Might Depression Be Linked to One of These Popular Medications?

If you’re taking beta blockers, certain kinds of anxiety drugs, certain types of painkillers (including ibuprofen), proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) (used to treat acid reflux), ACE inhibitors (used to treat high blood pressure), or anti-convulsant drugs, you may be at greater risk for depression. That’s according to a new, large-scale study published earlier this week in JAMA. However, this was a correlational study, so it can’t say that these medications actually cause depression or not. It may be that people with greater health problems are more likely to take one of these medications and be depressed about their health condition. NPR has the story about the study that examined the prescription habits of 26,192 adults in the U.S. and their self-report of depression (as measured by the PHQ-9). More than a third of the people who took the survey were taking medications known to have depression or suicidal thoughts as potential side effects. Olfson and his collaborators wanted to determine whether those participants were more or less likely to be depressed, compared to participants who didn’t take any of these medications. “What we found is that, in fact, they’re more likely,” [study author] Olfson says. And they found that people who took three or more of the medications were three times as likely to be depressed. This is a fairly common sense finding, insomuch that the researchers found that medications that listed “depression...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Depression General Medications Psychiatry Research Drugs cause depression popular medications Source Type: blogs