Good news on treating depression
There is good news today for those who suffer from depression: The largest study ever done on treating depression has found that patients who didn’t get well with the first medicine they tried had a good chance of succeeding the second time around.
The study found little difference among the five drugs tested _ Celexa, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Effexor and Buspar — and wasn’t designed to compare them. All proved similarly effective and relatively safe. The clear message, doctors said, was that antidepressants should be given a 6-to-12-week chance to work and that if one doesn’t help, another should be tried.
“It’s important not to give up if the first treatment doesn’t work fully,” or causes side effects, said one study leader, Dr. John Rush of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Two reports from the study were published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
About 15 million Americans each year suffer depression, which so often recurs that doctors sometimes talk of it as an emotional cancer that is put “in remission” rather than cured.
“We’re talking about a very real public health challenge,” Insel said. “This is the leading cause of disability in Americans ages 15 to 44,” not just a case of “the blues,” he said.
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