{"id":12686,"date":"2008-02-25T19:50:44","date_gmt":"2008-02-26T02:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/02\/25\/does-prozac-actually-work.html"},"modified":"2008-02-25T19:50:44","modified_gmt":"2008-02-26T02:50:44","slug":"does_prozac_actually_work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/02\/25\/does_prozac_actually_work.html","title":{"rendered":"Does Prozac actually work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study says no<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.<\/p>\n

The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.<\/p>\n

When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved – but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.<\/p>\n

The only exception is in the most severely depressed patients, according to the authors – Prof Irving Kirsch from the department of psychology at Hull University and colleagues in the US and Canada. But that is probably because the placebo stopped working so well, they say, rather than the drugs having worked better.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The drug companies (Prozac not being the only med so dismissed in the study) aren’t throwing in the towel.<\/p>\n

\n

Eli Lilly was defiant last night. “Extensive scientific and medical experience has demonstrated that fluoxetine is an effective antidepressant,” it said in a statement. “Since its discovery in 1972, fluoxetine has become one of the world’s most-studied medicines. Lilly is proud of the difference fluoxetine has made to millions of people living with depression.”<\/p>\n

A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Seroxat, said the authors had failed to acknowledge the “very positive” benefits of the treatment and their conclusions were “at odds with what has been seen in actual clinical practice”.<\/p>\n

He added: “This analysis has only examined a small subset of the total data available while regulatory bodies around the world have conducted extensive reviews and evaluations of all the data available, and this one study should not be used to cause unnecessary alarm and concern for patients.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If it should cause alarm and confusion, the spokesman recommended 75mg of Seroxat, three times a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study says no. Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8809,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/11\/news_flash_spon.html","url_meta":{"origin":12686,"position":0},"title":"News Flash! 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