♦ Prozac  introduction

Prozac is one of the world's most widely prescribed antidepressants, it is a proprietary name for the antidepressant drug fluoxetine and belongs to global pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.

Prozac - chemical name: Fluoxetine hydrochloride is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class. Fluoxetine is approved for the treatment of clinical depression (including pediatric depression), obsessive-compulsive disorder (in both adult and pediatric populations), bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, panic disorder and premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

It is famous and very popular but now we know, in result of scientist researches, that Prozac's medical influence isn't so good as Prozac's producer was trying to persuade us.

♦ Important News

"Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.

The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.

When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved - but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs"

Read more: The Guardian

Research article: Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration at PLoS Medicine

♦ Prozac  controversy

Millions people around the world trusted information that Prozac can help and taken it, bringing it's producer Eli Lilly company billions of dollars income. Now scientists and researches show that using Prozac may be waste of money and time. An an analysis of dozens of studies involving thousands of patients revealed the most widely-prescribed anti-depressants like Prozac work no better than placebo.

UK and US researchers led by Irving Kirsch of Hull University, UK, studied all clinical trials submitted to the FDA for the licensing of the four SSRIs: fluoxetine (Prozac), venlafaxine, nefazodone, and paroxetine (Seroxat or Paxil), for which full datasets were available.

They conclude that, "compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression".

There are also many other controversies and adverse effects against using Prozac and similar anti-depressants as discontinuation syndrome, increased the risk of suicide, possibility of sexual dysfunction as anorgasmia, reduced libido and impotence, akathisia - syndrome characterized by unpleasant sensations of "inner" restlessness that manifests itself with an inability to sit still or remain motionless and many more.