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https://www.statnews.com/2016/06/08/antidepressants-teens-kids/
Health
Most antidepressants don’t work on kids and teens, study finds
By Karen Weintraub @kweintraub
June 8, 2016
The vast majority of antidepressants given to kids and teens are ineffective and potentially dangerous, according to a new study in The Lancet.
Of 14 regularly prescribed drugs, only one — Prozac — proved effective enough to justify giving to children and teens, the researchers found.
If medications are given at all, Prozac should be the drug of choice, the study concluded.
“No one should be on any other antidepressant, and I think it’s doubtful that people should be on Prozac, as well,” said Dr. Jon Jureidini, a child psychiatrist at the Robinson Research Institute at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who wrote a commentary that ran with the study. “The case for Prozac is quite weak.”
Prozac was found to significantly benefit children and teens with major depression, though the magnitude of benefit ranged from almost nothing to a dramatic improvement.
Read More
This antidepressant may be no better than cheaper alternatives. But demand could soon soar
Other drugs the researchers analyzed — including Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Cymbalta — showed no benefit over placebo for this age group.
About 3 percent of children under 12, and 6 percent of teens worldwide are believed to have depression. It’s not clear how many of them are on medication.
Forms of talk therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy, have been shown to be effective against depression in young people, and regular exercise and adequate sleep can also make a difference, Jureidini said. The vast majority of children do not need to be medicated for their depression, he said, but many are.
“What we’re up against is the marketing enterprise of the pharmaceutical industry combined with wishful thinking on the part of doctors and parents that there might be a good, simple solution for adolescent distress,” he said. “It’s something we need to take very seriously, but we don’t need to make it into a medical condition when it most times isn’t.”
A different kind of depression
Questions have been raised before about the usefulness of antidepressants in young people whose brains are still developing. More than a decade ago, the Food and Drug Administration added a black-box warning to a number of antidepressants used by teenagers, saying that they might increase suicidal thinking.
In older people, antidepressants like Prozac are believed to trigger the growth of new brain cells and new connections among them, but there is no obvious biological benefit to the developing brains of children and adolescents.
Depression also looks different in young people, often showing up as aggressive behavior, irritability or poor school performance, rather than an obviously depressed mood, said Dr. Andrea Cipriani, the University of Oxford psychiatrist who led the new study.
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.statnews.com/2016/06/08/antidepressants-teens-kids/
Health
Most antidepressants don’t work on kids and teens, study finds
By Karen Weintraub @kweintraub
June 8, 2016
The vast majority of antidepressants given to kids and teens are ineffective and potentially dangerous, according to a new study in The Lancet.
Of 14 regularly prescribed drugs, only one — Prozac — proved effective enough to justify giving to children and teens, the researchers found.
If medications are given at all, Prozac should be the drug of choice, the study concluded.
“No one should be on any other antidepressant, and I think it’s doubtful that people should be on Prozac, as well,” said Dr. Jon Jureidini, a child psychiatrist at the Robinson Research Institute at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who wrote a commentary that ran with the study. “The case for Prozac is quite weak.”
Prozac was found to significantly benefit children and teens with major depression, though the magnitude of benefit ranged from almost nothing to a dramatic improvement.
Read More
This antidepressant may be no better than cheaper alternatives. But demand could soon soar
Other drugs the researchers analyzed — including Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Cymbalta — showed no benefit over placebo for this age group.
About 3 percent of children under 12, and 6 percent of teens worldwide are believed to have depression. It’s not clear how many of them are on medication.
Forms of talk therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy, have been shown to be effective against depression in young people, and regular exercise and adequate sleep can also make a difference, Jureidini said. The vast majority of children do not need to be medicated for their depression, he said, but many are.
“What we’re up against is the marketing enterprise of the pharmaceutical industry combined with wishful thinking on the part of doctors and parents that there might be a good, simple solution for adolescent distress,” he said. “It’s something we need to take very seriously, but we don’t need to make it into a medical condition when it most times isn’t.”
A different kind of depression
Questions have been raised before about the usefulness of antidepressants in young people whose brains are still developing. More than a decade ago, the Food and Drug Administration added a black-box warning to a number of antidepressants used by teenagers, saying that they might increase suicidal thinking.
In older people, antidepressants like Prozac are believed to trigger the growth of new brain cells and new connections among them, but there is no obvious biological benefit to the developing brains of children and adolescents.
Depression also looks different in young people, often showing up as aggressive behavior, irritability or poor school performance, rather than an obviously depressed mood, said Dr. Andrea Cipriani, the University of Oxford psychiatrist who led the new study.
