And that’s not even including the people who take these meds and actually kill themselves — a known side effect of some antidepressants.

Researchers looked at data from seven studies that compared either the drug Cymbalta or another SSRI antidepressant to a placebo and found that 76.3 percent of the patients responded to anything at all — including the placebo.

They claim people who took the med did better than those on the placebo — but then again, they only looked at six studies. Other studies have found that placebos work every bit as well as common antidepressants.

But the point here isn’t the remarkable power of the placebo — it’s that at least the placebo didn’t make the depression worse. You can’t say the same about meds: Up to a fifth of all patients who took antidepressants ended up with worse depression.

Since close to 30 million Americans take antidepressants each year, that means nearly 6 million people are actually getting worse instead of better because of the “cure.”

Some cure.

And along with making the depression worse, common antidepressant drugs have been linked to stroke, suicide, personality changes, cognitive decline and sex problems… just to name a few of the biggies.

I know that beating depression isn’t always easy — but you don’t have to take those risks to do it. As I’ve told you in the past, St. John’s wort has proven to be at least as effective as meds — at least as effective as meds when they actually work, I should add — with very little risk.

Another natural option is the amino acid SAMe, which is so effective it’s widely used instead of meds in Europe. In addition, exercise, talk therapy and magnetic therapy have all shown they can help beat depression — including the kinds of serious depression you think you’ll never get over.

For more on the best ways to beat depression without going near a pill bottle, visit the Web site of the Health Sciences Institute and enter “depression” into the find a cure box.

But it turns out resveratrol, the famous “red wine antioxidant,” can actually trick the body into thinking it’s getting some actual exercise — giving you a big-time metabolic boost with every little sip.

In just 30 days, 11 obese-but-healthy volunteers — as healthy as obese people can be, anyway — given 150 mg of resveratrol a day had real and measurable changes throughout their bodies.

They shaved five points off their blood pressure, lowered their blood sugar, and even reduced their levels of liver fat. In fact, just about the only thing it didn’t do would be one thing you’d really hope for the most — because none of the volunteers actually lost any weight.

I know. So much for the “red wine diet.”

But while they didn’t look any different from the outside, what took place on the inside was nothing short of amazing: The researchers wrote in Cell Metabolism that the volunteers had dramatically slower metabolisms during sleep.

These were the kinds of changes normally seen in people who try the impossible-to-follow ultra-low calorie diet… except these volunteers didn’t cut back on their calories at all.

The only “catch” here is that you can’t expect to get these types of benefits from red wine alone — because while it might be the tastiest way to get the antioxidant, it’s not actually the best way to get it.

In fact, you’d need between 50 and 100 glasses of red wine a day to get the 150 mg of resveratrol used in the study!

So clearly, if you want the benefits of resveratrol, you’re going to have to invest in a quality supplement or an antioxidant blend with resveratrol in it. It’s worth the money: Other studies have shown that it can protect the heart, save your vision, reduce blood sugar levels and even help you live longer.

But don’t toss the wine, either. It’s loaded with polyphenols that can boost your heart health and stimulate your immune system.

And booze in general is packed with benefits: Studies have also shown that moderate drinkers who enjoy any type of alcohol live longer, healthier lives than people who don’t drink.

So get a little exercise tonight and raise a glass to your lips. It’s the best workout of all.

Resveratrol isn’t the only way to boost your health and longevity — keep reading for something even simpler.

All you need is a new approach: either more activity in the form of exercise, or less activity in the form of relaxation.

Either way, you come out ahead — because the latest research shows both of those approaches are every bit as effective for migraine relief as topiramate, the anti-seizure drug often given to patients who battle these debilitating headaches.

Swedish researchers randomly assigned 91 women suffering from migraines to either 40 minutes of exercise on a stationary bike three times a week, relaxation therapy or topiramate — and after three months, the benefits were even across the board.

Some women in each group even saw improvements of up to 75 percent, according to the details in the journal Cephalalgia.

But while both exercise and relaxation therapy come with other benefits — they can fight stress, lift the mood and boost overall health — the drug comes with an endless series of risks.

Eight of the women who took the med — a third of the group overall — experienced side effects, versus none in the other groups. And for three of the women, the side effects were so bad they had to quit the study.

There’s no word on what specific side effects the women experienced, but topiramate has been linked to kidney stones, urinary problems, loss of vision, vertigo, back pain, depression and more.

Now, if you’re like me, the idea of any time at all on a stationary bike — much less 40 minutes every other day — sounds a lot like torture.

The good news is, studies have consistently shown that you don’t have to get gym-style exercise to get the benefits of exercise… and I’d be surprised if that didn’t apply to the migraine-beating benefits as well.

Just find something you enjoy doing that gets your body moving and your blood pumping — everything from sports to gardening counts.

And if that doesn’t work for you and you’ve had no luck with relaxation therapy, you still don’t need to spin the wheel of side effects with a migraine med.

As I’ve told you before, there are plenty of safe and natural options for beating the pain — and you can get all the details, for free, in my online archives:

• Rose-tinted lenses can help slash pain levels by up to 70 percent.
• A form of magnetic stimulation called sTMS has been shown to bring real relief to nearly 40 percent of migraine sufferers.
• Magnesium, B vitamins and feverfew have all shown they can help ease the pain.

In fact, too much exercise can be as bad for you as too little — bad for you knees, bad for your heart and maybe even bad for your mood.

One new study finds that women who exercise moderately — in other words, get the steady regular movements they need without overdoing it — are actually much happier than women who exhaust themselves during intensive gym sessions.

Turkish researchers randomly assigned 255 women between the ages of 40 and 60 years old to one of two two-week workout regimens: Either 30 minutes a day on a treadmill at a moderate pace, or a run-till-you-drop session where they were told to go as fast as they could on that treadmill for as long as they could take it.

Sound like fun? Of course it doesn’t — and the results speak for themselves: The moderate exercisers had a better mood, lower levels of anxiety, higher levels of psychological wellbeing and more energy than those assigned to the torture-like workout sessions.

Women who got the intense workouts, on the other hand, were less likely to report the confidence to keep going with their exercise program. Overweight women in particular were stressed out by the more vigorous workouts and reported lower levels of calmness afterwards.

Who wouldn’t?

Whether you’re a man or a woman — and whether you’re badly overweight or slim and trim — you don’t have to drive yourself to the brink of physical exhaustion to get the benefits of a light workout.

Just pick something you like — and like the women in this study, you can enjoy some mood-boosting benefits along with your great fitness: At least one study has shown that a little sweat-inducing activity can be as powerful as antidepressant drugs… with none of the side effects.

Good examples of moderate workouts include traditional ones like tennis or a brisk walk/jog through the park, to a few things you might not think of as “exercise” — like gardening or even some home improvement projects.

In fact, keeping fit can actually be — dare I say it? — fun.