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The Real Problem With Antidepressants
Prescriptions are rising, but often the drugs don’t work, and other effective treatments are dismissed
This is the third in a four-part series on preventing depression, a serious and growing mental disorder that can strike at any age and, if untreated, persist and worsen.
Antidepressant drugs can be an effective treatment for many people diagnosed with depression, particularly in the most severe cases. But these medications, which can have troubling side effects, are far from the only option, and for many people they simply don’t work. New research illustrates what experts have long known: though antidepressants are often a go-to prescription, the causes of depression are highly individualized, and treatments need to be tailored much more thoughtfully.
The finding comes amid skyrocketing rates of depression. The disorder has been rising for well more than a decade in teens and hiked further during the pandemic. And after a pandemic-induced spike, depression symptoms now plague more than a quarter of U.S. adults. More than 13% of Americans were taking antidepressants before Covid hit and during the pandemic, prescriptions shot up 6%.
In the new study, published online June 9 by the journal Nature Translational Psychiatry, researchers…
