THE ESSENTIAL
- Depression can occur at any age and affect any of us. The effectiveness of antidepressants is recognized in a consensual way to treat cases of severe depression.
- However, for less severe depression, its effectiveness is called into question by a new study. Their effects could be more harmful than beneficial for some, in particular because of the dependence that they can sometimes generate.
In France, 49.8 tablets of antidepressants are consumed per 1,000 inhabitants per day. Researcher Mark Horowitz, of University College London, himself took Lexapro, one of the most widely used antidepressants, along with Zoloft and Prozac every day for fifteen years. He then chose to end his treatment, after he began to develop “anxiety attacks, sleep disturbances and depression”. This episode of his life gave him the idea to deepen research on the effects of antidepressants. He is one of the authors of a study published on July 20 in the magazine Nature. Among users of antidepressants, “only 15% derive more benefit from it than if they took a placebo”. This is displayed by the American magazine Newsweek in the title of a article which takes up “the discoveries” of this study, relayed by the Courrier international.
Antidepressants: the positive effects do not always compensate for the damage
The conclusions of this study do not call into question the largely proven efficacy of antidepressants for patients suffering from severe depression. But these represent only one “small minority” (15%) of consumers of these drugs. For the rest, ie 85%, the positive effects of taking antidepressants are not enough to compensate for the damage they cause. “Taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) is not without risk, according to Newsweek. More and more evidence shows that they create a physical dependence and a kind of emotional numbness”.
According to the authors of the article, these positive effects are primarily linked to a placebo effect. Research from the Food and Drug Administration – the American organization that validates and controls drugs on their territory – carried out following the publication of the study by Mark Horowitz, seems to support this assertion. As Newsweek points out, the publication of this work comes just as the question of the merits of antidepressants creates “a divide within the psychiatric community”. According to the authors, “some clinicians and researchers are calling for a new approach to treating depression that would limit the use of SSRIs. Other actors, including pharmaceutical companies, insist that drugs save lives, and fear that such studies will cause the general public to doubt the effectiveness of SSRIs, even discouraging people who need it the most and could find help there.”
Depression: how to define its level of severity?
One of the possibilities to put an end to this problem, suggests the magazine, “would distinguish patients with severe depression […] and those with less severe depression”. However, there are no criteria to really define the severity levels of depression. Mark Horowitz explains it to Newsweek: “The pharmaceutical companies convinced you that if you were sad you should see your doctor and seek treatment. They made us all believe that normal aspects of the human condition were a mental illness called ‘depression’. That normal reactions to difficult situations were a chemical neurological problem that needed a medical solution. They convinced people that these very ‘soft’ drugs were easy to quit. None of this is true.”