Unfortunately, research has confirmed that antidepressant drugs are no more effective than sugar pills. Some studies have even found that sugar pills may produce BETTER results than antidepressants!
But in addition to being ineffective, they are far from harmless and are now associated with many serious health problems
Long-term studies now indicate that of people with major depression, only about 15 percent that are treated with an antidepressant go into remission and stay well for a long period of time. The remaining 85 percent start having continuing relapses and become chronically depressed.
??There are two side effects or risks that really need to be addressed, and that everybody should be thinking about, that show up in the scientific literature,? Whitaker says. ??The first risk is that you??ll convert from unipolar depression to bipolar depression.
Most of you have probably heard that depression is due to a ??chemical imbalance in your brain,? which these drugs are designed to correct. Unfortunately for anyone who has ever swallowed this marketing ploy, this is NOT a scientific statement.
??The low serotonin theory arose because they understood how the drugs acted on the brain,? Whitaker explains. ??But it was just a hypothesis borne to try to explain why the drug might be fixing something. They investigated whether people had low serotonin?[But] in 1983, NIMH concluded that there is no evidence that there is anything wrong in the serotonergic system of depressed patients.
Reversing Depression Without Antidepressants
Robert Whitaker?s Interview on Antidepressants