UNBELIEVABLE - Antidepressants Emerge as Coolant for Hot Flashes
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 11:49 pm
They will do and say anything to have everyone on the planet on this garbage
At what cost?
See a homeopath!
(or do as I did - sprain your ankle very badly and the hot flashes went
away, never to return!...........)
Sheri
PS - a friend of mine is in alcohol treatment and on no meds for anything
and they are constantly trying to push him to take antidepressents,
anti-alcohol-craving meds and on and on. I mean seriously push him. And
he is doing so well in treatment - 50 days now. HUGE med culture in the US
and UK
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/healt ... 800&en=f78
75bf68438bfa7&ei=5087%0A
October 9, 2007
Well
Antidepressants Emerge as Coolant for Hot Flashes
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Doctors are writing a new prescription for menopause: the antidepressant.
It’s not that all menopausal women are depressed. Instead, the
antidepressant has emerged as the drug of choice among women searching for
new ways to cool the hot flash.
There is no way to track how often antidepressants are prescribed to treat
hot flashes, the unpredictable, sticky wave of heat that for many women is
the defining symptom of menopause. None are specifically approved for hot
flashes, and doctors who prescribe them are doing so “off label.”
Menopause researchers say antidepressant use is becoming increasingly
common as both women and doctors seek alternatives to menopause hormones.
The use of hormone drugs has fallen precipitously since 2002, when a
government study linked hormone use in older women to stroke and breast
cancer.
It isn’t clear why antidepressants seem to cool hot flashes, at least in
some women. The link was made by chance in studies of women with breast
cancer. Some cancer drugs set off hot flashes, and researchers noticed that
women who were also taking the antidepressants known as a selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitors had fewer flashes.
Studies looking at the use of these and other serotonin-altering drugs to
treat hot flashes in healthy menopausal women have been disappointing. Two,
Wyeth’s Effexor and GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil, have shown a meaningful
benefit in high-quality controlled studies, according to a review published
last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
For women, that translates into some relief, but not as much as they would
receive from estrogen drugs. In one Effexor trial, the antidepressant users
reported about 60 percent fewer hot flashes. By comparison, studies of
hormones show estrogen reduces the frequency of hot flashes 80 percent.
Although Effexor did help, it worked best at a high dose, meaning that
women also complained of numerous side effects, including constipation, dry
mouth and nausea.
“Some women are fine with them and say it helps and it makes a difference,”
said Cynthia Pearson, executive director of the National Women’s Health
Network, an advocacy group. “Other women, after two to three weeks, they
say, ‘Forget it, I don’t feel like myself.’”
Studies are finding a wide variation in responses to the drugs. A study of
the antidepressant Zoloft — sponsored by its maker, Pfizer, and published
this month in the journal Menopause — reported that one-third of the
subjects actually had more hot flashes while taking the drug, a third
stayed about the same or experienced just a slight benefit, and a third
reported far fewer hot flashes. The finding is similar to trends shown in
other studies of antidepressants for hot flashes, including Prozac and Paxil.
The challenge, then, is in figuring out which women have the most to gain
from taking the drugs. Unfortunately, the number of women studied has been
so small that no big conclusions can be drawn. In the Zoloft trial, 27
women were in the high-benefit group.
But one interesting trend emerged. Women who were recently menopausal,
meaning that they had just stopped having their periods, received the most
benefits from antidepressant treatment. Women on either side of the
menopausal transition, those who had been menopausal for a year or those
who were just starting to experience the effects of hormonal fluctuations,
fared worse on the drug.
The biggest concern about antidepressant use for menopause is that the
drugs may worsen some symptoms already common during menopause — things
like anxiety, sleep problems and loss of libido. And while the drugs have
been used safely for years in people with depression, there’s no long-term
data on their use in healthy women with healthy brains.
“We think of them as being safer than estrogen, but we’ve got trials of
20,000 women for eight or nine years with estrogen, and we don’t have
anything like that,” Deborah Grady, director of the Women’s Clinical
Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco, said about
the antidepressants.
Wyeth is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration for another
serotonin-altering drug, Pristiq, specifically for the treatment of hot
flashes. But the agency said in the summer that it needed more data before
considering the request.
For women who choose to try an antidepressant to relieve hot flashes,
doctors advise a psychiatric workup and regular follow-up in the first
weeks after starting the drug. In some patients, antidepressants can touch
off severe manic symptoms if they have histories of bipolar disorder or
manic personality traits, doctors say.
“They are helpful for some women, but right now it’s impossible to predict
for whom they will work,” said Dr. Shari Lusskin, director of reproductive
psychiatry at the New York University Medical Center. “It offers an option
for women who don’t want to take hormones. But we don’t know what long-term
use of these drugs does to people who are not depressed.”
----------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath
Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours (worldwide)
Vaccination Information & Choice Network (new website)
http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccine.htm
http://www.wellwithin1.com/homeo.htm
homeopathycures@tesco.net
ONLINE Introduction to Homeopathy Classes - next one September 5, 2007
ONLINE Introduction to Vaccine Dangers Classes - September 6, 2007
ONLINE Intro to Diseases - Risk, Reality & Alternative Treatment September
5, 2007
Voicemail US 530-740-0561 UK phone from US 011-44-1874-624-936
At what cost?
See a homeopath!
(or do as I did - sprain your ankle very badly and the hot flashes went
away, never to return!...........)
Sheri
PS - a friend of mine is in alcohol treatment and on no meds for anything
and they are constantly trying to push him to take antidepressents,
anti-alcohol-craving meds and on and on. I mean seriously push him. And
he is doing so well in treatment - 50 days now. HUGE med culture in the US
and UK
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/healt ... 800&en=f78
75bf68438bfa7&ei=5087%0A
October 9, 2007
Well
Antidepressants Emerge as Coolant for Hot Flashes
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Doctors are writing a new prescription for menopause: the antidepressant.
It’s not that all menopausal women are depressed. Instead, the
antidepressant has emerged as the drug of choice among women searching for
new ways to cool the hot flash.
There is no way to track how often antidepressants are prescribed to treat
hot flashes, the unpredictable, sticky wave of heat that for many women is
the defining symptom of menopause. None are specifically approved for hot
flashes, and doctors who prescribe them are doing so “off label.”
Menopause researchers say antidepressant use is becoming increasingly
common as both women and doctors seek alternatives to menopause hormones.
The use of hormone drugs has fallen precipitously since 2002, when a
government study linked hormone use in older women to stroke and breast
cancer.
It isn’t clear why antidepressants seem to cool hot flashes, at least in
some women. The link was made by chance in studies of women with breast
cancer. Some cancer drugs set off hot flashes, and researchers noticed that
women who were also taking the antidepressants known as a selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitors had fewer flashes.
Studies looking at the use of these and other serotonin-altering drugs to
treat hot flashes in healthy menopausal women have been disappointing. Two,
Wyeth’s Effexor and GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil, have shown a meaningful
benefit in high-quality controlled studies, according to a review published
last year in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
For women, that translates into some relief, but not as much as they would
receive from estrogen drugs. In one Effexor trial, the antidepressant users
reported about 60 percent fewer hot flashes. By comparison, studies of
hormones show estrogen reduces the frequency of hot flashes 80 percent.
Although Effexor did help, it worked best at a high dose, meaning that
women also complained of numerous side effects, including constipation, dry
mouth and nausea.
“Some women are fine with them and say it helps and it makes a difference,”
said Cynthia Pearson, executive director of the National Women’s Health
Network, an advocacy group. “Other women, after two to three weeks, they
say, ‘Forget it, I don’t feel like myself.’”
Studies are finding a wide variation in responses to the drugs. A study of
the antidepressant Zoloft — sponsored by its maker, Pfizer, and published
this month in the journal Menopause — reported that one-third of the
subjects actually had more hot flashes while taking the drug, a third
stayed about the same or experienced just a slight benefit, and a third
reported far fewer hot flashes. The finding is similar to trends shown in
other studies of antidepressants for hot flashes, including Prozac and Paxil.
The challenge, then, is in figuring out which women have the most to gain
from taking the drugs. Unfortunately, the number of women studied has been
so small that no big conclusions can be drawn. In the Zoloft trial, 27
women were in the high-benefit group.
But one interesting trend emerged. Women who were recently menopausal,
meaning that they had just stopped having their periods, received the most
benefits from antidepressant treatment. Women on either side of the
menopausal transition, those who had been menopausal for a year or those
who were just starting to experience the effects of hormonal fluctuations,
fared worse on the drug.
The biggest concern about antidepressant use for menopause is that the
drugs may worsen some symptoms already common during menopause — things
like anxiety, sleep problems and loss of libido. And while the drugs have
been used safely for years in people with depression, there’s no long-term
data on their use in healthy women with healthy brains.
“We think of them as being safer than estrogen, but we’ve got trials of
20,000 women for eight or nine years with estrogen, and we don’t have
anything like that,” Deborah Grady, director of the Women’s Clinical
Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco, said about
the antidepressants.
Wyeth is seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration for another
serotonin-altering drug, Pristiq, specifically for the treatment of hot
flashes. But the agency said in the summer that it needed more data before
considering the request.
For women who choose to try an antidepressant to relieve hot flashes,
doctors advise a psychiatric workup and regular follow-up in the first
weeks after starting the drug. In some patients, antidepressants can touch
off severe manic symptoms if they have histories of bipolar disorder or
manic personality traits, doctors say.
“They are helpful for some women, but right now it’s impossible to predict
for whom they will work,” said Dr. Shari Lusskin, director of reproductive
psychiatry at the New York University Medical Center. “It offers an option
for women who don’t want to take hormones. But we don’t know what long-term
use of these drugs does to people who are not depressed.”
----------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath
Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours (worldwide)
Vaccination Information & Choice Network (new website)
http://www.wellwithin1.com/vaccine.htm
http://www.wellwithin1.com/homeo.htm
homeopathycures@tesco.net
ONLINE Introduction to Homeopathy Classes - next one September 5, 2007
ONLINE Introduction to Vaccine Dangers Classes - September 6, 2007
ONLINE Intro to Diseases - Risk, Reality & Alternative Treatment September
5, 2007
Voicemail US 530-740-0561 UK phone from US 011-44-1874-624-936