Antidepressants

Thanks for this repsonse as well...again- not sure why this is not more widely known to the public...It is my understanding that you do not even have to take that many doses before one can be negatively effected...as data has also shown that for those people with mild depression, there is no benefit in taking the said antidepressants, this would seem especially wrong for psychiatrists and others to be promoting these drugs...This seems a bit scary to me, and patients taking these drugs seem to be treated as guinea pigs...shouldn't these studies be done PRIOR to people being allowed to take them?! Thanks again for your great responses. Rachel Your question relates to the paper by L Cosgrove and others published in April 2011, Antidepressants and breast and ovarian cancer risk: a review of the literature and researchers' financial associations with industry, PLoS One. 2011 Apr 6;6(4). It has been purported that antidepressants (ADs) may increase risk of breast and ovarian cancer, however results are mixed. The authors reviewed 61 articles published in English that assessed the relationship between AD use and cancer risk. Forty-one of those papers concluded no association, whereas 20 found a positive association. There was more likely to be a negative association if the investigators had financial ties with industry. Overall, the pooled odds ratio for the association between AD use and breast/ovarian cancer in the epidemiologic studies was 1.11, meaning there was a 1.11 fold greater chance of breast/ovarian cancer with AD use. They conclude that these findings warrant further study. They do not conclude that women taking ADs should be labeled as high-risk.
Comments on this article can be found on the Alliance for Human Research Protection website http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/795/9/. Cosgrove is quoted as saying, “I would want to consider nondrug treatment if I was mildly depressed, given our data.”

When starting an antidepressant you should always work with a psychiatrist in the same way you would see an oncologist for cancer. Mental illness is specialized, just like podiatry or dentistry. When starting an antidepressant you should always work with a psychiatrist in the same way you would see an oncologist for cancer. Mental illness is specialized, just like podiatry or dentistry.