Depression Comes with Major Side Effects

A group of scientists were looking for the cure to other medical problems when they had stumbled upon depression and its treatment (Antidepressants). In the 1950’s scientists had stumbled upon a drug called iproniazid. Scientists had figured out that Iproniazid causes mood elevation (Antidepressants). Later that year Iproniazid was sold as antidepressant drugs. An australian physicists John Cade had found an interest to lithium. He had done a study and found that it made guinea pigs urine less toxic. In 1948 he had injected ten patients with lithium and had discovered that it controlled their mania (Antidepressants). Through his research the study of depression from then and now has centered on the brain, and what chemical occurrence happen when the drugs are taken. Media blew up in the 1990s making it something that people must have. Its name that the media had given was the “happy pill”. The prescription antidepressants are taken orally, once a day, either in capsule, tablets, oral suspensions or solutions (Antidepressants). Most people that take this pill and follow all of the doctor’s orders end up seeing results.

Talk therapy was used by Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalysis. Talk therapy was when a person would come in and lay down and discuss their problems. However using this seemed a little outdated, people knew that depression really came down to faulty brain chemistry and that it could be solved by a pill (Economist). Robert DeRubeis and some of his colleagues beg to differ. They conducted an experiment with two-hundred and forty patients that had moderate to severe depression. One group had received cognitive therapy and another had received an antidepressant drug, the last group received a placebo pill not knowing it was a placebo pill. The results of the study for the antidepressant drug was that seventy six percent of the people who had taken the antidepressant drug had seen improvement. Antidepressants are not a bad drug, people who take them and follow doctors orders have seen improvement.

Depression is no joke, it is described as prolonged episodes of sadness. There is a type of clinical depression that is described by the author, it is called MDD, also referred to as clinical depression, is a mild to severe mood disorder attributed to an individual's biochemistry, genetics, and personality, as well as environmental factors (Gale). Depression comes with major side effects and may cause a person to commit suicide. MDD is not the only type of depression there is, there is also persistent depressive disorder, which is a low level disorder usually lasting about two years (Gale). There's seasonal affective disorder, which is linked to a seasonal pattern and recurs doing the mostly during the winter months in locations far to the north and south of the equator(Gale). Psychotic depression is quite a severe depression which causes a person to experience delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia (Gale). 

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