Would you rather suffer from depression or from a stroke? If you’re taking antidepressants, you might not have a choice. The answer could be both.

Why? Because not only do antidepressant drugs fail miserably at doing anything to treat your depression — they could also boost your risk of having a stroke in the process.

That’s according to a study recently published in the journal Stroke.

To top it off, the researchers who stumbled upon this information say you should keep taking those antidepressants anyway.

(The jury is still out on whether the researchers themselves are suffering from some sort of “denial disorder.” It’s either that, or they’re getting paid to push the antidepressants. It’s tough to say.)

Either one of those reasons could explain why they’re so reluctant to blame the meds — despite the evidence right under their noses. And the evidence is pretty clear.

When the researchers tracked 80,574 women between the ages of 54 and 79 for six years, they found that depressed women had a 29 percent boost in stroke risk when compared to women with no history of the condition.

Women who took antidepressant meds had an even greater risk, rising 39 percent when compared to non-depressed women.

Those are the facts. Everything that comes after that is just a giant guessing game. Because instead of blaming the meds for that extra risk, the researchers guessed that the women who take them must simply be more depressed.

And since depression on its own seems to boost stroke risk, they further guessed, more severe depression must cause it to shoot even higher.

But guess again, because none of that is supported by the data in the study — or even by basic logic. After all, many of the people who take antidepressants aren’t battling severe depression in the first place.

Statistics from The National Institute of Mental Health say that only 2 percent of the population suffers from severe depression, and 6.7 percent suffer from depression. Yet some 10 percent of the entire U.S. population is taking antidepressants in any given year.

In case you still want to blame the depression instead of the meds, there’s more research that backs the link between antidepressants and stroke.

One study last year found that women on SSRIs such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, and Lexapro had a 45-percent increase in the risk of stroke and a 32-percent increase in the risk of death from all causes. (You can check out the details of that study here.)

Of course, then — like now — researchers urged women to keep taking their meds anyway.

But if you’re on these meds, talk to your doc about a safe way off — because the bottom line is that you can beat depression without drugs. Studies have shown everything from ordinary exercise to simple talk therapy can match or beat powerful antidepressant drugs.

A little exercise can even cut your stroke risk, too — and that’s not a guess.

You know how the off-label drug racket works: Once a med is approved for any condition, docs are free to prescribe it for every condition.

So I just have to wonder how many women were given the antidepressant Lexapro after docs were dazzled earlier this year by a study that showed it might ease hot flashes — because it turns out that study was flat-out wrong.

Researchers behind a much stronger study found that this antidepressant — which barely works for depression, by the way — had no impact at all on hot flashes… even at increasingly higher doses.

And this new study had some real science behind it — because the researchers actually placed monitors on the skin of each woman to detect the telltale rise in temperature that signals each flash.

The researchers behind the earlier study, on the other hand, just asked women to keep journals listing every single hot flash over two months.

Aside from little distractions like work, children, shopping, sleep, a forgotten journal, or even a lost pen… what could possibly go wrong with that?

But the researchers behind that study are sticking by their pen-and-paper approach — because they don’t have time for all this science-y stuff.

“An objective monitor has scientific appeal,” Ellen W. Freeman, author of that first study, told Reuters Health, “but may not relate to the clinical problem.”

Umm… right.

Even if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, that earlier study didn’t have anything worth writing a journal entry over in the first place: By the end of the eight-week trial, women who took the med had an average of 5.3 hot flashes per day — versus 6.4 a day among those who took a placebo.

Impressed? Me neither.

Mainstream medicine has made a complete mess out of menopause, and they’re continuing to make matters worse with nonsensical studies that throw even more unnecessary drugs at a condition that simply doesn’t respond well to medication.

If you’re having trouble getting past the hot flashes and other signs of menopause, don’t look for the latest study behind yet another questionable off-label med — look for a naturopathic physician instead.

In many cases, nutritional supplements can work wonders — and if they fall short, your doctor can team up with a compounding pharmacist to find a bioidentical hormone regimen that matches your body’s needs.

They must be joking.

That’s the only possible explanation for this one, friends. Either that, or maybe the folks in Washington just don’t read the newspapers.

The FDA has just approved the antidepressant Lexapro for use in kids. Just weeks before that, federal prosecutors accused its maker, Forest Laboratories, of illegally marketing that same drug, along with one other antidepressant, to kids.

The manufacturer was also accused of giving pediatricians kickbacks to get kids on these drugs. And now, the FDA essentially rewards this behavior.

If you can see any logic in that, please drop me a line because I just can’t figure it out. To me, it’s like a gang of bank robbers getting caught in the vault. And instead of being locked up, they’re given the keys.

Lexapro already enjoys $2 billion more in annual sales – just how many more times are we going to let that cash register ring before someone notices this company isn’t playing by the rules?

This wasn’t some spontaneous act by the Justice Department in response to a one-time slip-up. Their accusations came after a five-year probe of how Forest marketed Lexapro and another antidepressant, Celexa. Five years!

They found the company was offering pediatricians everything from tickets to sporting events and Broadway shows to fishing trips and spa visits in exchange for giving these drugs to kids. They also found that the company had ordered its sales force to push a positive study on Celexa and ignore one that showed it was ineffective for children.

Let’s keep in mind that antidepressants are potentially dangerous drugs that sometimes cause nasty side effects. Many come with black-box warnings because they’ve been linked to increased suicide and suicidal behavior in youths.

If any drugs should be kept away from kids, it’s these.

Antidepressants exist purely for symptom control. They won’t cure depression or cause the body to create the additional serotonin it needs. They just manipulate the serotonin you already have.

Often times, there are much better ways, not just for kids, but for everyone to treat their depression. Everything from tryptophan to vitamin B to exercise can be just as effective as drugs like Lexapro, if not more so.

To me, the behavior of the company tells you everything you need to know about what they’re selling. When a business has to resort to shady and manipulative behavior to sell its product, then it’s probably not a product you want to use, much less give to your children.

I’m always alarmed by medical research that only looks at a little piece of a much bigger
picture.

Take a recent study out of Italy that concluded that Zoloft and Lexapro are the best antidepressants. The catch? They’re the “best” only when compared to the current generation of other Big Pharma antidepressants.

The study didn’t compare them to any other form of treatment. Not one!

It’s like two men at the top of a Montana cliff arguing over the best way down – jumping over the top or tumbling down the side – all the while ignoring a nearby path.

But to me, the bottom line is still the bottom line: None of these pills will help your body make more serotonin or dopamine, the two crucial neurotransmitters that patients battling depression need.

That’s a little like selling an anti-balding treatment that won’t help you grow more hair.

And then there are those famous side effects. These pills come with a barnyard full of them, including nausea, insomnia, diarrhea and sexual side effects, not to mention withdrawal symptoms when trying to get off them. 

And yet this study has somehow decided which of these are “best.” As if the best out of a series of bad choices might somehow be a good choice.

Call me old-fashioned, but that’s just not how I practice medicine.

The real question isn’t which drug is the best, but whether people should be taking any drug at all when battling depression, especially when there are ways to treat and manage it without costly and addictive prescriptions and horrible side effects.

Heck, even plain old exercise has been shown to be as effective as Zoloft, and the most common side effect of that is general fitness and overall good health.

But Big Pharma won’t make a dime off that.