Antidepressants as good as a sugar pill

POPPING PILLS: Study shows that antidepressants like Prozac are no more effective than a sugar pill.

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New Delhi: The use of the antidepressant wonder drug Prozac may not be uncommon in cities, but it appears the depression bubble may have finally burst. 20 years after its launch a new research has revealed that antidepressants like Prozac are no more effective than a sugar pill.

For years Prozac has been one of the best selling antidepressant drugs worldwide. Termed as the 'happy pill', Prozac finds itself in the centre of a heated debate.

Thousands of people who have recovered from their mental health condition with the help of antidepressants are lambasting the new research published in Public Library of Science Journal that says that Prozac and other serotonin based antidepressants just don't work.

Indian doctors suggest that we don't pull the plug on them just yet.

General Physician Max Hospital, Dr Vandana Garg says, "First of all this is only one study, and based on only this study we cannot comment that it is only a sugar pill. We have been prescribing this medicine for quite some time, and we have seen positive results and it is effective."

Although the study can't be totally ignored there are certain questions which are still to be answered — are drugs the only answer to the treatment of depression and are they over prescribed?

According to a survey done by the Mental Health Foundation, the number of prescriptions written for antidepressants has tripled since the 1990s. Also 57% of General Physicians in the US feel that antidepressants are over prescribed, and 55% of people used the drugs as their first response to mild or moderate depression.

Senior Psychiatrist Fortis Hospital, Dr Sameer Malhotra says, "In India I would say that it is not really a case of over prescription, but what is required is a timely and appropriate professional guidance from a psychiatrist so that the right set of medication is given to the patient.

The makers of these drugs have dismissed the findings — saying that the study is biased and it looked only at a small subset of the total data available.

In India depression goes largely unreported and undiagnosed, so it may be too premature a stage to stop medication altogether.