placebo effect

Placebo Effect – not antidepressants – responsible for depression improvement

This report by Peter Simons has been published by Mad in the UK. It begins: “In a study of fluoxetine (Prozac) for adolescents, researchers found that the placebo effect predicted good outcomes, but the actual drug treatment did not. After accounting…
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Placebo effects and the Royal College of Psychiatrists

This twitter thread from the Royal College of Psychiatrists concerns a presentation called “The placebo effect: insights for translational research and clinical practice”. The thread includes the following: “… 50 years of drug trials for anxiety disorders. Very few have been successful…
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Do not prescribe antidepressants for mild to moderate depression or at first visit

This article by Peter Simons has been published by Mad in the UK. It begins: “In a new article in World Psychiatry, researchers suggest doctors shouldn’t be so quick to hand out antidepressants. They focus on primary care, which is where most…
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Lancet Psychiatry: We Are Undervaluing the Placebo Effect

“A recent study of brain stimulation for depression found that the placebo group (sham treatment) showed more improvement than the group that received actual brain stimulation.“ This report by Peter Simons has been published by Mad in America. It begins: “ In a new article in Lancet Psychiatry
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Leading Psychiatrists Unwittingly Acknowledge Psychiatry Is a Religion, Not a Science

This article by Dr. Bruce Levine has been published by Mad in America. It begins: “Since the seventeenth century, Enlightenment thinkers have distinguished science from religion, and by at least one critical distinction, leading psychiatrists have unwittingly acknowledged that major constructs…
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Most people on antidepressants don’t need them: time to wean them off

This leader-article comes from The Economist. It begins: “Almost 35 years ago American drug regulators approved Prozac, the first in a series of blockbuster antidepressants known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Prozac and its cousins were lauded by patients and…
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Antidepressants Work Better Than Sugar Pills Only 15 Percent of the Time

This article by Adam Piore has been published in Newsweek magazine. It begins: “Five years ago Mark Horowitz seemed an unlikely skeptic of psycho-pharmaceuticals. He had been taking the popular antidepressant Lexapro virtually every day for 15 years. He was so…
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What Is the Importance of Nassir Ghaemi’s Conclusion that Psychiatric Drugs Do Not Provide a Long-term Benefit?

“… [Nassir] Ghaemi, a professor of psychiatry at Tufts Medical School, concluded that psychiatric drugs, except for lithium, do not provide a long-term benefit and thus should mostly be prescribed for short-term relief of symptoms.“ This article by Robert Whitaker has…
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Primum non nocere: an evolutionary analysis of whether antidepressants do more harm than good

This review has been published on the PubMed website. The abstract says: “Antidepressant medications are the first-line treatment for people meeting current diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder. Most antidepressants are designed to perturb the mechanisms that regulate the neurotransmitter serotonin…
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Association between patient beliefs regarding assigned treatment and clinical response: reanalysis of data from the Hypericum Depression Trial Study Group

This study has been published on the PubMed website. The abstract says: “Objective: To reanalyze data from a 2002 study by the Hypericum Depression Trial Study Group to determine whether patients who believed they were receiving active therapy rather than placebo obtained…
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