New anti-psychotic medications as risky as older ones: study

Newer anti-psychotic medications used to treat schizophrenia, dementia and other psychiatric disorders appear to double a patient's risk of sudden heart failure, research published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine found.

Thu Jan 15, 1:54 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Newer anti-psychotic medications used to treat schizophrenia, dementia and other psychiatric disorders appear to double a patient's risk of sudden heart failure, research published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine found.

The major study is the latest in recent months to show that these newer drugs, dubbed "atypical medications," are not much safer than the older generation of "typical" treatments, as scientists had widely thought.

"Although a link between the use of typical anti-psychotic drugs and both torsades de pointes (a form of heart disorder) and sudden cardiac death has been established, this risk was thought to be lower with the use of atypical drugs," the authors wrote.

They said that now "limited data available" suggest the "electrophysiological effects" of both types of drugs are similar.

The new generation of drugs examined in the study -- which also are significantly more expensive than their predecessors -- include Johnson and Johnson's Risperdal; AstraZeneca's Seroqueland Eli Lilly's Zyprexa.

The three drugs are among the top sellers in their class with more than 14.5 billion dollars in sales worldwide in 2007.

Some doctors have warned against these drugs being prescribed "off-label" or for conditions not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

That includes Alzheimer's and hyperactivity in young people.

"Current users of typical antipsychotic drugs and of atypical antipsychotic drugs in the study cohort had a similar dose-related increased risk of sudden cardiac death," said the authors of the study led by Dr Wayne Ray of Vanderbilt University Medical School in Tennessee.

"This finding suggests that with regard to this adverse effect, the atypical antipsychotic drugs are no safer than the older drugs."

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The only time ull ever be forced to take drugs, is if you have a mental illness - and all of them have an increased risk of DEATH.
Nice. Good to see human rights are being observed. If your a moderate to mild risk to yourself, they give you a drug, which is a risk to yourself. Its ironic, but somehow not funny.

Seroquel is being prescribed for anything and everything. My Pdoc gave it to me for my OCD and while I can see his logic it made my heart race and I mean race, I was shit scared. I mean it's given for sleep, anxiety (current trial going to get official general anxiety disorder treatment label) and even depression, not psychotic depression just depression plus loads more. I'm all for off label scripts but only as a last resort for AAP's for anxiety etc.

I could've told you that from experience. I've been on all of them. They all have fun little "heart-tics" along with them.

im currently on Paxil... and it sucks, the whole no sex drive is killing me along with me having a hard time cumming...

XperiencedMe2 said:

im currently on Paxil... and it sucks, the whole no sex drive is killing me along with me having a hard time cumming...

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Get some Provigil, works for me anyway.

nice to know-just got a script for seroquel the other day-been feeling quite strange ever since, almost passed out several times yesterday too.

DJ25 said:

Get some Provigil, works for me anyway.

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what does provigil do with anxiety....or depression? i looked it up its more for sleeping problems... i personaly have a anxiety disorder

Seroquel works fine for me. 200mgs a day.

^^^yeah....except for this...

sudden cardiac death

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lol. I guess if you think its worth that risk....?

Zyprexa was a miracle pill till the 20 lbs gained in a month came along.Being diabetic already that was hell on my body and I will never take another antipsychotic unless its life or death.

dude i hate to say this but doctors and pschiatrist piss me the fuck off. ok whenver a new drug comes out its hailed as miracle cure and insanely overprescribed to everyone until a few decades later people see how horrible it can be. i seem to remmber heroin and cocaine advertised as "miracle cures". then that didnt work out. then barbituates and benzos were given out like candy. looks like we are rethinking that now. nowdays if u dont have a 4.5 gpa u can basically go to ur doctor and get amphetamines. and the newest is ssri. anxiety, depressed, bored, u need ana ssri! i bet in 30 yrs they will finalyl realize ssri's arent the ultimate drug.

Drael said:

The only time ull ever be forced to take drugs, is if you have a mental illness - and all of them have an increased risk of DEATH.
Nice. Good to see human rights are being observed. If your a moderate to mild risk to yourself, they give you a drug, which is a risk to yourself. Its ironic, but somehow not funny.

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It is definitely not funny to me. I'm bipolar and Seroquel has helped me tremendously; it's the first medication that has actually helped me, and now I find out that it might be causing me harm! It's a weird situation to be in. Obviously, I don't want to be manic and going in and out of hospitals and doing very dangerous and strange things that I'd have to come to grips with, but I also sort of want to be healthy and not die young of heart failure.

I've read some other reports linking Seroquel to type II diabetes (Maybe type I?) but that seemed to be among a very small sampling of people.

Sigh. I'm going to be bringing this up with the Doc. some time this week. Seroquel works perfectly for me, though, and causes no side effects... except now for this fucking news about heart disease I'm worried because I take 750mg of Seroquel throughout the day. Maybe we can try stepping the dose down, but it seemed to be the only thing I responded to which brought me down from my mania during my last hospitalization.

Stay away from the medical/pharmaceutical industry if you want to live longer. You are much better off self-medicating with natural plants.

These drugs have risks just like all drugs do but seroquel has saved my life any number of times. I think they are overprescribed but if you have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder these drugs can be lifesavers.

Stay away from the medical/pharmaceutical industry if you want to live longer. You are much better off self-medicating with natural plants.

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Just because a drug is natural means fuck all. Datura is natural and it is dangerous to say the least yet LSD is fully synthetic and is one of the safest drugs around. I hate it when people throw that stupid argument out there.

Bottom line is some conditions need medications. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression are 3 of them.

I was diagnosed with bipolar. lol. Have any of you guys ever read what freud or jung say about mental illness?

Saying you have a mental illness, without a blood test for it, based on behaviours, without a preposed mechanism is very plainly unscientific. (And originally based on the notion of hysteria in women no less - from the greeks).

My opinion is that bipolar is a natural healing mechanism for unconcious crisis, as proposed by both jung and freud. Halting said process prevents true healing from ever taking place - suppressing the symptoms until your completely unaware of you inner processes.

I dont take the medicines. I havent had an episode for years - and i never will again - using mental techniques such as grounding activities, rationalising, being in the moment, and other age old mystic methods of dealing with what was once known as "kundalini". (This is an emerging method in psychiatry, but very new, known as "mindfulness" and "dialectic therapy", basically just a distillation of very ancient eastern and western esoteric techniques!)

I feel very sad when i think of all those on medicines with "bipolar". You have no hope of cure ever, just symptom supression. Even some schizophrenics have been cured by these methods. But its not like these uninformed unscientific doctors give you much choice. And in todays climate, without much research its very hard to find the nessasary treatment alternatives. (Ive pretty much gone it alone, but that isnt entirely safe for everyone, you need support to do the treatment safely and effectively, and in particular a very safe, conforting and supportive enviroment for you to slowly process your emotions and subconcious experiences)

Did you know, 60% of people with "psychosis" report "personal insight"? And thats without guidance, and is pretty odd for a "disease". Think about it.

Sad. Sad. Sad. Its like the old doctors and their leeches and skull drilling. Well it seems to work.....We have no comprehension of the actual issue, but...

Im very grateful i studied both the subconcious and psychology formally. If i hadent, i might have brought into all their BS when i was weak emotionally and vulnerable.

Another alternative to drug therapies apart from kundalini techniques (and the modern dialetic therapy and mindfulness), and very rare psychodynamic approaches (freud and even better jung, but rare in practice because psychodynamic therapists dont often follow what freud and jung said about mental illness) is "hearing voices". Its quite effective in managing internal voices, if thats an issue for you.

Do some research on the net, youll be suprised at how many alternatives to drugs their are. And how many alternative explainations there are for the phenomena.

Taking my own path saved my life, maybe it can yours too. Of course you may feel safer using these techniques on medications, but remember that these drugs suppress the unconcious...so a lower dose is preferable, if you want to face those inner demons and angels and let them go. Nice "coventional" options are psychodynamic therapy, dialetic therapy, mindfulness. But i highly recommed looking into things like esoteric methods for stablising the mind, which are very time tested and IMO informed.

Paranoid Android, I am glad to see someone else with sense enough to know that the 'natural remedies' scam is all bullshit.

Secondly I am a bit sad that they did not mention that the likelihood of EPS and tardive dyskenesia and such ARE lower with these drugs. There are people that need to be hospitalized due to their mental illness. This is not an easy thing to do I might like to add, as someone needs to be an immediate risk to themselves and others as determined by a judge, and the burden of proof for this is not easy to meet (at least in WA state where I live). And these medications really are a miracle drug for some people, especially people with severe mental illness like schizophrenia. However I do agree that these meds are prescribed too frequently and should be reserved for the more severe mental illnesses that they have been shown to help ie schizoprenia, manic-depressive etc. not for a sleep aid.

The real issue with mental health care is that the funding is constantly cut, and thus the employees have less time for each patient and have to rely more on medication. A close family member of mine is a psychiatric nurse and she is upset that she no longer is able to do counseling and things like that often because the resources are stretched so thin (ie 2 nurses for somewhere around 30-40 patients). This is a result of the fact that the mentally ill are frequently impoverished/homeless and rarely can pay for their hospital stays They are also a group that the general public often sees as unimportant (ideas like mental illness being fake or that depressed people should just 'suck it up' are rampant). Once again, the poor get fucked.

paranoid android said:

These drugs have risks just like all drugs do but seroquel has saved my life any number of times. I think they are overprescribed but if you have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder these drugs can be lifesavers.

Just because a drug is natural means fuck all. Datura is natural and it is dangerous to say the least yet LSD is fully synthetic and is one of the safest drugs around. I hate it when people throw that stupid argument out there.

Bottom line is some conditions need medications. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression are 3 of them.

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I agree completely. It bothers me to see so many people who don't believe that mental illness is real (read below) or who refuse to accept their diagnosis in light of so much evidence for it.

Seroquel was my savior along with oxcarbazepine (Trileptal). These are the first two medications which work perfectly for me. I know I'm lucky. I know that a lot of people with bipolar disorder won't accept their illness or don't ever find meds that work for them, so I am very happy that I function perfectly with these medications. I'm doing well in college, finishing up my first degree, and I am so damned content with life now.

I never realized how much of a hold my mental illness had on my life until I realized I definitely have bipolar and I have to take my meds and go to therapy. I have no idea why so many people here just want to brush off their mental illness and rather think that they are totally fine. They are denying themselves of a full, good, productive life and I really feel for them and my pity goes out to them.

Mental illness isn't just "all in your head". There is a biological component. The link between all of the mental illnesses out there presently eludes science and medicine, but we are on the verge of new breakthrough discoveries every day. I'm just glad that I'm not one of those people who thinks psych meds are bullshit: They've saved my life. I'm glad to see that I'm not alone, paranoid android.

Drael said:

I was diagnosed with bipolar. lol. Have any of you guys ever read what freud or jung say about mental illness?

Saying you have a mental illness, without a blood test for it, based on behaviours, without a preposed mechanism is very plainly unscientific. (And originally based on the notion of hysteria in women no less - from the greeks).

My opinion is that bipolar is a natural healing mechanism for unconcious crisis, as proposed by both jung and freud. Halting said process prevents true healing from ever taking place - suppressing the symptoms until your completely unaware of you inner processes.

I dont take the medicines. I havent had an episode for years - and i never will again...

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Sorry, dude, but if you are bipolar, you will have more episodes of mania, depression, and mixed states, and you will be hospitalized, and you won't be happier for it. You would be wise to start taking medications. Sure, there are no blood or brain tests to diagnose mental illness, but mental illness exists and it is out there and I have it. I've seen other people who have it. There is no denying it. If you are denying it you are living in your own little world which shall soon crumble when you least expect it. You are doing harm to yourself by refusing treatment.

BTW, Freud and Jung have contributed major key ideas to psychology and psychiatry, but they are by no means "in the now". Their contributions and ideas are archaic and have psychology is so much different today, it has evolved and changed so much and we know so much more know. I recommend that you stop trying to rationalize and intellectualize yourself out of your situation. Please seek therapy and proper medical treatment before something terrible happens to you.

I stopped my meds when I was 19. It wasn't until I was 26 that I had another manic psychotic episode, was hospitalized, and I realized that I definitely am bipolar type I and I have to take my meds to stay mentally healthy. You will find out the hard way, too, mark my words. I don't want anyone to have to suffer through what I did. Learn from my mistakes: Take your meds!

Drael: The last time I had a manic episode with full psychosis I dived into a lake that I could have drowned in thinking that I was Jesus Christ and I had to baptize myself, that nothing could harm me, that I was immortal. It was a miracle that I survived, and you call this a natural healing mechanism? I'm lucky I didn't get tetanus from walking around in the woods and in the sewers all day and I'm lucky I found my way to a hospital to get proper treatment

I recently read a rolling stone article on Zyprexa and the pharmeceutical industry and its an eye opener.

Amazing what they can get away with. Specifically, Zyprexa is no more effective than old drugs, yet is more expensive and can cause terrible side effects. Yet it sells 4.8 billion dollars a year... All because of false marketing and government deregulation.

Terrible.

I have formally studied both the unconcious, and psychology. Im am fully aware of how primitive their understanding of this phenomena is - from an academic perspective.

Be safe in the knowledge, i am not operating under some vague delusion (as if one should have to justify such!), but have made a concious and informed decision based on facts.

If you wish to explore my POV further with me, PM me and ill be happy to elaborate on Jungs more in depth veiw of mental illness, and the academic origins and history of the modern concept of mental illness. (from hysteria from the greeks, to the invention of lithium in the early 1900s)

I am also sorry you are so traumatised from your experience, that you wont consider what lessons might be had from it. This is so often the case nowadays - and part and parcel of being faced with inner demons.

I am very glad to have been introduced to dialectic therapy and mindfulness (while new to the west, this is a rising mainstream therapy) by my first psych nurse. I strongly suggest you research dbt (dialectic therapy), mindfulness, hearing voices etc therapies before you form an opinion.

Id be happy to explain.

Heres some links to get you started: (The list of references and links i could give you is quite large, but this is a good starter or explaination of each therapy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavioral_therapy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness

http://www.streetdirectory.com/trav...ion/a_jungian_approach_to_mental_illness.html

BTW you seem to assume i am avocating a no therapy approach. I do not recommend people go off medication without suitable alternative therapies. To do so, without proper means of managing said phenomenon, would be IMO very unwise. Given the fact that alternatives are in the western world, either new or rare, and true understanding of mind even rarer, i would generally advise to stay on your medications, and discuss alternative therapies with your psychiatrist. They should know about the basic DBT, mindfulness and hearing voices - these are big new therapies. If anyone here is suffering for mental illness, im happy to offer my experiences to help also..

However, on this matter, i would also like to stress that treatment options, and a persons own health and safety are issues for that person. Be active in your own choices when in comes to treatment for a mental illness. Just because you suffer from a taboo illness does not mean your rights should always come second......if your responsible in your choices, you should be able to explore the full range of options pertaining to your personal mental health.

In practice these methods are more work than taking a pill. But in practice they also give you more insight as to what actually happened, and a chance of improving your coping skills.

In a way thats similar to depression. You can just take prozac, or you can get therapy and try and understand whats happening.

Peace.