Depressing rise in antidepressant use in Scotland

The Telegraph reports a soaring increase in antidepressant use in Scotland. I consider this deplorable. Research has shown that antidepressants do not work, so why are doctors unaware of this and why are they continuing to prescribe drugs that do not work? - Drugs, furthermore, that frequently have unpleasant and harmful side-effects? - The tricyclic antidepressants, for instance, are a major cause of excessive weight gain, among a clutch of other adverse side-effects. The most frequently prescribed of the tricyclics is amitriptyline. As well as causing obesity and sometimes morbid obesity in both sexes, it can cause men to develop breasts/man-boobs/gynaecomastia. - You can read about some of the problems that amitriptyline causes HERE.

As well as increasing Scotland's high incidence of obesity therefore, we have Scotland's prescription drug bill rising even more, people's health being damaged needlessly, and people continually being encouraged to seek solutions to non-medical problems, e.g. unemployment and financial problems, in a pack of pharmaceutical pills - pills which, believe me, are far more likely to render them less employable, rather than more employable.

Non-drug therapies for depression include:

a walk in the country (recommended by MIND, the mental health charity) and

improving nutrition by avoiding dieting (a well-known cause of depression) and avoiding eating salt and salty food.

Doctors would be better employed checking the nutritional status of their patients and prescribing vitamins and minerals to address any deficiencies found. Vitamin and mineral supplements to those who need them cost less than pharmaceutical junk, and improve the health of the patients, rather than harming them, because remedying vitamin and mineral deficiencies has no adverse side-effects...(o:

It has repeatedly been reported that people in Scotland tend to be deficient in Vitamin D, mainly because of shortage of sunshine, so the doctors might like to bear that in mind, and to bear in mind that vitamin D deficiency has very serious consequences, one of which is bone fragility so that falls are more likely to lead to broken bones.