Zoloft and Heart Disease
Have you noticed people have been more wound up in recent years? Maybe you’ve noticed it in personal interactions, or how the drivers on the road seem to be a little crazier. You’re right, they are a little crazier right now – please be attentive and alert while driving! During COVID, when many people weren’t going to work and some weren’t even leaving the house, do you know our car fatality rate actually increased by almost 7%? In 2021, it increased again, by 12%. Even though you probably grew up hearing people say, “Back in my day, drivers were better!” and took it with a grain of salt, in this case it’s actually true!
Because we’re more anxious and depressed in recent years, and more medicated with drugs like Zoloft than ever! By taking car fatalities as a metric of how impatient and agitated we are, we could expand that out to broadly assume that Americans, and the world, are more anxious and depressed now than we’ve been in quite some time. Western medicine’s solution for this is an anti-depressant, and the most common class of anti-depressants are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, known as SSRI’s. Yet even though they’re one of the most commonly prescribed medications in America and almost 25% of American adults are prescribed them, and more Americans are filling and re-filling the prescription than ever before. If everyone’s doing it, it’s important to ask – are they really safe? They wouldn’t be prescribed if they weren’t safe, right?
Back when I was in 6th grade, my geometry teacher Mrs. Crawford taught us something I’ve always remembered: “Enough statistics gathered, anything can be proven.” She later went to go to work for the CIA – she was a smart cookie! I’ve paid attention to this over the course of my life, noting that most stories can be told a number of different ways, and to make sure I pay attention to the motivations of the person telling the story. Although my nature is to be very Pollyanna, the honest engineer side of me acknowldges the truth of something my Uncle David says. He’s also a very smart man, with a degree in international finance and a lengthy career working for World Bank. So it’s probably no surprise that his words of wisdom are, “Follow the Money!” He’s another smart cookie!
Technical Info & Why Posts are Censored
This next bit is a disclaimer and explanation about why my video is on a different platform today, and why I’ll have to post future videos in this way. If you’d like to skip that, just scroll down to “the specific issues with anti-depressants” section.
***All of my other videos to date have been posted on YouTube. All of the research I have done on this article is from PubMed, the recognized library of medical research in America. It is public information, and as usual I site my sources at the end of this article. My topics are medical, not political. Today though, the thin line between the two has disappeared. The video you see posted here had to be posted on Rumble, and you may have to create an account to see it. I’m new to this world, and I don’t know if you’ll have to do that or not. In case this is an inconvenience, I feel you deserve an explanation. YouTube would not allow it to be published even though it is all public information and there is no controversy around these topics. It is simply fact: Tri-cyclic antidepressants affect the heart so much they’re tied to sudden death syndrome; SSRI’s affect the heart, too, just not as severely (more on this below). Even though these are clear facts and public information, YouTube censored this video and refused to allow it to be posted even after multiple attempts – and that is why my newsletter is late this week.
Follow the Money
Why would YouTube censor medical information? Here’s Uncle David, telling me to follow the money. I did. Here’s what I learned:
- Google owns YouTube.
- One of the five largest shareholders of Google (parent company is called Alphabet) is the investment firm Vanguard group.
- Vanguard’s largest controlling factor is the pharmaceutical industry.
By following the money, now the censorship makes sense, and why I couldn’t post my Zoloft and Heart Disease video on YouTube. It’s bad for the business of selling drugs.
Americans don’t like to be censored. In America, we vote with our dollars. As a small business owner in practice for over a decade, I simply wouldn’t be able to stay in business if people didn’t get results.
Let’s get back to the purpose of this article: Anti-depressants wouldn’t be prescribed if they weren’t safe, right?
In the video above, I share some of the specific issues with anti-depressants.
- One class of anti-depressants are Tri-cyclic anti-depressants and they are: imipramine, nortriptyline (Pamelor), amitriptyline, doxepin and desipramine (Norpramin). If your medication ends in “ine” it is likely a TCA anti-depressant. They have a very nasty side effect: sudden death syndrome! Also dizziness, fainting seizures, and weight gain. How does that happen? It happens because they lengthen the QT part of the PQRST, which is tied to fainting, lack of consciousness, and sudden death syndrome. It looks like this:
- These side effects are so bad that is it any wonder that when SSRI’s were invented in the 80’s, they became quickly very very popular?! When you’re comparing the safety of something to, say, a man-eating shark, a lot of things look safer!
Why is Zoloft linked to Heart Disease?
Here’s what Pub Med has to say about long term use of SSRI’s.
- First, what medications are SSRI’s?
- Citalopram (Celexa)
- Escitalopram (Lexapro)
- Fluoxetine (Prozac)
- Paroxetine (Paxil, Pexeva)
- Sertraline (Zoloft)
- SSRI’s also elongate the QT curve, but not as much. That’s why the cardiac issues with SSRI’s are usually more tame. So rather than sudden death, you’re just looking at the risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack) and coronary heart disease.
- SSRI’s double the odds of upper GI bleeding, and this increases with NSAIDs (Advil, Aleve, Ibuprofin), anti-coagulants, and anti-platelets.
- They increase risk of bleeding with surgeries.
- Long term use, which is anything over 6 months, is tied to a change in thyroid markers: T4 and T3.
- A Johns Hopkins study linked Zoloft to birth defects like autism, ADD/ADHD, and preterm births, and also club foot, heart defects, and fatal lung problem.
My personal Prime Directive is that I like people to know what decision they’re making when they’re making it. Imagine for a moment that your doctor was 100% transparent with you, and when you were sharing your depressed or anxious feelings, they said, “Ok. I’ve got something we can try. It’s going to increase your risk of heart attack, and of an upper GI bleed. It’s going to affect your thyroid, and you’re probably going to gain weight. Sound good?” You might very well say, “No, thank you!” I don’t meant to tick you off, but if the person you’re trusting your health to is deeply entrenched in a system that is strongly financially motivated to sell you drugs, they aren’t going to lead with what can go wrong. You need to look out for yourself, and put at least as much research into that pill you’re taking as you do a car or a house. If the house comes with termites, maybe it’s not worth the steal of a deal you’re getting on it.
Why Do SSRI’s work? – from an Oriental Medicine perspective
Oriental Medicine offers a rich diagnostic process for both anxiety and depression. Imbalances in the liver and the heart lead to diagnoses such as Liver Qi stagnation and Heart Heat. Excess heat in the body can dry up the fluids, making us feel scattered and anxious; toxins that build up in the Liver will tend to make us feel cranky. Let’s just take that heart heat diagnose. Heat makes things go faster, right? So it makes sense that someone with anxiety may have a heart that beats a little fast at times, and might have heart palpitations at times. But is there a safer way to do that than TCA’s and SSRI’s?
The Good News! A Holistic Approach
A single example of the MANY treatments available that help mental health is this: One of my very favorite formulas for this is called “Heavenly Emperor’s Special Pill to Tonify the Heart.” Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it! It is! If it’s good enough for the emperor, then it’s good! This formula clears heat from the heart and nourishes heart blood, and it can be a good fit for people who feel scattered and tired from heart heat. There are several others in this class, and it’s important to fine-tune the exact right formula for you – that’s why you want to work with a board certified Oriental Medicine doctor like me, so that you can rest assured that you are getting the best quality herbs at the proper dosage.
How do Oriental herbs work, and what are those formulas all about? I’m so glad you asked! Below is a video on just that topic! :-). I LOVE Oriental Medicine herbal formulas! And I love helping people with herbs, foods, and natural means! I offer a free 5-minute consult and I have openings for new appointments available within two weeks! Oh! And we have our referral contest going on right now! For every person you refer who books an appointment by Feb. 17, you get entered into a drawing to go on our Sailboat Cruise with Dr. C & Longevity Wellness! :-). We’d love to hang out with you! 🙂
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