Posted by linkadge on February 12, 2006, at 15:07:08
In reply to but correlation is not causation, posted by pseudoname on February 11, 2006, at 12:00:21
The problem with the notion that antidepressnts improve the course of depressive illness is that there is not a lot of data to support the view.
There are arguements put forward that depression becomes a much more chronic illness, after it is treated with antidepressants.Practically everybody on Effexor these days has been told that their depression will require life-long treatment. I personally think that doctors are just trying to safe themselves the blame when a patient must go through a hellish withdrawl.
More specifically though, there have been recent articles on the notion that antidepressants are neuroprotective, and that they may reduce volumetric changes induced by depression.The truth is that in regards to neuroprotection, not all antidepressants were created equally. Many of the studies that claim "antidepressants are neuroprotective" used the drug Tianeptine, or lithium.
Direct comparisons between say fluoxetine and tianeptine show that tianeptine, but not fluoxetine prevents the stress induced morphological changes in cerebral metabolites.
Dr. Manjii was done extensive work into this. He has noted that antidepressants do not alter the progression of hippocampal morphology. He is biased towards lithium, because of his line of work, but his research is very extensive.
The below study compares Tianeptine to fluoxetine and desipramine. Neither prozac nor desipramine produced any neuroprotective effect.
http://www.tianeptine.org/tianeptine/tianeptine-2.htm
I am not the first one to bring up this point.
Also see:
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/161/7/1309-a
These are important things to clarify, because it is very necessary to get a clear image of what the drugs do, and don't do.
Linkadge
poster:linkadge
thread:608339
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060212/msgs/608951.html