In a world that is strongly biased towards prescription drugs, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there is a hidden agenda.
A new study has found that antidepressant drug use in the United States has gone up 75 percent, from 5.84 percent of the population to 10.12 percent.
The study, published in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, looked at drug prescriptions from 1996 to 2005 in the U.S.
Antidepressant use increased significantly across all age, gender and racial groups, except African Americans.
The data also shows a more than 10 percent decline in the use of psychotherapy amongst people treated with antidepressants, while at the same time showing a significant increase in the use of antipsychotic medications as a co-treatment to antidepressant therapy.
“Not only are more US residents being treated with antidepressants, but also those who are being treated are receiving more antidepressant prescriptions,” noted study authors Mark Olfson, MD, MPH and Steven Marcus, PhD.
The research also suggested that amongst people treated with antidepressants, fewer are seeing a psychologist or social worker in 2005 than they did in 1996.Overall, less than 32 percent of those people receiving an antidepressant medication visited a mental health professional (psychiatrist, psychological or social worker). Most received their psychiatric medication from a general practitioner.
“These trends vividly illustrate the extent to which antidepressant treatment has gained acceptance in the United States and the growing emphasis on pharmacologic rather than psychologic aspects of care,” the authors said.
“Given that roughly 1 in 8 patients (13%) treated with antidepressants by non psychiatrist physicians are also treated with antipsychotics or mood stabilizers of proved or unproved efficacy,” the authors wrote, “the results highlight the importance of determining the safety and effectiveness of more complex pharmacologic regimens in general medical settings.”
The study also found no significant decline in the amount of prescriptions to children and adolescents, despite the October 2004 Food and Drug Administration “black box” warning added to antidepressants about their use in this population.
The authors noted that their data indicated “that the national rate of growth of antidepressant treatment in children and adolescents between 1996 and 2005 closely paralleled its growth in young adults, although the absolute rate remained considerably lower in youths than in young adults, and trends may change in more recent years.”
Both authors disclosed multiple financial relationships with various pharmaceutical companies, including those who make antidepressants (Source: Archives of General Psychiatry).So, the natural conclusion would be…… that if these anti-depressant drugs were actually effective as a cure, then why are the number of people being treated increasing so drastically?
The answer lies in asking “who benefits from these statistics?”. Certainly not the patients.
Studies have also determined the psychology will follow physiology.Try this quick test – sit in a chair with your shoulders back, back straight, legs together, feet fat on the ground and head held high….. You feel confident, studious, focussed?
Now try sliding in you chair, slumped shoulders, legs apart, head slumped forward….. You feel lethargic, distracted, and will lack confidence.
So if you found that you felt these very different attitudes, then you should feel liberated in the knowledge that YOU are in CONTROL of HOW YOU FEEL!
With this in mind… we can start to create some habits that support a lifestyle that gives you a higher degree of sefd-determination.
Happy Travels
Jim
