Monday, August 24, 2009

Trends in depression and medication   posted by Razib @ 8/24/2009 10:12:00 PM
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U.S. Antidepressant Use Doubled in A Decade. I'm not against the usage of medicine, but I'm skeptical that this increase is really attributable to chronically depressed people with serious neurochemical imbalances getting treated. Rather, a substantial number of people whose lives "suck" at a given moment convince doctors to prescribe these medications. I'm willing to be corrected by data on the usage patterns, but that's just my limited personal experience with a range of people who get on these drugs in response to general suckiness, and the smaller number of people with modestly bizarre personality shifts makes me wonder as to more "modest" side effects which are not gossip-worthy.

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