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Thursday, January 07 2010 01:11 |
According to a new analysis which appeared on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, some widely prescribed drugs for depression provide relief in extreme cases but are no more effective than placebo pills for most patients.
A research group evaluated six large drug trials, including 728 men and women, about half of them with severe depression and half with more moderate symptoms. Three of the trials were of Paxil, a so-called SSRI from GlaxoSmithKline, and the other three were of imipramine, an older, generic drug from the class known as tricyclics. The team, led by Jay C. Fournier and Robert J. DeRubeis of the University of Pennsylvania, found that compared with placebos, the drugs caused a much steeper reduction in symptoms of severe depression. International Herald Tribune, January 7, 2010
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