Antidepressants and things they can do by Lucia Mitrova

Let's imagine you are depressed, have a headache, feel sad, blue. You cannot seem to find interest in anything and quite frankly you even find hard to get up in the morning (or maybe you've already gave up on that). Modern science says there is a solution for you. It's called antidepressants. These wonder pills, which are supposed to make you feel better, or even happy, have taken over pharmacy industry like twister. First one developed was Iproniazid. Initially it was a medication for people who suffered tuberculosis. But these people started to look happy. Too happy for tuberculosis patients. So since 1958 Iproniazid is used specifically for depression. After this one others antidepressant started to come out. Nowdays there are many of them and you can group them to types. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants, monoamine inhibitors, norepine reuptake inhibitors, norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors and sometimes you combine the medicine with another one, because it can help the patient better. These are called augmentor drugs. Antidepressants don't come with benefits only. They have drawbacks too. Some of them cause a tolerance, so the patient have to increase to doses. It is obvious that this isn't a good trend. And in some cases, after the antidepressants were cut-off, withdrawal syndrome appeared. And don't forget about the side affects, such as loss of libido, blurred vision, weight gain or loss, skin rash and so on. But science has come with another new ability of the antidepressants. The researchers think that antidepressants might be able to prolong life. So far it's been tested on worms and some say that this particular worm's biology is similar to human and animal one. Others disagree:"It is a stretch from a worm to a human being," said Michael Petrascheck of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

by Lucia Mitrova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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