Millions of Britons taking antidepressants have been ‘sold a myth’, warns leading expert

Instead, she argues, the drugs may relieve distress by numbing people’s emotions, dulling happiness, excitement, love and sexual feelings as well as sadness and anxiety.

The claims are made in a forthcoming interview for the Care Visions Talks podcast, run by children’s residential care company Care Visions, to be released this autumn.

Her assertion also lies at the heart of a major new edition of Prof Moncrieff’s book, Chemically Imbalanced, published later this month.

Record numbers - more than nine million people in England, or around one in five adults - are now prescribed antidepressants.

Prof Moncrieff, a psychiatrist and professor at University College London, told Care Visions Talks: “The way the drugs are marketed is not supported by evidence and I don’t think that’s a controversial thing to say.”

Prof Moncrieff led a major review which brought together research examining possible links between the ‘happy hormone’ serotonin and depression.

Professor Joanna Moncrieff warned 'The way the drugs are marketed is not supported by evidence'

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She said: “We found that none of those areas provided convincing or consistent evidence of there being a link between low serotonin and depression.”

Prof Moncrieff is now calling for a “revolution in mental health treatment”, with greater focus on why an individual is distressed and wider access to therapy, exercise and social support.

She said depression was “almost always a reaction to things that are happening in people’s lives”, although genes and biology could influence an individual’s vulnerability. I hope that in the future people will realise that this huge experiment in medicalising our emotions and our life difficulties is a mistake. There are better ways to deal with these problems and doling out brain and mind-altering drugs to a massive proportion of the population is not a useful thing to do.”

The chemical-imbalance theory emerged in the 1960s after researchers discovered that antidepressants altered chemicals in the brain.

Scientists questioned whether the drugs might work by correcting an underlying abnormality.

But Prof Moncrieff said research has not established that depression is caused by a serotonin deficiency.

The explanation became widely known during the introduction of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, in the late 1980s and 1990s.

SSRIs block the reabsorption of serotonin by nerve cells, leaving more of the chemical available in the brain. However, Prof Moncrieff says this does not by itself show that people with depression had too little serotonin beforehand.

She said her review showed individual studies have produced differing results, with some detecting variations in serotonin activity and others finding no difference.

However, Prof Moncrieff, an expert adviser to the Beyond Pills All-Party Parliamentary Group - which aims to stop UK healthcare from over-relying on pills - insisted antidepressants were not simply dummy pills.

Many psychiatrists agree that depression cannot be reduced to a simple shortage of serotonin, yet argue this does not mean antidepressants do not work or that biology plays no part in the illness

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She said: “They are active drugs and they change the normal state of our brain chemistry.”

But she argued their effects were often misunderstood, adding: “One of the changes that antidepressants are known to have is that they blunt emotions or numb people’s emotions. They numb positive emotions and negative emotions.”

Prof Moncrieff said the distinction mattered because patients would weigh up treatment differently if told a drug altered normal brain function rather than repaired a proven defect.

She said: “If you’re told there’s a chemical abnormality in your brain and we have a drug that can put it right, of course it makes sense to take the drug, doesn’t it?”

But she added: “Antidepressants do have effects, they do numb emotions, but there’s no good evidence that that is actually helpful for people, particularly in the long run.”

Prof Moncrieff highlighted side effects such as sexual dysfunction, weight gain, fatigue, sleep problems and withdrawal symptoms linked to the drugs. Some patients who stop treatment also experience dizziness, severe anxiety and “brain zaps”, she said, with a minority reporting severe problems lasting months or years.

She expressed particular concern about young people because their brains and sexuality were still developing. She said antidepressants had not been shown to reduce suicide and could slightly increase suicidal thoughts and self-harm among young people.

Prof Moncrieff’s conclusions are fiercely disputed. Many psychiatrists agree that depression cannot be reduced to a simple shortage of serotonin, yet argue this does not mean antidepressants do not work or that biology plays no part in the illness.

A landmark Lancet analysis found all 21 antidepressants studied were more effective than dummy pills for adults with major depressive disorder during severe episodes.

Its authors said the results provided evidence that antidepressants work, although the average benefits were generally modest and varied between drugs.

Critics have also challenged Prof Moncrieff’s serotonin review, arguing its methods and conclusions went too far and that serotonin may still be involved through more complex processes linked to serotonin levels.

Patients also frequently report that antidepressants transformed or saved their lives.

NHS guidance says antidepressants should only be offered as a first-line treatment for more severe depression unless the patient chooses them after being fully informed of the side effects of the drugs and other options.

The drugs are not recommended for treating depression in under-18s, although they may be used with another treatment.

It also warns patients not to stop taking them suddenly or without first speaking to their doctor.