Antidepressants may raise death risk by a third

https://goo.gl/EvX6g1

This prompted a team of researchers - led by scientists from McMaster University in Ontario, Canada - to study the link between antidepressant use and mortality risk.

As the authors of the new study write, antidepressants "disrupt multiple adaptive processes regulated by evolutionarily ancient biochemicals, potentially increasing mortality." Such a biochemical is serotonin.

Prof. Andrews and his team conducted a meta-analysis of existing research from various medical databases, looking for a link between mortality and antidepressant use. The analysis comprised 16 studies, summing up approximately 375,000 participants.

The researchers pulled out data on cardiovascular diseases, cardiovascular risk, and the class of antidepressants. They looked at SSRIs, tricyclic antidepressants, and others.

They used a so-called mixed-effects model to conduct their meta-analysis, controlling for depression and other diseases.

Maslej spoke to Medical News Today about the methodology, reassuring us of its strength. "We made sure to only include studies that did a good enough job controlling for important variables (like depression and other illnesses)," she said, "and so we have attempted to statistically rule out other factors that could contribute to mortality."

The analysis found that in the general population, those taking antidepressants had a 33 percent higher risk of dying prematurely than people who were not taking the drugs. Additionally, antidepressant users were 14 percent more likely to have an adverse cardiovascular event, such as a stroke or a heart attack.