Re: Link Between Antidepressant Use And Thicker Arteries (w/response)

[Guest guest]

please stop all replies. Effective immediately. You have lead my husband

into a sucidicdal ward.

** Your husband joined this group as an adult with free will. We don't go

looking for people; they come looking for us. They do this for a reason. Read

the description of what we do here on our group page:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Withdrawal_and_Recovery/

Reading these posts does not make people suicidal. But dropping a psychiatric

drug too much or too quickly does. I didn't make your husband do anything. The

drug(s) he was prescribed to " help " him did it. Had your husband written saying

what he wanted to do, I would have told him to not abruptly alter any drug he is

taking. That is at the foundation of this group. In all the years I've done

this, nobody has ever been told to do large decreases of drugs or to abruptly

stop taking them.

If he reacted to the article on damaged blood vessels from antidepressant

drugs, then this means he is extremely unstable. These drugs will make people

that way. They turn people into people you no longer recognize.

If the posts are unwanted, you merely unsubscribe from the group. Unless you

do you will continue to receive posts from the group. That's how a mailing list

works.

You may prefer to honor your husband's intentions and figure out why he joined

this group. Try asking him. Pay attention to your husband's symptoms. Has he

gotten any better since taking the drug(s)or is he worse? Reading " Anatomy of

an Epidemic " by Whitaker will help you to understand why he may not be

any better. The information in this book can actually save lives.

Your husband can get help here if he writes here when he comes home. Sadly,

they may be adding another drug while he is in the hospital. If so, it will most

likely be an antipsychotic.

Mark my words, he will be drugged into disability. It happens all the time

now. Each day, over 800 adults and 200 children are approved for disability

payments (SSD or SSI)based on primary psychiatric disabilities only.

He will not get better unless he gets off these drugs PROPERLY. Not doing it

properly is even worse than taking them. Most physicians do not recognize the

withdrawal syndrome people go through with these drugs and recommend a schedule

for discontinuation that is far too aggressive. We help people discontinue

these drugs successfully and live with well without them. We are glad to help

him. I wish you both the best. Please read the book I recommended. You won't

be sorry you did it. It will make a huge difference in your lives.

Best wishes,

(group creator)

On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 7:41 PM, Creel

wrote:

>

>

> [We've spoken quite a bit on Withdrawal & Recovery in the past on how

> serotonin affects blood vessels. This is common sense. But *CON*ventional

> medicine needs " valid " studies (invalid studies = studies with conclusions

> that do not promote rx drugs and expensive procedures or show these things

> to be detrimental). You'll see that this will have no impact on the

> prescribing habits of MDs. -- C].

>

> Link Between Antidepressant Use And Thicker Arteries

>

>

> Antidepressant use has been linked to thicker arteries, possibly

> contributing to the risk of heart disease and _stroke_

> (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/7624.php) , in a study of twin

> veterans. The data is being presented Tuesday, April 5 at the American

> College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans.

>

> _Depression_ (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/8933.php) can

> heighten the risk for heart disease, but the effect of antidepressant use

> revealed by the study is separate and independent from depression itself,

> says first author Amit Shah, MD, a cardiology fellow at Emory University

> School of Medicine. The data suggest that antidepressants may combine with

> depression for a negative effect on blood vessels, he says. Shah is a

> researcher working with Viola Vaccarino, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of

> Epidemiology at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health.

>

> The study included 513 middle-aged male twins who both served in the U.S.

> military during the Vietnam War. Twins are genetically the same but may be

> different when it comes to other risk factors such as diet, smoking and

> exercise, so studying them is a good way to distill out the effects of

> genetics, Shah says.

>

> Researchers measured carotid intima-media thickness - the thickness of the

> lining of the main arteries in the neck - by ultrasound. Among the 59 pairs

> of twins where only one brother took antidepressants, the one taking the

> drugs tended to have higher carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), even when

> standard heart disease risk factors were taken into account. The effect was

> seen both in twins with or without a previousheart

attack<http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/151444.php> or

> stroke. A higher level of depressive symptoms was associated with higher IMT

> only in those taking antidepressants.

>

> " One of the strongest and best-studied factors that thickens someone's

> arteries is age, and that happens at around 10 microns per year, " Shah says.

> " In our study, users of antidepressants see an average 40 micron increase in

> IMT, so their carotid arteries are in effect four years older. "

>

> Antidepressants' effects on blood vessels may come from changes in

> serotonin, a chemical that helps some brain cells communicate but also

> functions outside the brain, Shah says. The most commonly prescribed

> antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as

> fluoxetine (Prozac <http://www.medilexicon.com/drugs/prozac_weekly.php>),

> which increase the level of serotonin in the brain. Other types of

> antidepressants also affect serotonin levels, and antidepressants can act on

> other multi-functional brain chemicals such as norepinephrine.

>

> In the study, researchers saw higher carotid IMT in both participants who

> used SSRIs (60 percent of those who took antidepressants) and those who used

> other types of antidepressants.

>

> Most of the serotonin in the body is found outside the brain, especially in

> the intestines, Shah notes. In addition, serotonin is stored by platelets,

> the cells that promote blood clotting, and is released when they bind to a

> clot. However, serotonin's effects on blood vessels are complex and act in

> multiple ways. It can either constrict or relax blood vessels, depending on

> whether the vessels are damaged or not.

>

> " I think we have to keep an open mind about the effects of antidepressants

> on neurochemicals like serotonin in places outside the brain, such as the

> vasculature. The body often compensates over time for drugs' immediate

> effects, " Shah says. " Antidepressants have a clinical benefit that has been

> established, so nobody taking these medications should stop based only on

> these results. This isn't the kind of study where we can know cause and

> effect, let alone mechanism, and we need to see whether this holds up in

> other population groups. "

>

> Source:

>

> Emory University

>

>

> http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/221088.php

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