News tagged with 'SSRI'

The FAA is encouraging airline pilots on antidepression medication to come forward instead of keeping their drug use a secret. They will be given a special medical certificate to fly as long as they are not experiencing side effects.

When Nick Christie was taken into custody in Fort Myers for trespassing last March, his wife knew he was experiencing a manic episode from medication. His jailers didn't and instead pepper sprayed him into compliance. Then he died. His death has been ruled a homicide, the officers involved cleared and notice of a federal lawsuit has been filed.

St. John's wort shows some phototoxicity to the eyes, which may not show up for years in the form of cataracts and macular degeneration among users taking it for depression. But under law, the industry largely regulates itself and federal regulations take over only after the consumer is harmed. The uninformed user is left vulnerable.

A warning for those who use St. John's wort as a natural alternative to prescription drugs. "Nature's Prozac" also can be phototoxic to the eye lens creating cataracts, a reaction that's only been seen in the lab until now.

Hypericin, the active compound in the herb, St. John's wort, works to keep depression at bay but also has been shown in the lab to be phototoxic to the human ocular lens. Now for the first time, a correlation has been seen in the human population between the popular herb and cataracts.

SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft and Celexa, had a potential to harm the heart of a developing fetus when taken early in the pregnancy, says this Danish study. 13 percent of women in the U.S. are reportedly taking antidepressants while pregnant.

New published research shows that anger may go directly to your heart causing an arrhythmia, a malfunction in the impulses that send an electronic signal for your heart to beat.  Arrhythmia can cause congestive heart problems or increase the risk of stroke. Anger management is the key and can involve no or low-cost solutions without medication. 

Anxiety can be debilitating in children and adolescents. In this, the largest study to date, those in the cognitive therapy combined with Zoloft group, had the most improvement.

A newly released study finds American children are three times more likely to be prescribed psychotropic drugs for mental health conditions such as bipolar disease and ADHD than that of European children.

A newly released study finds that teen suicides are on the rise after a 15-year decline. The increase may be due to fewer teens being prescribed antidepressant medications.