OT:CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S.

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CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S.

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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Dr. Dworkin tells the story of a

woman who didn't like the way her husband was handling the family

finances. She wanted to start keeping the books herself but didn't

want to insult her husband.

The doctor suggested she try an antidepressant to make herself feel

better.

She got the antidepressant, and she did feel better, said Dr.

Dworkin, a land anesthesiologist and senior fellow at

Washington's Hudson Institute, who told the story in his

book " Artificial Unhappiness: The Dark Side of the New Happy Class. "

But in the meantime, Dworkin says, the woman's husband led the

family into financial ruin.

" Doctors are now medicating unhappiness, " said Dworkin. " Too many

people take drugs when they really need to be making changes in

their lives. "

For Dworkin, the proof is in the statistics. According to a

government study, antidepressants have become the most commonly

prescribed drugs in the United States. They're prescribed more than

drugs to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, or

headaches. CNN's Cohen discusses the CDC study on

antidepressants »

In its study, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

looked at 2.4 billion drugs prescribed in visits to doctors and

hospitals in 2005. Of those, 118 million were for antidepressants.

High blood pressure drugs were the next most-common with 113 million

prescriptions.

The use of antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs -- those

that affect brain chemistry -- has skyrocketed over the last decade.

Adult use of antidepressants almost tripled between the periods 1988-

1994 and

1999-2000.

Between 1995 and 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are

available, the use of these drugs rose 48 percent, the CDC reported.

Many psychiatrists see this statistic as good news -- a sign that

finally Americans feel comfortable asking for help with psychiatric

problems.

" Depression is a major public health issue, " said Dr. Posner,

an assistant professor at Columbia University College of Physicians

and Surgeons in New York City. " The fact that people are getting the

treatments they need is encouraging. "

She added that 25 percent of adults will have a major depressive

episode sometime in their life, as will 8 percent of

adolescents. " Those are remarkably high numbers, " Posner said.

While Posner says genuine depression is driving the prescription

numbers, Dr. Goodman, an internist in New York City, says the

real force behind skyrocketing antidepressant prescription rates is

pharmaceutical marketing to doctors and to consumers. " You put those

two together and you get a lot of prescriptions for

antidepressants, " he said.

He questions whether all those prescriptions are necessary. " It's

hard to believe that number of people are depressed, or that

antidepressants are the answer, " he said.

Goodman is the founder of a group called " No Free Lunch, " a group

that encourages doctors to reject gifts from pharmaceutical

companies. He added that patients sometimes see ads for

antidepressants on television and ask doctors for the drugs -- and

that studies show these requests work.

In a study published two years ago in the Journal of the American

Medical Association, actors pretending to be patients went to

doctors in the San Francisco area and said they were depressed.

The " patients " who asked for an antidepressant were significantly

more likely to get a prescription for one than patients who didn't

ask for an antidepressant.

" Patients' requests have a profound effect on physician prescribing

in major depression and adjustment disorders, " concluded the study's

authors.

But Posner's concern is about under-prescribing, not over-

prescribing.

" Fifty percent of African-Americans who have depression don't seek

treatment for it, " she said. " Not enough people are getting the

treatment they need. "