Almost two in three people would find it difficult to discuss depression with their doctor, while a similar number would be too embarrassed to discuss the condition with a friend, a new report has found. According to the report, stigma is still a major problem when it comes to depression. In fact, 57% of people [...]

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Children as young as eight may soon be able to use the antidepressant drug, Prozac, following a recommendation by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA). Prozac (fluoxetine) is an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). SSRIs are the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressant. The drug is authorised for the treatment of major depressive episodes, obsessive compulsive [...]

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Almost 40% of the general public are not aware of the symptoms of depression, the results of a new survey have found. This is despite the fact that around 300,000 Irish people are affected by the illness. The survey found that among those who could name a symptom, 21% pinpointed feeling down or low most [...]

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Today, the central questions at the intersection of psychiatry and culture seem to concern diagnosis. A number of books have appeared on the subject, each claiming that the medical professions have pathologized normality-making illnesses of unhappiness, shyness, and boyish impulsivity. To my mind, the most thoughtful of these efforts is The Loss of Sadness, by [...]

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Do antidepressants work? They do. New evidence comes from a study of children and adolescents, patients in age groups where the efficacy of antidepressants has been hard to demonstrate. It’s just the sort of research that critics of drug trials ought to find convincing. Antidepressants seem to do less good in the young. For decades, [...]

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The antidepressant, Prozac, may help to curb disease activity in a particular form of multiple sclerosis (MS), new research indicates. A team of researchers followed the progress of 40 patients with the relapsing remitting form of MS. MS is a condition which affects the brain and spinal cord. It is characterised by a slowly progressing [...]

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There’s major news on the antidepressant front, but it comes in an odd form: research on treating “lazy eyes” in rats. A study suggests that, yes, Prozac and similar medicines really do make the brain more flexible. The report, titled “The Antidepressant Fluoxetine Restores Plasticity in the Adult Visual Cortex,” appears in the current issue [...]

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The New York Times science section today features an essay on the long-term use of antidepressants. The lead refers to the sort of question I introduced in Listening to Prozac: how do these medications shape identity? But most of the piece concerns the biological effects of taking the drugs for years. The author, Richard A. [...]

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Over time, how deadly is the combination of depression and heart attacks? A recent study that received attention in the media found no connection, in the long term, between depression and death in heart attack victims. But that study was followed almost immediately by another that found the combination of heart attack and depression to [...]

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Antidepressants may be associated with an increased risk of suicidal behaviour, particularly in the early stages of treatment, the results of three new studies indicate. The studies, which looked at SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) – the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressant – as well as tricyclic antidepressants, are published in the latest edition [...]

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