The downsides of antidepressants

Health reporter Ray Moynihan explores disturbing new data about the ever-popular pills

After analysing antidepressant use among older people in Britain for more than a decade, a team of researchers has come up with some alarming new findings. Released recently, their study barely raised a murmur in Australia, but its implications are potentially enormous.1 If the new data are to be believed, for older people, the most commonly prescribed drugs for depression may be associated with an increased risk of serious health problems and death compared with less common antidepressants or none at all.