Essay About Anti-Depressants And Best Results

Anti-Depressants or Sugar Pills?
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“Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat”
For years, scientists have been trying to see which works better, the
anti-depressant or the placebo (a.k.a: sugar pill). After many studies and
prescriptions, sugar pills work just as well, if not better, than anti-
depressants do. Placebos help scientists realize if there is a difference
between really feeling better, or patients believing that they feel better.
Some doctors and psychiatrists disagree on why the sugar pills work;
some believe that they work because of psychotherapy. Others believe
that they only work because the patients believe that they will work.
In studies using St. Johns wort, an herbal remedy for depression,
Zoloft, and the placebo, the results showed that the placebo cured the
most patients. Twenty-four percent of the patients taking the herbs were
cured, Zoloft cured twenty-five percent, and the placebo cured thirty-two.
Even more shocking, is the fact that the brain changes caused by the
anti-depressants looked almost the same as the brain changes caused by
the sugar pills. The results between the two pills were very hard, if not
impossible, to destinguish.
Even so, doctors still believe that drugs, or sugar pills, or not fully
effective on their own. They believe that anti-depressants blended with
psychotherapy will prove to have the best results. However, one
physician learned that less than one third of doctor visits were to
psychiatrists, while the rest were visits to regular physicians. Also, the
average patient with depression only visited their doctor about once a