Dementia and ADHD medication criticised

People should stop taking antidepressants and drugs for dementia and ADHD as their benefits are exaggerated and they would be healthier in the long-term without them, a professor has suggested.

Peter Gotzsche said psychiatric drugs are responsible for the deaths of more than half a million people aged 65 and older each year in the West. Writing in the British Medical Journal he said: “Their benefits would need to be colossal to justify this, but they are minimal.”

Prof Gotzsche said drug trials do not accurately evaluate the effects of many types of medication, as patients are usually taking others at the same time.