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Here's some depressing recent medical news: Antidepressants don't work. What's even more depressing is that the pharmaceutical industry and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have deliberately deceived us into believing that they DO work. As a physician, this is frightening to me. Depression is among the most common problems seen in primary-care medicine and soon will be the second leading cause of disability in this country.Irving Kirsch professor of psychology explains the placebo effect in the following articles and how 'Information about the best way to treat patients was being hidden from doctors, and so billions of pounds were being wasted and patients were being exposed to dangerous chemicals for no real benefit.'
The study I'm talking about was published in The New England Journal of Medicine. It found that drug companies selectively publish studies on antidepressants. They have published nearly all the studies that show benefit - but almost none of the studies that show these drugs are ineffective.
That warps our view of antidepressants, leading us to think that they do work. And it has fueled the tremendous growth in the use of psychiatric medications, which are now the second leading class of drugs sold, after cholesterol-lowering drugs.
The problem is even worse than it sounds, because the positive studies hardly showed benefit in the first place. For example, 40 percent of people taking a placebo (sugar pill) got better, while only 60 percent taking the actual drug had improvement in their symptoms. Looking at it another way, 80 percent of people get better with just a placebo.
We spend more than £250 m a year on antidepressants in the UK - and it's a complete waste of money.To learn more about the over prescribing of antidepressants and the risky side effects read the folllowing articles:
They are not much better than sugar pills, they have nasty side - effects, such as sexual dysfunction, and they increase young people's risk of suicide.
New research shows they don't even work on the brain in the way we thought they did.
Comment: So it boils down to common sense: drink when thirsty!
Problems factor in when we examine the quality of water people are drinking. Fluoride, for example, will leave you feeling like your thirst is never quite satisfied. Which is understandable, given that you're imbibing poison in consistent low doses. Clean water could make all the difference to your health.