conditions.

However, a word of caution is now being given about such therapy as a meta-analysis of over 12 years’ Canadian data suggests that the costs of such treatment might outweigh the benefits. The issue is that these treatments seem to be associated with a significant increase in mortality rate from 10.5% to 15.7%.  This is still a low risk of dying, but it does represent an increase if using the medication of about 36% compared to not using medication when other variables are factored in.  The data came from more than 14.000 adults between the ages of 18 and 102, and extraneous or confounding variables such as smoking, alcohol use, general health and physical activity were controlled for.

Why is there such an increased risk of dying when using these drug therapies? It is known that sleeping pills and anti- Read the rest of this entry »