Health Articles

In recent years, several antidepressant drug manufacturers have been forced to issue new warning labels about clinical worsening and increased suicidal risk in both children and adults who take these drugs. Current regulatory interest is focused on this worsening of symptoms when patients first start taking antidepressant medications, but these drugs have a litany of adverse effects, including aggressiveness, agitation, restlessness, anxiety, hostility, impulsivity, insomnia, irritability, mania, and panic attacks.

Warnings on drug labels don’t reduce the risks of drugs. Doctors identify the drug indicated for your condition and write a prescription for it. If you walk into a doctor’s office with a medical problem, you essentially are paying for a doctor to write a prescription. In today’s medical/ insurance environment, most doctors are nothing more than glorified pharmacists. The only option they can offer is prescription medication. When effective nonmedical options are discovered—no matter how heavily reported and documented in the scientific literature—these doctors ignore them.

With over a million prescriptions for antidepressants being filled each week and annual sales of 11 billion dollars at stake, it is unlikely that a new protocol for depressed people will emerge in America. Money usually dictates direction in the medical/drug/insurance industry. However, the conflict and controversy over the dangers of psychotropic medications used for depression, and the recent cardiac-related deaths from Ritalin prescribed for ADHD, are calling attention to the all-too-cozy relationship between government agencies and the drug industry. The public no longer can trust the validity of drug-related information that comes from even such formerly respected sources as medical journals and universities. These institutions depend increasingly on pharmaceutical dollars (advertising and grant monies), and this has led to numerous instances of inaccurate reports that conceal evidence and promote drug use.

Natural therapies are surprisingly effective. Recent advances in non-pharmacologic treatments for depression can help people feel better—and even assist them in making total recovery—without dependence on medications. Researchers doing the studies in this field have been surprised to find that natural therapies can have very high success rates, rivaling those of drugs. Of particular interest is the fact that these non-pharmacologic treatments get results faster than drug treatments. Now is the time for all people with depression to give these safe, natural treatments a try. By combining the most promising facets of these approaches, the likelihood of improvement and recovery is greatly enhanced.