(MENAFN) For the first time, researchers have ranked the side effects of various antidepressants, revealing significant variations between different medications.

Academics investigated how these drugs affected patients during the initial eight weeks of treatment, discovering that some antidepressants caused weight gains of up to 2kg or altered heart rate by as much as 21 beats per minute.

Approximately eight million individuals in the UK use antidepressants.

Experts caution that these differences in side effects could influence patients' overall health and their ability to adhere to prescribed treatments.

While they advise against anyone discontinuing their medication, the researchers emphasize the importance of matching antidepressants more precisely to each person's specific needs.

"There are big differences between [antidepressants] and this is important not just for individual patients, but large numbers of people are taking them, so even modest changes could have a big effect across the whole population," said Prof Oliver Howes, a leading researcher.

Although it has long been understood that antidepressants can impact physical health, this study, conducted by King's College London and the University of Oxford, is the first to rank these effects in a way that allows for direct comparisons between the various medications.

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