A new study shows that widely used antidepressants such as
Prozac are only efficient for very severely depressed patients, Science Daily
reports.
Irving Kirsch, from the University of Hull,
and his colleagues, analyzed the patients’ response to antidepressants to see
if antidepressant therapy depends on how badly depressed they initially are.
The study involved four drugs: fluoxetine (Prozac),
venlafaxine (Effexor), nefazodone (Serzone), and paroxetine (Seroxat / Paxil).
After treating one group of patients with the above
mentioned drugs and another group of patients with placebo pills, the scientists
noticed that there was no significant difference between them. No improvement
in depression was noticed in the mildly depressed patients or even in many
patients who suffered from severe depression. The drugs seemed to have some
effect only on the patients that had been diagnosed with extremely bad
depression.
"Although patients get better when they take antidepressants,
they also get better when they take a placebo, and the difference in
improvement is not very great. This means that depressed people can improve
without chemical treatments," Irving Kirsch concluded, according to
Science Daily.
Dr. Nada Stotland, president-elect of the American
Psychiatric Association, declared that the results of the study were not
surprising, as most depressed patients do not respond to the first
anti-depressant they try. They usually need the doctor to prescribe them a
special combination of drugs.
"Medication helps some, but not all, people with depression,"
Stotland said in a statement, according to the Washington Post.
"For people with mild to
moderate depression, psychotherapy can work as well as medication. Studies have
shown that between 70 and 80 percent of people can and do get better with a
combination of treatment approaches, which will often include individual
therapy, family therapy and/or medication. Therefore, testing any single
antidepressant on a group of depressed individuals will show that many of them
do not improve," Stotland added. "There is a small group of depressed
individuals who do not respond to any antidepressant."
