An article covering opinions on the new suicide risk warnings for young adults on antidepressant medications favors the belief that the new warnings will not significantly alter the amount of prescriptions written for this age group. Although there has been some growing public concern about the high rates of children and young adults on psychiatric medications and the hopes of some mental health advocates to reduce reliance on medication for long-term treatment, the some experts believed that rates of prescriptions have leveled-off and become stable since the warnings were introduced for children.
I think that this issue provides one of the best current intersections of psychological treatment, public health, and corporate interests that exists at the present time. It highlights how difficult it can be for governing bodies to find a balance between competing interests.
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One Comment to
“New Antidepressant Warnings Analysis”
I wrote a commentary reply on the article found on this web site entitled “The Next Round of Anti
Depressant Warnings”. The below information from Richard Fiddian Green is relevant to that commentary also, that is near in sequence to this particular article. The following quotes come from a September 28 2002 piece by the doctor Richard Fiddian Green in the rapid response section of the British Medical Journal. Rapid responses for Guthrie and Thompson, 325 (7366) 701-703. The article’s title: “Concerns about prescribing antidepressants”. The quote:
“I share Bagnall’s concerns…(Later R.F. Green wrote)…”Both acute and chronic psychiatric disorders might be products of an energy deficit, that is to say an impairment of the adequacy of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and accompanying generation of free radicals (2,3).Antidepressants cause neuronal cell death….(He goes on later)…Drugs and hormones that exert their actions by stimulating the release of cAMP do so at the expense of ATP from which cAMP is derived. In circumstances in which the ability of mitochondrial oxidative to replenish ATP stores is compromised these drugs and hormones have, therefore, the potential to compound the severity of the energy deficit present. As an impairment of oxidative phosphorylation is accompanied by a fall in tissue pH enzyme kinetics are changed potentially changing not only the efficacy of the drugs but also inducing the expression of rogue genes.” End of quote.
These sentiments and observations he applied to the atypical antipsychotic class of neuroleptics and interestingly, a good deal of the principles he cited here also can be found in cardiovascular disorders. The heart is rich in mitochondria number and also is a known organ for producing varied emotional states, such as blue (depressed )feelings, spats of anger, and weepiness, among others. Emotional conditions well known to be associated with heart oriented post surgery conditions as well as cardiovascular conditions in general.
I feel, these approaches by R.F. Green detail some important concerns surrounding the safety of the anti depressants. And patients should be educated of these lines of thinking as much as is feasible to their understanding.
I like a lot of his other writings also, involving pH dynamics, and ATP hydrolysis and ATP resynthesis dynamics, the latter being a primary function in the history of the energy systems of humans and other life forms. Thanks for your consideration.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 6 May 2007
