At one time or another, almost every teen may appear to be depressed. Usually, the depression is slight and goes away with time. But some kinds of depression need medical intervention. With such an intervention, writing a prescription for Prozac (fluoxetine) or some other antidepressant drug (Figure 1.1) has become the first order of business. Yet, less than twenty years ago, adolescents were rarely diagnosed as depressed, much less given antidepressants. Today, however, teenagers are now receiving medications almost routinely for symptoms that can hardly be termed “depressive” — attention deficit disorder, social anxiety, or drug addiction, for example.

Thanks to the “Prozac (fluoxetine) revolution” of the 1980s and 1990s, a majority of people in America know someone who has used antidepressants. Over 34 million people in the United States have been issued prescriptions for Prozac (fluoxetine) or another selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). In other words, one American in ten has used

antidepressants and studies have estimated that one in six people will have a major depressive episode in their lives (Figure 1.2).

The term “depressive” does not just signify a simple feeling of sadness, but can also refer to any mental disorder with symptoms of moodiness and melancholy — anxiety or eating disorders, for example. Depression is no longer a disease that is shameful or that must be kept hidden. Depression is also no longer as debilitating as it was in the early twentieth century, before the development of antidepressant drugs. Still, the costs of depression to society in terms of lost work, treatment, and other associated expenses have been estimated to be in excess of $30 billion per year. Even with all the progress in antidepressant research, there is an even bigger push to find more antidepressants that work faster and better since rates of depression appear to be growing every year.

But how can a chemical change a person’s outlook on life? If the root of depression is caused by a problem in a person’s life, is it right to take a pill rather than confront the problem? Or is depression something organic, a brain imbalance that can only be cured by taking antidepressants? Are antidepressants, in essence, changing a person’s personality? Furthermore, how well do they work (all hype aside)?

Antidepressants became a media obsession in the early 1990s largely following the publication of Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel’s memoir of adolescent depression and its unexpected “cure” by a new kind of antidepressant called fluoxetine, better known as Prozac. Listening to Prozac (fluoxetine), psychiatrist Peter Kramer’s best-selling book, continued the drug’s run of publicity with its descriptions

of formerly depressed patients becoming social, focused, and successful professionals. But on the trail of Listening to Prozac’s success are many other books, which protest that Prozac (fluoxetine) and other antidepressants from the same family (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) do not deserve the reputation that the media has given them. Furthermore, other researchers have published findings that refute the effectiveness of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) as compared to older antidepressants, straight talk therapy, or even herbal mood-boosters such as St. John’s wort. One study even claims that SSRIs are no better than placebo (the sugar pill used as a control in clinical studies) and might, in fact, be making patients worse.

Source: Antidepressants (Drugs The Straight Facts).