Antidepressants 'make young more than twice as likely to feel suicidal'

note - "Patients taking 18 different antidepressants, including the controversial drug Seroxat, which has previously been linked to fears it could increase the risk of suicide, were included in the review, one of the largest of its kind and involving almost 100,000 adults"







Antidepressants 'make young more than twice as likely to feel suicidal'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6010139/Antidepressants-make-young-more-than-twice-as-likely-to-feel-suicidal.html


Taking antidepressants can make young people more than twice as likely to feel suicidal, a new review of scientific studies shows.

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent Published: 7:00AM BST 12 Aug 2009
The drugs reduced the likelihood of older people having suicidal thoughts but significantly increased the risk among 18 to 25-year-olds, according to the findings.


Patients taking 18 different antidepressants, including the controversial drug Seroxat, which has previously been linked to fears it could increase the risk of suicide, were included in the review, one of the largest of its kind and involving almost 100,000 adults.


Researchers found that suicidal thoughts and behaviour among under 25-year-olds on antidepressants were up to 2.3 times more common than those who were given a placebo.
Antidepressant drugs currently carry warnings that they could increase suicidal thoughts and behaviour, especially among younger patients.
Previous studies have suggested that the medications can increase the risk of suicide among children and adolescents.
In 2003 doctors were warned not to give most common antidepressants to under 18s, because of fears that the risks outweighed the benefits.
The latest findings, published online by the British Medical Journal, show that there was no increased risk among 25 to 64-year-olds, and that the risk fell in patients aged 65 and above.
The team who carried out the research, from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in America, believe that the results show that antidepressants can promote suicidal thoughts or behaviour in some patients, particularly those in the younger age brackets.
For older patients, however they have a protective effect that can reduce any risk of suicide.
Experts believe that some antidepressants can give patients the "energy" to carry through their suicidal thoughts.
The FDA has called for more detailed research on the side effects of the drugs, especially in different age groups.
Of the almost 99,231 patients included in the review, eight committed suicide, 134 attempted suicide and 10 made preparations without actually trying to kill themselves.
Another 378 patients said that they had thought about committing suicide but had not acted.
Latest figures show that there were 34 million prescriptions for antidepressants written in Britain in 2007.
Prof John Geddes and colleagues from the University of Oxford, also writing in the BMJ, warned that a "fundamental uncertainty" remained over the role of the drugs in promoting suicidal thoughts, particularly as there was a low number of actual suicides in the study.
However, they added: "It is becoming apparent that antidepressants vary in both their efficacy and adverse effects."
The risks could "vary greatly" between individual drugs, they added.
Between 1993 and 2002, there were 4,767 deaths in England and Wales involving antidepressant drugs, according to the Office of National Statistics, just under 80 per cent of which were suicides.