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Disease & Conditions

Depression

Treating Depression With Antidepressants

Depression:

Depression is a particularly common problem, the most common mental health problem there is in fact. It's believed that twenty percent of people in the US are depressed, with most not getting any form of treatment. When people who are depressed do get treatment it's typically in the form of some type of psychotherapy or counseling, medication therapy, or both in combination. When medication therapy is used to treat depression, it's typically provided in the form of a pharmaceutical that's referred to as an antidepressant.

Antidepressants have been in use since the 1950's. The method for antidepressants is to alter the brain chemistry in some specific way, often to maintain levels of a particular chemical. The SSRI antidepressants for example are designed to keep levels of the brain chemical serotonin at certain levels, the thought being that reduced levels of serotonin lead to depression among other dysfunctions. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor is what SSRI specifically refers to. The most well known of the SSRI's without question is Prozac.

Prozac became commercially available in Europe starting 1986 but work on the drug actually started in the 1970's. Contrary to what may be popular opinion, Prozac was not the first SSRI antidepressant but it was the most commercially successful of the initial SSRI's. This was certainly helped by the fact that the first SSRI antidepressant, zimelidine, was banned because it presented serious side effects. Prozac was marketed as a completely new type of drug, one that was specifically in contrast to tricyclic antidepressants, which prior to Prozac were the most commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals for depression.

The claims about Prozac in comparison to the tricyclic form of antidepressants were that Prozac was more specific in the way it functioned, and that it caused fewer side effects. Tricyclic antidepressants were known for having particular side effects, including increased heart rate, constipation, and sexual dysfunction. Though Prozac may have had fewer side effects than the tricyclics, Prozac was not an entirely clean drug when it came to carryover side effects: Prozac was also said to affect sexual functioning. Side effects from using Prozac however mostly were accepted to decrease as usage went on.

Whether Prozac was a miracle drug or not is certainly up for debate, but it did prove to be enormously profitable. There were literally millions of prescriptions written for Prozac, and the drug grossed billions of dollars before its patent expired. There are now other SSRI drugs similar to Prozac that are commercially available, and these drugs, like Prozac, have proven to be exceptionally popular. This may reinforce the belief among some that SSRI's are currently the most effective antidepressants in use.

Zinn Jeremiah is an online writer. To get depression help, visit help depression or depression treatment.