Question:
Did anyone hear of recent research regarding the value of anti-depressant
medication? I thought I heard on the radio recently there was new research indicating "sugar pills" were just
as effective?
Answer:
Sometimes, simply thinking that medication will work can make
it so. Researchers report that after taking a placebo, depressed patients felt
better and had physical changes in their brains similar to those seen in
patients who'd taken actual antidepressant drugs. The researchers found that men who responded to placebo and those who responded
to an antidepressant had similar, but not identical, metabolic changes in
thinking and emotional regions of the brain.So if a sugar pill works just as well, why take real drugs -- with their high
cost and potential side effects -- at all? Because the placebo effect usually
doesn't last.
