Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2759
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Television adverts for antidepressants cause anxiety
New Scientist 2005 Nov 12
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825252.500&feedId=health_rss091
Abstract:
ssri depression anti-depressants serotonin
Notes:
Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:
The idea that depression is caused by a ‘chemical imbalance’ in the brain is patent nonsense.
Even the FDA spokesman can not bring himself to present this ‘metaphor’ when communicating with patients.
The ‘chemical imbalance theory of depression’ is purely a marketing tool for SSRIs and emerged at the same time as these became available.
Drug company literature is polluted with the claims and unfortunately the chemical imbalance rubbish is also promoted by a lot of organisations which should know better.
Some clever marketing guru realised that if you were going to sell the idea of chemical treatments for depression, it was a good marketing ploy to claim that the condition was caused by a ‘chemical imbalance’in the brain— so that consumers would feel more relaxed about taking potentially dangerous drugs for a condition which is clearly caused by a complex range of social, psychological, inter-personal and hereditary factors.
Congratulations to the Irish Medicines Board for caring enough to ban the promulgation of the chemical imbalance ‘metaphor’.
Full text:
Television adverts for antidepressants cause anxiety
New Scientist, issue 2525, 12 November 2005, page 7
ADVERTS that claim depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, and that
antidepressants correct it, are false and should be banned, say two mental
health specialists.
Popular antidepressants such as Prozac and Celexa block the uptake of the
neurotransmitter serotonin and have been shown to be slightly better than
placebo in treating depression. But low serotonin levels are no more the
cause of depression than low aspirin levels are the cause of headaches,
argue Jonathan Leo at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in
Bradenton, Florida, and Jeffrey Lacasse at Florida State University in
Tallahassee (Public Library of Science Medicine, DOI:
10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392).
“Low serotonin levels no more cause depression than low aspirin levels cause
headache”
“It has become an absolute mainstay of popular culture,” says Leo. “But
there’s very little support for this. We really don’t know what chemicals
are involved.”
Wayne Goodman, chair of the psychopharmacologic advisory committee of the US
Food and Drug Administration admits they have a point. He calls the chemical
imbalance story a “useful metaphor” but says it is never one he uses when
talking to patients. “I can’t get myself to say that.”
The Irish Medicines Board, the equivalent of the FDA in Ireland, recently
banned GlaxoSmithKline from making similar claims in information for
patients. Leo and Lacasse want the FDA to follow suit.
