When it comes to depression and anxiety, a prescription may not be the only answer. Deepak Chopra explains how positive lifestyle changes can have powerful benefits if you're struggling with depression and anxiety.
Most of us have been depressed at one time during our lives, or know someone who is seriously depressed. When Prozac burst on the scene 20 years ago, it seemed that a major step had been achieved. More people responded well to the drug and fine-tuning it was easier than with past antidepressants.

Since then, taking antidepressants has become as normal as taking aspirin for a headache. Yet the ebullience of the Prozac generation was steadily undercut. Many patients didn't respond to the point that it is now conceded that more than half of depressed people may not benefit from any standard antidepressant. Along with alarming statistics about violence and suicide associated with these drugs, the treatment of depression has become increasingly shaky.

Now a major study has concluded that the entire approach of Prozac and related drugs has been wrong from the start. That's a very big "oops" on the part of pharmaceutical companies and the research they use as justification for their billion-dollar drugs.

Professor Eva Redei, who is a leading depression researcher at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, has just burst not one but two bubbles, in the form of long-held beliefs about depression.

What are the two widely held beliefs about the root of depression?
Published 12/02/2009

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