Read What Happened When Healthy People Were Given Antidepressants

2 November 2016

 - Antidepressants are supposed to ease symptoms of depression, but yet another study shows the drugs may actually increase suicidal feelings in users. According to Danish researchers, the new study wrecks “potentially lethal misconceptions” about the safety of antidepressants.

Danish researchers analyzed 13 trial studies, and conducted a study of their own involving 374 trial volunteers – all of them healthy – to see how antidepressants affected people who did not have depression.

The researchers said they picked the patients that they did because earlier studies suggesting a link between suicide and antidepressants had been dismissed by those who blamed the deaths on the person’s supposed mental health condition and not the drugs.

When the participants were given antidepressant pills, levels of side effects nearly doubled, including suicidal feelings.

“Suicidal feelings” included anxiety, nightmares, and agitation.

Gotzsche said these feelings could be considered as “precursors to suicidality or violence.”