Tag Archives: Zoloft

Exercise scores as well as Zoloft for major depression

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Another outcome study to add to the massive body of evidence that the psychopharmaceutical model for treating depression is seriously flawed was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. The authors pitted sertraline (Zoloft, an SSRI) against exercise and placebo as they set out to…

“…assess whether patients receiving aerobic exercise training performed either at home or in a supervised group setting achieve reductions in depression comparable to standard antidepressant medication (sertraline) and greater reductions in depression compared to placebo controls.”

They randomly assigned 202 adults diagnosed with major depression were to either supervised exercise in a group setting; home-based exercise; antidepressant medication (sertraline, 50–200 mg daily); or placebo pill for 16 weeks. This was followed by a structured clinical interview for depression and completed the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D). Typically, the data showed little difference between the placebo and Zoloft, and virtually no difference between the medication and exercise:

“After 4 months of treatment, 41% of the participants achieved remission, defined as no longer meeting the criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD) and a HAM-D score of <8. Patients receiving active treatments tended to have higher remission rates than the placebo controls: supervised exercise = 45%; home-based exercise = 40%; medication = 47%; placebo = 31%. All treatment groups had lower HAM-D scores after treatment; scores for the active treatment groups were not significantly different from the placebo group.”

There is an enormous amount of science showing that this class of medications profoundly perturbs the brain in such a way that attempting to stop taking them after 6 weeks or continuing them long-term can result in the dismal trap of a brain sensitized to depression. This study would have been even more striking had they compared the unmedicated exercise group to those who were medicated after attempting to stop. As it is, the authors conclude:

“The efficacy of exercise in patients seems generally comparable with patients receiving antidepressant medication and both tend to be better than the placebo in patients with MDD. Placebo response rates were high, suggesting that a considerable portion of the therapeutic response is determined by patient expectations, ongoing symptom monitoring, attention, and other nonspecific factors.”

Historically, before the age of psychopharmaceuticals most cases of major depression tended to be self-limiting. For an objective, meticulous, articulate and gripping scientific and historical narrative on how anti-depressants, tranquilizers and anti-psychotic medications have promoted the skyrocketing levels of mental disability, I suggest Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. Anyone considering taking or prescribing these medications should be aware of the science reviewed comprehensively in this text.

Two reasons to be cautious when reading published research

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Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just accept reports on scientific research at face value? Forget about the lay media, the research presented in respected peer-reviewed scientific journals has be read with cautious discrimination. Two papers just published in PLoS Medicine are good to keep in mind. In The Haunting of Medical Journals: How Ghostwriting Sold “HRT” the author states:

“In recent litigation against Wyeth, more than 14,000 plaintiffs brought claims related to the development of breast cancer while taking the menopausal hormone therapy Prempro (conjugated equine estrogens [CEEs] and medroxyprogesterone acetate [MPA]). Some 1500 documents revealed in the litigation provide unprecedented insights into how pharmaceutical companies promote drugs, including the use of vendors to produce ghostwritten manuscripts and place them into medical journals.”

The author goes on to document how the public and the medical profession have been misled by underhanded promotion in many other cases including Lexapro, Paxil, Neurontin, Vioxx, Zoloft and Fen-phen. What amounts to unregulated marketing posing as medical research is a pervasive problem:

“Industry-funded marketing messages may infest articles in every medical journal…Acceptance of ghostwriting, euphemistically termed “editorial assistance,” may be so widespread that it is considered normal…”

In Why Most Published Research Findings Are False the author assembles sophisticated statistical analyses into a predictive model that suggests research claims for most study designs and settings are more likely to be false than true.

“There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.“

In health care we have to read with discrimination, cast the net widely to survey a broad range of phenomena and interpretations, look for multiple studies coming to similar conclusions, and test assertions against what is already proven to be in accord with science and nature.

SSRI’s associated with congenital malformations in early pregnancy

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Recent research published in the British Medical Journal reveals that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), especially Celexa and Zoloft, are associated with an increased prevalence of septal heart defects when their mothers were prescribed them in early pregnancy. As Lapis Light patients know, physiological neurotransmitter support with precursors and co-factors gives the body what it needs to raise neurotransitter levels naturally.