New information on the use of antidepressants as you age.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is doing its part to make sure that doctors and patients alike are aware of the latest data on the link between antidepressant use and suicide, which indicate that the risk declines steadily with age. A review of 372 trials involving nearly 100,000 people who took antidepressants showed that the drugs increase the risk for suicide in people younger than 25, have no effect in those 25 to 64 and reduce risk in those 65 and older. A report on the findings is published online Aug. 12 in BMJ. Information on the suicide risk linked to antidepressant use was posted on the FDA Web site some time ago, but “we thought it needed to be in a peer-reviewed publication, which would make it more useful to professionals,” said Dr. Marc Stone, a senior medical reviewer in the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and lead author of the BMJ report. – From US News & World Report