Happy pills can ‘kill’ you

Antidepress Rx study

The most commonly prescribed medicines to combat clinical depression are more dangerous than the disease itself — and can actually increase the risk of death in patients by 33 percent, according to a study published Thursday.

Researchers at McMaster University in Canada found that antidepressants can prevent major organs from functioning properly by blocking the absorption of serotonin — a chemical vital to the heart, kidneys, lungs and liver.

“We are very concerned by these results,” said author Paul Andrews, an associate professor at McMaster who led the research team.

“They suggest that we shouldn’t be taking antidepressant drugs without understanding precisely how they interact with the body.”

The researchers came to the conclusions after combing through the data from 17 earlier reports involving some 380,000 patients.

They first found only a 9 percent increase in the risk of death due to the drugs.

But when they removed people with heart disease from their calculations, the risk for the rest of the patients skyrocketed to 33 percent.

The scientists attributed this to the fact that antidepressants can act as a helpful blood thinner.

However, for those without cardiac issues, the drugs appear to increase the risk of contracting heart disease by 14 percent.

The McMaster study undermines the idea that antidepressants actually save lives by reducing depressive symptoms, according to coauthor Marta Maslej.

“I think people would be much less willing to take these drugs if they were aware how little is known about their impact outside of the brain and that what we do know points to an increased risk of death,” she said.

The results were published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. And they weren’t without controversy.

“Unfortunately, this study has major flaws,” said Professor David Baldwin, a psychiatrist at the university of Southampton in England.

“Depressed patients have higher risks of a range of physical health problems, all of which carry a risk of increased mortality,” he told the Daily Mail. “And antidepressants are often prescribed for a range of problems other than depression, including chronic pain and insomnia, which also increase mortality.”