Army of therapists to push aside pills for depression

Source: The Guardian

Army of therapists to push aside pills for depression

· Half of 900,000 to be seen will be cured, says DoH
· Patients told to carry on with Prozac despite report
Sarah Boseley, health editor
The Guardian, Wednesday February 27 2008

The government yesterday released details of its £170m plan to train 3,600 more psychological therapists in the wake of a study showing that antidepressant drugs such as Prozac are no more effective than a placebo.

About 900,000 more people will be treated for depression and anxiety under the plan, according to the Department of Health, which predicts that 450,000 of them will be completely cured. The department also believes that 25,000 fewer people will claim sick pay and benefits because of mental health problems.

"The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme has already captured the imagination of primary care trusts up and down the country and is transforming the lives of thousands of people with depression and anxiety disorders in the areas that have been involved so far," said Alan Johnson, the health secretary.

A study published in the open access journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine on Tuesday revealed that Prozac, Seroxat and other antidepressants of the same class had performed no better than dummy pills in the earliest trials in the 1980s. No such analysis has been done before because of the reluctance of the pharmaceutical companies to hand over the full trial results.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/27/mentalhealth.health

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Congratulations to Prof. Kirsch and his colleagues!

it for, my wife is "HOPELESSLY ADDICTED TO PROZAC AND CAN NOT QUIT TAKING IT".

most depression goes away within months or a couple years anyway.. which they take credit for. there are serious life threatening cases of course, but Diet, exercise, meditation, acupuncture, Tryptophan, melatonin, eliminating alcohol, checking for family/work stress etc. to eliminate conditional causes, do a sleep test to eliminate hypo-oxygenation..

just give em a placebo.. they work just as good, sugar is cheap

What does "hopelessly addicted to Prozac" mean? None of the SSRIs cure depression any more than insulin "cures" diabetes or Lisinopril "cures" high blood pressure. It makes sense that if someone is depressed, and the brain structures that caused that depression remain unchanged, then symptoms would return if the anti-depressant is withdrawn. Sometimes the anti-depressant is sufficient to carry a person through while the brain heals itself. Sometimes the brain is so damaged that the anti-depressant is needed for life.

in light of medication or a placebo. Apparently other approaches may be useful for mild depression without the need for daily meds.

(A side point) I always am wary of getting medical info from general media. They tend to pare down some of the points for readability, or such. Or they generalize, which may be worse. I'd always get a second opinion, preferably from a psychiatric MD familiar with the medications.

One of the biggest contributors to depression are the presence of heavy metals in the brain. Mercury from dental fillings and lead from contaminated drinking water and the dirty air we breathe have a huge impact on brain function, memory loss along with happiness and well being are the first casualties.... Have your wife go to a progressive doctor and get tested for heavy metals...

consider the heavy metals in Coal, after W* removed all restrictions on coal burning back to 162 levels, they compensated with some TV ad's for a while warning pregnant women not to eat fish, especially fish out of local streams.

this is really scary information..
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

consider the heavy metals leaching out of and washing through the fill from this F'n mess
http://www.wesjones.com/death.htm

http://www.chimpsternation.com/forum?c=showthread&ThreadID=1293

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mountain+topping+coal&btnG=Google+Search

then consider the 1000 tons of Depleted Uranium dumped into Iraq, and the perhaps 70,000 head injuries causing debilitating depression, and suicide ..is it heavy metal poisoning or head injuries or both
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22762457-5005961,00.html

Too expensive. No insurance.

And yet another Reaganesque flood of homeless people will hit the streets.

USA #1, USA #1 rah, rah, and all that.

on data from over 20 years ago, that has not been validated by any other university, medical association, etc, and hundreds of thousands of people will lose what is, for many, a lifeline.

talk therapy may work for some, but SSRIs for many do what 20 years of talk therapy can never achieve.

i had rather put my trust in an SSRI if i had positive results with it, than in some therapist assigned to me at random by the National Health. or in some therapist selected from the very few on my plan that are taking new clients, for that matter.

hopefully this flawed study will encourage other institutions and associations to attempt a more accurate study with more salient data.

buys into the BS that our approach to medicine, clearly a loser by any international comparison, is the best approach.




At least other countries are looking at other ideas and therapies. Fact is that meds work best in conjunction with therapy. In the IK they are adding lots of therapists and here, not so much.

and the main problem with the American approach to medicine is the rationing of medicine and care. i'd say that more treatment options, if one can pay the price, are available in America than in any other country.

the UK system also rations access to medicine and care, for different reasons than the US does, but it's all the same net result - people who are refused appropriate treatment.

at well-respected institutions for well over 5 years now. Perhaps it's time to look for a 3rd source for depressed patients to turn to - not just therapists and SSRI. Neither have high "cure" rates, and the studies of the SSRI's show only a possible benefit for the most depressed, but nothing above placebo for most people seeking treatment for depression in the trials.

psychotherapy, too, when I was a teenager taking Psych 1A when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

is at least as effective as drugs. I only refer people with depression to CBT therapists. If the CBT then wants to refer the client to a shrink for meds, that's fine. But I only refer to CBTs.

The parts of the medical industry that isn't run by the pharmaceutical companies is run by the insurance industry. Doctors have become mindless pawns of both.

simple: no meds, no function. Period. Permanent memory loss due to long-term untreated clinical depression, since childhood. Family history of mental illness and suicide. I want my meds and my therapist.

Celexa saved my sanity, something all the therapy, yoga, acupuncture, meditation, exercise, vitamins, and suppliments I took for 4+ years didn't do. When I finally succumbed to the emotional agony and took my first antidepressent, I felt like a complete failure.

After the first few weeks of treatment, I was overwhelmed at how much better I felt and saddened by how much unnecessary suffering I had put myself through all those years.