Mental Health: It's Life, Not Depression
by Dr.
Julian Whitaker
(NaturalNews) November 2008 - Dr. Julian Whitaker's Health & Healing, Vol. 18,
No. 11
Sharon's husband was diagnosed with cancer, and they were looking at months of
chemo and radiation. She was worried, had trouble sleeping, and found it hard to
stay positive and upbeat for her husband. When she mentioned this to her doctor,
he prescribed an antidepressant.
Laura was exhausted after the birth of her second child. Unlike her first baby,
this one was fussy and rarely slept more than two hours at a stretch. On bad
days, Laura questioned her ability to cope. She talked her symptoms over with
her doctor and was prescribed an antidepressant.
Elizabeth, a bright and outgoing college student, would often wake up during the
night worrying about one thing or another. One night, she awoke in a full-blown
panic attack, her heart pounding so hard that she was sure she was going to die.
She visited the campus infirmary the next day and was given a prescription for
an antidepressant.
Thirteen-year-old Matt had just changed schools and was having a hard time
adjusting to his new surroundings. His parents took him to see a psychiatrist,
who-you guessed it-gave him an antidepressant.
Without question, Sharon, Laura, Elizabeth, and Matt were going through some
tough times. But we all go through rough patches-it's part of being human. So
how in the world did we arrive at such a place where normal emotions and
reactions to life's events warrant treatment with drugs?
Let Them Eat Prozac
According to David Healy, MD, professor at Wales' Cardiff University, we can
blame it on the drug companies. Dr. Healy is a conventional psychiatrist, but
his well-documented and vocal criticisms about the safety and overuse of Prozac
and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants set him
apart from his colleagues.
In his book Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the
Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression, Dr. Healy describes Prozac as a drug in
search of a disease. It was the first SSRI to hit the market back in 1988, and,
thanks to aggressive marketing, sales of antidepressants quadrupled in just two
years. As Prozac's popularity soared, it was joined by Paxil, Zoloft, Luvox, and
others like them.
Then Pandora's Box of direct-to-consumer advertising opened. Before long, drug
company propaganda had people believing that unhappiness, anxiety, shyness,
stress, obsessive thoughts, PMS, "baby blues," and other normal emotional
reactions are diseases that can-and should-be treated with a pill. Patients
started asking their doctors for prescriptions, and sales went through the roof.
Depression took on a whole new meaning. No longer was it limited to major
depression, a clinical diagnosis marked by extreme emotional pain and inability
to function. Mild-to-moderate depression has become a catchall diagnosis that
will be slapped on one in four Americans at some point in their lives.
Inventing Illness, Selling Drugs
Today, 4 percent of men and 10 percent of women in this country are taking
antidepressants. The bulk of the prescriptions for these meds are written by
primary care physicians, not psychiatrists, and most of these "depressed"
patients receive no other treatment or follow-up. In fact, the drugs seem to be
handed out indiscriminately. The Centers for Disease Control reported that,
after nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), antidepressants are the
most frequently prescribed of all classes of drugs!
Dr. Healy describes this mess as "wholesale creation of depression on so
extraordinary and unwarranted a scale as to raise grave questions about whether
pharmaceutical and other health care companies are more wedded to making profits
from health than contributing to it."
If this sounds familiar, it's because you've heard me harping on this concept of
"inventing illness" for over 20 years. Most of the ballyhoo about high
cholesterol, ADHD, fibromyalgia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and even high
blood sugar and blood pressure is fueled by market-driven campaigns designed to
do one thing: sell more drugs.
But the antidepressant story may be the worst of them all. As I will show you,
these drugs do not work, they have the potential of inflicting tremendous
harm-and, worst of all, the drug companies have known this for decades.
Antidepressants Don't Work...
Earlier this year, researchers evaluated published and unpublished pre-approval
clinical trials that compared SSRI drugs with placebos. They combined the
results in a meta-analysis and came up with some disturbing findings. SSRI
antidepressants work no better than placebo, and their benefits do not meet the
criteria for clinical significance.
For patients with moderate depression, SSRIs were a complete bust. The
differences in improvement between people with severe depression taking a drug
and those on placebo were virtually nonexistent. The sole group in which the
drugs outperformed the placebo consisted of the most severely depressed
patients, but the researchers concluded that this small difference was probably
due to "decreased responsiveness to placebo... rather than to increased
responsiveness to medication." (The placebo response in these studies was very
high. An average of 80 percent of study participants felt better taking sugar
pills.)
...And They Kill People
In addition to being ineffective, SSRIs are dangerous. They cause sexual
dysfunction, weight gain, emotional apathy, headaches, insomnia, and
gastrointestinal (GI) upset, and they have been linked with GI and uterine
bleeding. But their most alarming side effect is an increased risk of suicide,
hostility, akathisia (extreme agitation), and violent behavior.
Thousands of suicides, senseless murders, and other random acts of violence have
been committed by people who were taking SSRIs. Michael McDermott went to work
with an AK-47-type rifle, a shotgun, and a semiautomatic pistol, and killed
seven of his coworkers. Kip Kinkel murdered his parents then went to school
where he killed two and wounded 22 of his fellow students. Kristine Cushing used
a .38-caliber pistol to shoot and kill her two young daughters while they slept;
she then shot and wounded herself. Seung-Hui Cho went on a murderous rampage
that resulted in 33 deaths and dozens of injuries.
At greatest risk are our children. The instigators of virtually all of the
tragic school murder/suicides in recent years were taking an antidepressant or
other psychotropic drugs. The same goes for more personal family tragedies, such
as uncharacteristic suicides, self-harm, and violent behaviors that rip families
apart.
Last year, I met Mathy Downing, the mother of Candace Downing, a beautiful,
exuberant 12-year-old honor student who had been put on Zoloft for "generalized
anxiety disorder." A few months later, Mathy found her daughter dead, hanging
above her bed. Just an hour before, she'd been watching Animal Planet on TV with
her father.
Authorities in Great Britain have openly opposed the use of antidepressants in
young people. The FDA, on the other hand, has decided only to require a black
box warning label stating that these drugs increase risk of suicidal behavior in
children, adolescents, and young adults. Sales have fallen off a little but
remain strong. This is yet another example of the failure of the FDA, blinded by
their incestuous relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, to protect the
public.
"Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics"
You're probably wondering how in the world such awful drugs generate $16.9
billion annually in global sales. I'll tell you. It's because the companies that
push these pills have made a concerted and successful effort to deceive
physicians and patients.
A 2008 study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, examined the
results of 74 drug company-sponsored clinical trials on antidepressants. It
turns out that of the 38 studies with positive outcomes, 37 were published.
However, 33 of the 36 studies with negative outcomes were either not published
or they were reported in a way that "conveyed a positive outcome."
The drug companies also knew about the deadly side effects of SSRIs. Internal
Eli Lilly documents, which date back to 1988 and were part of a product
liability suit filed against the company in 1994, show that the company was
aware Prozac conferred a 12-fold greater risk of suicide attempts than other
antidepressants. The document also stated that the drug was associated with
hostile behavior and that it more than doubled the risk of psychotic depression.
What did they do with this knowledge? Nothing.
In an editorial in the September 3, 2008, issue of JAMA, Marcia Angell, MD, had
this to say about pharmaceutical company-sponsored research: "Physicians can no
longer rely on the medical literature for valid and reliable information. This
is the conclusion I reluctantly reached toward the end of my two decades as an
editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, and it has been reinforced in
subsequent years. Clinicians just do not know anymore how safe and effective
prescription drugs really are, but these products are probably nowhere near as
good as the published literature indicates."
Life Isn't Always Easy
Folks, drugs aren't the answer. Most of the people treated with antidepressants
are simply dealing with emotional upheavals in their lives, such as divorces,
layoffs, and other losses. It's normal to be "sad and gloomy; dejected;
downcast" (the definition of depressed) every once in a while. But it isn't
clinical depression (defined as "so severe as to be considered abnormal, either
because of no obvious environmental causes, or because the reaction to
unfortunate life circumstances is more intense or prolonged than would generally
be expected").
Life isn't always pretty. Puberty is tough. Our hearts get broken. Marriage
isn't all smooth sailing. Divorce happens. Teenagers drive you crazy. Work isn't
necessarily fun. Financial difficulties crop up. People get sick. Loved ones
die. But the reality is, we have to use whatever tools we have to pull ourselves
together and work through it.
Faith, religion, meditation, friends, family, and counseling can help you
weather grief, worry, change, and other aspects of the human condition. Regular
exercise is an excellent mood lifter, and a diet containing minimal amounts of
starches and sugar prevents drops in blood sugar levels that can affect mood.
Correcting hormone imbalances, particularly those involving thyroid, adrenal,
and sex hormones, also makes a big difference.
So does a good nutritional supplement program. Omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies
are associated with depression, so take six to eight fish oil capsules daily.
SAMe (200-400 mg) and St. John's wort (900 mg) are proven mood enhancers, and
vitamin B12 (1,000 mcg), magnesium (500-1,000 mg), and zinc (30-50 mg) are also
helpful. All of these supplements should be taken daily in divided doses.
Postscript
I want to close with an update on the people I told you about in the opening of
this story.
Sharon, who started taking Luvox after her husband got sick, is still taking it
nine years later. The drug doesn't make her feel all that great, and she's
gained weight and has zero libido-common side effects of these drugs. But like
so many others, she's afraid she'll feel worse if she stops taking it.
Laura, the young mother with the fussy baby, decided not to fill her
prescription. Within a few weeks, the baby started sleeping six hours a night,
and she was able to get more rest. Today, she feels great.
Elizabeth stayed on Paxil for five years-a time of her life she describes as
going through "like a zombie." After learning about the downside of
antidepressants, she started taking multivitamins, fish oil, and other
supplements while slowly weaning herself off the drug. She's recently married
and couldn't be happier.
And 13-year-old Matt? He hanged himself in his closet one week after starting
Paxil.
References
*Angell, M. Industry-sponsored clinical research: a broken system. JAMA. 2008
Sept 3; 300:1069-1071.
*Barber, C. The medicated Americans: antidepressant prescriptions on the rise.
Scientific American Mind. 2008 Feb 27.
*Healy, D. Let Them Eat Prozac. The Unhealthy Relationship Between the
Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression. New York, NY: New York University Press;
2004.
*Kirsch I, et al. Initial severity and antidepressant benefits: a meta-analysis
of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. PLoS Medicine 2008
Feb;5(2):e45.
*Turner EH, et al. Selective publication of antidepressant trials and its
influence on apparent efficacy. N Engl J Med. 2008 Jan 17;358(3):252-260
Reprinted from Dr. Julian Whitaker's Health & Healing with permission from
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