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Antidepressants Cause Your Arteries to Thicken 400% More Than Aging

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Mike Barrett
NaturalSociety
January 6, 2012
Depression may be the worst emotional experience there is. The causes are many, and it often drives people to zig-zag past everything that matters and into a pill bottle of pharmaceutical ‘treatments’. But these solutions offered by the pharmaceutical industry are nothing but a sham, and their antidepressant products only make you more depressed and trigger suicidal thoughts. One study has also found that antidepressants cause your arteries to thicken 400% more than aging – a main factor in the thickening of the arteries.

Antidepressants Linked to Heart Disease and Stroke

A study conducted by the Emory University School of Medicine included over 500 middle-aged male twins, both who served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. The researchers noted that among 59 pairs of twins where only one brother was on antidepressants, the one ingesting the drugs usually had higher carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) – the thickness of main arteries in the neck.

“One of the strongest and best-studied factors that thickens someone’s arteries is age, and that happens at around 10 microns per year…In our study, users of antidepressants see an average 40 micron increase in IMT, so their carotid arteries are in effect four years older,” says the first study author Amit Shah, MD.

The most commonly prescribed antidepressants are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as Prozac. Researchers found that participants who used SSRIs, which were 60 percent of those taking antidepressants, had higher carotid IMT. This may be due to the effects antidepressants have on serotonin levels, which is a chemical in your body that helps some brain cells communicate.
These findings are just one more thing to add to the long list of why people shouldn’t be taking many harmful pharmaceuticals. More than 1 in 10 Americans are on these suicide-linked antidepressants even though they do not work and only make the problem worse. Instead of resorting to these pharmaceuticals, try supplementing with vitamin D, as it has been shown to defeat depression naturally. It is also key to de-stress the brain, as depression is always cultivated from stress-related aspects of your life.