SINthysist
Rural Racist Homophobe
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Placebos Improve Mood, Change Brain Chemistry in Majority of Trials of Antidepressants
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 7, 2002; Page A01
After thousands of studies, hundreds of millions of prescriptions and tens of billions of dollars in sales, two things are certain about pills that treat depression: Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft work. And so do sugar pills.
A new analysis has found that in the majority of trials conducted by drug companies in recent decades, sugar pills have done as well as -- or better than -- antidepressants. Companies have had to conduct numerous trials to get two that show a positive result, which is the Food and Drug Administration's minimum for approval.
What's more, the sugar pills, or placebos, cause profound changes in the same areas of the brain affected by the medicines, according to research published last week. One researcher has ruefully concluded that a higher percentage of depressed patients get better on placebos today than 20 years ago.
…
His analysis of 96 antidepressant trials between 1979 and 1996 showed that in 52 percent of them, the effect of the antidepressant could not be distinguished from that of the placebo. Khan said the makers of Prozac had to run five trials to obtain two that were positive, and the makers of Paxil and Zoloft had to run even more. He analyzed trials that were made public in the medical literature, which tend to show positive results, and those that were not.
"It speaks to the difficulty we have in classifying and identifying the disorders we deal with," said Thomas Laughren, who heads the group of scientists at the FDA that evaluates the medicines. "Psychiatric diagnosis is descriptive. We don't really understand psychiatric disorders at a biological level."
…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42930-2002May6.html
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 7, 2002; Page A01
After thousands of studies, hundreds of millions of prescriptions and tens of billions of dollars in sales, two things are certain about pills that treat depression: Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft work. And so do sugar pills.
A new analysis has found that in the majority of trials conducted by drug companies in recent decades, sugar pills have done as well as -- or better than -- antidepressants. Companies have had to conduct numerous trials to get two that show a positive result, which is the Food and Drug Administration's minimum for approval.
What's more, the sugar pills, or placebos, cause profound changes in the same areas of the brain affected by the medicines, according to research published last week. One researcher has ruefully concluded that a higher percentage of depressed patients get better on placebos today than 20 years ago.
…
His analysis of 96 antidepressant trials between 1979 and 1996 showed that in 52 percent of them, the effect of the antidepressant could not be distinguished from that of the placebo. Khan said the makers of Prozac had to run five trials to obtain two that were positive, and the makers of Paxil and Zoloft had to run even more. He analyzed trials that were made public in the medical literature, which tend to show positive results, and those that were not.
"It speaks to the difficulty we have in classifying and identifying the disorders we deal with," said Thomas Laughren, who heads the group of scientists at the FDA that evaluates the medicines. "Psychiatric diagnosis is descriptive. We don't really understand psychiatric disorders at a biological level."
…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42930-2002May6.html
