SSRI Antidepressants Put Patients at Clear Risk of Suicide
By Dr. Joseph Mercola - June 30, 2016
Excerpts below [and while these are extensive, there is much more detail in the full article at the link]
It is now estimated that 1 in 8 Americans are on serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) antidepressants1 and a shocking 1 in 4 among women in their 40s and 50s.2
Yet the U.S. suicide rate of 38,000 a year has never been higher.3
Clearly the glut of SSRI prescriptions is not lowering the national suicide rate; rather there is compelling evidence that the popular pills are actually contributing to suicide.
SSRIs and Violence . . . .
. . . Study Suggests 'No Suicide Link' Is Not to Be Trusted . . . .
. . . Healy estimates as many as 1,000 to 2,000 Americans on SSRIs kill themselves each year, when they otherwise would not have done so. Violent acts against others and birth defects are also linked to the pills, he says.
Suicides Linked to Antidepressants Number in the Thousands . . . .
. . . The Dark Side of Cymbalta . . . .
. . . The authors also report a 63-year-old man with no mental health history becoming suicidal two weeks after being put on Cymbalta for fatigue, insomnia and sadness, yet he too was "unable to explain why he was having thoughts of wanting to die." . . .
. . . Unfortunately, then and now, drug industry funded doctors have tried to claim that the warnings scare doctors and patients away and heighten suicide.
While it would be ridiculous to blame obesity on tighter restriction of obesity drugs, that is essentially what drug industry spokesmen have done with SSRI warnings and continue to do.
Even The New York Times was misled by such disinformation, reporting that SSRI warnings were causing a leap in suicides.
Journalist Alison Bass, however, revealed14 the paper on which the Times article was based was funded by a $30,000 Pfizer grant.
The conclusions about higher suicides also turned out to be wrong because the researcher got his years mixed up . . . .
. . . Recently, the Annals of Internal Medicine ran another study looking at military suicides without finding an antidepressant role.
The study's editors at the Annals had links31 to Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.
Considering all the risks associated with antidepressants, it would be wise to use them as a very last resort. To learn more about safer treatment options, please see my previous article,
Green Medicine is a monthly newsletter, available in print and digital formats, that provides subscribers with the very best and latest research and advice from one of the pioneers of natural medical protocols, Jonathan V. Wright MD. -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- [I don't understand why this link would not go through all together, so just copy the second part, hold onto it. Click onto the link and paste the second part to the back of it in the URL space, right after the last 6 -- it's the (14) / parentheses that mess it up]
The LANCET (Medical Journal of the UK) - Volume 2, No. 3, p271–274, March 2015
Nutritional medicine as mainstream in psychiatry
Excerpts from the Abstract:
. . . high prevalence and incidence of mental disorders suggests that diet is as important to psychiatry as it is to cardiology, endocrinology, and gastroenterology.
Evidence is steadily growing for the relation between dietary quality (and potential nutritional deficiencies) and mental health, and for the select use of nutrient-based supplements to address deficiencies, or as monotherapies or augmentation therapies. . . .
. . . We present a viewpoint from an international collaboration of academics (members of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research), . . .
. . . We advocate recognition of diet and nutrition as central determinants of both physical and mental health.
[Full text at link above] -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
Neurologic and Psychiatric Manifestations of Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity
from: Psychiatr Q. 2012 Mar; 83(1): 91–102.
Excerpts:
Celiac Disease (CD) is an immune-mediated disease dependent on gluten (a protein present in wheat, rye or barley) that occurs in about 1% of the population and is generally characterized by gastrointestinal complaints.
More recently the understanding and knowledge of gluten sensitivity (GS), has emerged as an illness distinct from celiac disease with an estimated prevalence 6 times that of CD.
Gluten sensitive people do not have villous atrophy or antibodies that are present in celiac disease, but rather they can test positive for antibodies to gliadin.
Both CD and GS may present with a variety of neurologic and psychiatric co-morbidities, . . .
. . . However, gluten sensitivity remains undertreated and underrecognized as a contributing factor to psychiatric and neurologic manifestiations.
This review focuses on neurologic and psychiatric manifestations implicated with gluten sensitivity,
reviews the emergence of gluten sensitivity distinct from celiac disease, and summarizes the potential mechanisms related to this immune reaction.
[Full Article, which is very extensive, follows the Abstract, compiled with the research of 81 references] -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- A humor break is always important when considering such serious topics:
posted
SSRIs may be great short term tools to treat depression. But if you read about the lengths that ELI Lily went to to get Prozac on the market its chilling.
They hid the fact that the medication can increase suicide risk (by labeling suicide as a symptom of depression, not their drug).
Studies found that the drug didn't fare any better than a placebo once you looked at long term data. So they shortened the study period where Prozac initially outperforms the placebo.
I was on SSRIs for 15 years. I wish I could take it back. There is some evidence that it can actually drive depression. I went off mine in nov and it's been excruciating. I'm trying to make it on my own, but my brain is pretty messed up.
These drugs can be great drugs. I needed them when I was first diagnosed. But I find it unfortunate that instead of them being a useful tool to fight depression, doctors prescribe them because it's easier for them and the patient. Therapy takes time. Drugs are minimal effort.
They most definitely save lives, but the goal of the drug companies is to make you a lifetime user. They are now marketing liquid drops for children.
As someone who never figured out who she was without these drugs (I was 14 when I was put on them)...if you do decide on these types of drugs, always ask yourself how long you pan to take them and how you decide when you might taper off them and what support you might need.
Posts: 133 | From North Shore | Registered: Sep 2015
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- SSRIs were terrible for me, short term (but on an off for a couple years, starting with the "tame" ones for sleep).
Then, when I complained about being so exhausted, I was handed Prozac. Three days on a very low dose of Prozac sent my nervous system into a space blast off.
Subsequent drugs were not much better. They nearly killed me, even very low dose, one at time. A couple decades ago now but what they put me through could have been avoided.
While individual responses do vary as much as the individual makeup of each patient, there was monumental neglect on the part of the doctors handing out these psych scripts.
What's great is when someone finds what works for them and when it's safe for their body, too - but that really does not happen as much as the happy commercials make us think. It's much more complex.
Good liver support is usually very important with any antidepressants but it may not be enough protection -- and many of these are ototoxic as well and liver support may help but often just can't match the toxicity levels.
But I knew nothing about liver support back then, nothing about the celiac that later would turn on some light bulbs, nothing was ever mentioned by any doctor about nutrients or environmental detective work - that should be FIRST.
So many times, when each new drug would be handed to me after the previous failures, I was told I had to endure the terrible side effects and just "give it time" - well, that is very bad doctoring. Very bad. These were toxic to me, I would later find out. Not safe for me, not safe for many, actually.
So many taking these suffer with the side effects, being told there is nothing more doctors can do and this is just want is required. And they don't think to look beyond that.
Many suffer balance and hearing damage that will contribute to decay in various areas of their lives. When the vestibular system is compromised - all bets are off as to just how horrible that's going to play out in all their life aspects.
I also found out later I have a liver dysfunction and can't metabolize many of those but that's not all that unusual. And many were ototoxic, causing great harm to my balance and increased tinnitus & hyperacusis to torture levels.
It just makes sense to cover the bases of all the things that could be contributing or causing mood issues in the first place with nutrients, infections, environment, etc.
One time I was so depressed - unusually so for days. It dawned me that it hit about the same time I got a new vinyl shower curtain. I had aired it out for a couple days on a covered deck but once that got into my home, it was a sharp downward spiral.
After a week, I just had a hunch and took it out and within day or two my mood was back to normal. Later learned that vinyl off-gases - like - forever. And also more so when warm but, still, 24 hours a day.
There are many instances of similar things with scents, products, etc. Dropping gluten, too, helped my mood so much. -
[ 07-10-2016, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: Keebler ]
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- A post by above by LymeToo: "It's depleting everyone of much-needed magnesium....and adding toxic fluoride to their bodies." [and from a post of hers a while back, detail below]
Index of Fluorinated Pharmaceuticals -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- Magnesium deficiency usually goes along with lyme. And, in many cases, magnesium deficiency can CAUSE depression and other mood / brain fog issues:
LIVER & KIDNEY SUPPORT & and several HERXHEIMER support links, too. -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
| IP: Logged |
Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- Will it take 150 years for doctors looking back to see that many are even still today not being properly assessed for nutrient deficiencies before being handed a prescription for antidepressants?
Some of the same misogynistic attitudes by doctors still exist and women are much more likely to be handed an Rx than referred to a doctor who might do a full nutrient assessment and also understand the biology of a woman's body.
posted
I am using SAM-e and METYL folate as well as another b vitamin to help ease me during my transition. I found out I under methylate so that could be a contributor to my depression.
I have also tried a hallucinogenic to cure depression. There is a lot of talk and research on how those drugs increase serotonin receptors in your brain. SSRIs decrease them over time as your body tries to compensate for the excess serotonin at the synapses, which is why when you do try to go off, you crash. I crashed 3 months after even though I did a 4 month slow tapering.
Thus they drive depression as they lower your serotonin receptors and perturb your brain chemistry. Ask most people on the drugs, they often have to change dosage, change type and add combinations of drugs over time.
The hallucinogenics researchers are looking at are pysilocybin ( mushrooms) and ayhahausca ( South American brew from a leaf and vine with DMT). You can google the topic, and scientific American has run multiple articles on them.
Posts: 133 | From North Shore | Registered: Sep 2015
| IP: Logged |
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic