Bipolar Drugs May CAUSE Psychiatric Disorders, Sudden Death

Posted by David B. and Dianne Hansen | November 17, 2009 .

http://www.naturalnews.com/027511_drugs_mood_epilepsy.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/025811.html

(NaturalNews) There’s nothing new about the fact prescription drugs come loaded with possible side effects ranging from the mild to the life-

threatening. However, exactly what those side effects are isn’t always clear until widely taken medications have been used for years on end.

Examples previously reported in NaturalNews include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac raising the risk of sudden

death in otherwise healthy women (http://www.naturalnews.com/025811.html) and prescription sleeping pills upping the rate of suicides in the

elderly (http://www.naturalnews.com/027375_s…).

Now comes worrisome research which associates commonly prescribed drugs with behavioral and psychiatric disorders. The new study was

presented by scientists from Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) in Washington, D. C., at the 39th annual meeting of the Society

for Neuroscience, held in Chicago in October.

The new research raises several important issues. Not only does it demonstrate that commonly used drugs may contribute to or cause

psychiatric problems down the road, but the study also shows how much is yet to be learned about how specific drugs impact the human

body.

“We can’t say antidepressant medications were the cause of higher risk of sudden cardiac death. It may well be that use of antidepressants is

a marker for worse depression,” lead researcher William Whang, M.D., M.S., Division of Cardiology, Columbia University Medical Center, said

in a statement to the media. “Our data raise more questions about the mechanisms by which depression is associated with arrhythmia and

cardiac death.” However, according to Whang’s own research, the risk of cardiac death was associated more strongly with taking

antidepressant drugs than with symptoms of clinical depression.

Whang and his research team studied 63,469 women from the Nurses Health Study who had no evidence of previous stroke or heart disease

during a follow-up between the years of 1992 and 2004. To find out which women suffered from depression, Whang and his colleagues looked

at self-reported symptoms of depression and the use of antidepressant medications such as Prozac. Women with the most serious clinical

depression were identified by the use of a 5-point mental health index score of less than 53 or by the fact they took antidepressants regularly.

However, the truth is that although SSRI antidepressants (such as Prozac, Lexapro, Zoloft, Paxil and others) are generally described as safe

for the heart , a host of cardiovascular side effects — including irregular heart rhythms and even potentially lethal arrhythmias — have long been

known to occur in some people taking the drugs. In fact, Eli Lily, the drug company behind Prozac, lists these cardiovascular side effects,

including heart arrest, on their official package insert for physicians:

* Frequent: hemorrhage, hypertension, palpitation

* Infrequent: angina pectoris, arrhythmia, congestive heart failure, hypotension, migraine, myocardial infarct, postural hypotension, syncope,

tachycardia, vascular headache

* Rare: atrial fibrillation, bradycardia, cerebral embolism, cerebral ischemia, cerebrovascular accident, extrasystoles, heart arrest, heart block,

pallor, peripheral vascular disorder, phlebitis, shock, thrombophlebitis, thrombosis, vasospasm, ventricular arrhythmia, ventricular

extrasystoles, ventricular fibrillation.According to an article on Natural News Dot Com, there’s “nothing new about the fact prescription drugs come loaded with possible side effects ranging from the mild to the life-threatening. However, exactly what those side effects are isn’t always clear until widely taken medications have been used for years on end.”

According to Natural News Dot Com, there’s nothing new about the fact prescription drugs come loaded with possible side effects ranging from the mild to the life-threatening. However, exactly what those side effects are isn’t always clear until widely taken medications have been used for years on end. Examples previously reported in NaturalNews include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac raising the risk of sudden death in otherwise healthy women (http://www.naturalnews.com/025811.html) and prescription sleeping pills upping the rate of suicides in the elderly (http://www.naturalnews.com/027375_s…).

Now comes worrisome research which associates commonly prescribed drugs with behavioral and psychiatric disorders.

The new research raises several important issues. Not only does it demonstrate that commonly used drugs may contribute to or cause psychiatric problems down the road, but the study also shows how much is yet to be learned about how specific drugs impact the human body.

“We can’t say antidepressant medications were the cause of higher risk of sudden cardiac death. It may well be that use of antidepressants is a marker for worse depression,” lead researcher William Whang, M.D., M.S., Division of Cardiology, Columbia University Medical Center, said in a statement to the media. “Our data raise more questions about the mechanisms by which depression is associated with arrhythmia and cardiac death.” However, according to Whang’s own research, the risk of cardiac death was associated more strongly with taking antidepressant drugs than with symptoms of clinical depression.

Whang and his research team studied 63,469 women from the Nurses Health Study who had no evidence of previous stroke or heart disease during a follow-up between the years of 1992 and 2004. To find out which women suffered from depression, Whang and his colleagues looked at self-reported symptoms of depression and the use of antidepressant medications such as Prozac. Women with the most serious clinical depression were identified by the use of a 5-point mental health index score of less than 53 or by the fact they took antidepressants regularly.

However, the truth is that although SSRI antidepressants (such as Prozac, Lexapro, Zoloft, Paxil and others) are generally described as safe for the heart , a host of cardiovascular side effects — including irregular heart rhythms and even potentially lethal arrhythmias — have long been known to occur in some people taking the drugs. In fact, Eli Lily, the drug company behind Prozac, lists these cardiovascular side effects, including heart arrest, on their official package insert for physicians:

* Frequent: hemorrhage, hypertension, palpitation

* Infrequent: angina pectoris, arrhythmia, congestive heart failure, hypotension, migraine, myocardial infarct, postural hypotension, syncope, tachycardia, vascular headache

* Rare: atrial fibrillation, bradycardia, cerebral embolism, cerebral ischemia, cerebrovascular accident, extrasystoles, heart arrest, heart block, pallor, peripheral vascular disorder, phlebitis, shock, thrombophlebitis, thrombosis, vasospasm, ventricular arrhythmia, ventricular extrasystoles, ventricular fibrillation.

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