It’s escitalopram (Lexapro aka Cipralex) – hurrah! That is if you believe a meta-analysis just published in The Lancet. Should you believe it? The Lancet‘s a highly-regarded journal. However, this paper certainly bears a close reading.
The question of whether any antidepressant works “better” than any other is an old one. There are many who hold that all antidepressants are pretty much equal. Then again, there are people who deny that they really work at all. If you think about it, it would be pretty odd if tianeptine, a drug which enhances the reuptake of serotonin, was exactly as good as tranylcypromine, which blocks the breakdown of serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine. They work in completely different ways, so one of them probably ought to work better. Every psychiatrist I’ve spoken to believes that some drugs are better than others – but they rarely agree on which ones are better. So there’s room for more knowledge here.
