Driving, Antidepressants Can Be Dangerous Duo

In the past 10 years, the use of antidepressant drugs has tripled in the United States, where one in 10 women takes at least one antidepressant, according to National Center for Health Statistics’ 2004 Health United States report. A new, separate, study by researchers at the University of North Dakota says those antidepressant medications, as well as the bleak moods that underlie their dispensation, can significantly impair one’s driving ability. Read more

The Growing Evidence for Antidepressants as Anticancer Agents

Prostaglandins are infinitesimal, ephemeral lipid signalers in every cell in the body, and regulating every activity that takes place within a cell. As regulators of cellular activity, prostaglandins influence how cells are formed and what part of the body the cell will become. Prostaglandins are vital for cellular growth, health, and replication. Prostaglandins regulate the normal life cycle of a cell, knowing when each cell must be repaired and when each one is beyond repair and has reached the end of its cycle. Read more

Stimulating Immune Function With Lithium and Antidepressants

By Julian Lieb, M.D.

Stimulating immune function would transform the prevention, treatment, research and economics of infectious disorders, among them the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), hospital-acquired infections, antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, resistant tuberculosis, a possible avian influenza pandemic and acts of bioterrorism. Immune stimulation is widely held to be beyond our reach, an unfortunate misconception, for as early as nineteen eighty-one published evidence showed that lithium (1) and antidepressants (2) have immune stimulating and antimicrobial properties (3).

Read more

Medicine No Cure-All

Recent findings with patients receiving anti-depressant medication have not been entirely good. Although many patients report an increase in positive feelings and a renewed sense of hopefulness, others experience entirely new problems by taking the medicine. Read more

Antidepressants Bring OCD Relief

After reviewing the results of various studies on the benefits of taking common antidepressant medications for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), researchers at St. George’s Hospital Medical School in London, led by Dr. Ghulam Mustafa Soomro, have concluded that patients are twice as likely to experience relief of symptoms than patients taking placebos. Read more

Are our kids being drugged?

David Healy, M.D., is a professor in the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine, Cardiff University, in Bangor, Wales, U.K.

Interviewer: In “The Creation of Psychopharmacology,” “The Antidepressant Era,” “Let Them Eat Prozac,” and your medical journal articles, you have suggested a profit motive for the doctors and academics who promote psychiatric “diseases du jour,” such as panic disorder and social anxiety. Read more