Antidepressants are one of the most widely prescribed drugs in England. In 2018, over 70-million antidepressant prescriptions were dispensed. The striking rise in prescribing (nearly doubling in a decade) is due mainly to long-term treatment rather than increased diagnosis. However, little is known about the health consequences of long-term use of these medicines.

Researchers from Bristol’s Centre for Academic Mental Health aimed to find out if long-term antidepressant use (over five and ten years) was associated with the onset of six health problems: diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, stroke and related syndromes, and two mortality outcomes (death from cardiovascular disease and from any cause).

The researchers found that, once pre-existing risk factors had been taken into account, long-term antidepressant use was associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, and an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease and from any cause. The risks were greater for non-SSRI antidepressants (mirtazapine, venlafaxine, duloxetine, trazodone), with the use of such drugs associated with a two-fold increased risk of coronary heart disease, cardiovascular mortality, and all-cause mortality at ten years.

Read the full University of Bristol news story

Antidepressant use and risk of adverse outcomes: a population-based cohort study’ by Narinder Bansal et al. in the British Journal of Psychiatry [open access]