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Psychiatrists 50 years from today may look back and ask, did the drugs they used to treat brains harm the body?

Controversial new research suggests antidepressants dispensed by the millions in Canada increase the risk of dying early.

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Prominent psychiatrists not involved in the work called the paper premature and alarmist, arguing antidepressants can be “life savers.”

But the study’s lead author suspects the ubiquitous pills take more lives than they save, and that one way they might take lives is through their effect on platelets, tiny cells in the bloodstream that form clots to stop bleeding.

Platelets need the brain chemical serotonin to function properly. The most popular antidepressants on the market block the absorption of serotonin.

The increased risk of death was modest — fewer than three extra deaths per year for every 1,000 people on the drugs, according to the researchers’ calculations

The result, the researchers speculate, is that the drugs effectively act like blood thinners, increasing the risk of abnormal bleeding and hemorrhagic stroke.