In our pharmaceutically oriented culture, antidepressants are often looked as the solution for depression. We want the quickest fix that will get us back on our feet and back to work. And the medical profession has been trained to resort to using antidepressants, especially the SSRI type that include Prosac, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, Paxil, and Luvox rather than working through the reasons for being depressed through psychotherapy.
This is especially interesting because it has been shown that for mild to moderate depression, SSRI antidepressants are no better than placebo! It makes more sense to use a placebo that doesn't have the sometimes serious side effects that include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, impotence, insomnia, agitation, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, suicidal thoughts and even suicide.
We know from previous studies that these drugs are associated with an increase in birth defects when used in pregnancy and now a Canadian study has come out showing that taking them results in an increased risk for fat accumulation and inflammation in the liver of adult offspring in animals and an increase in the incidence of obesity and type 2 diabetes in humans.
