More than a decade ago, Dr. Yolande Lucire started noticing high rates of hospital admission and suicide among patients treated with antidepressant medications and antipsychotics.
Since then, she has gathered evidence that makes it clear that many people being treated with antidepressants can’t metabolize them due to common genetic mutations.
Dr. Lucire has been campaigning to introduce ways of minimizing over-prescription of antidepressants.
“[The enzyme] CYP2D6 (cytochrome P450 2D6) acts on one-fourth of all prescription drugs, including the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), tricyclic antidepressants (TCA), beta blockers, opiates, neuroleptics, antiarrhythmics and a variety of toxic plant substances.
Up to 15 percent of the population has a slow acting form of this enzyme and many of these a fast acting form.
Thirty-five percent are carriers of a non-functional CYP2D6 allele, especially elevating the risk of adverse drug reactions when these individuals are taking multiple drugs…
This means that potentially up to 1 billion people on the planet cannot metabolize and eliminate the commonly prescribed drugs from their bodies”.