The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) researchers' analysis showed that adults under the age of 25 years, who consume antidepressants have higher suicidal tendencies but the adults older than that do not.

Nothing much could be established by the initial research made by scientists on the entire adult population to find a link between the increased risk of suicide and the consumption of antidepressants. Later when they disintegrated the adult population according to age groups a pattern was observed.

Based on this research and earlier studies by the FDA, it released a warning, called black box warning in 2005, which was FDA's strongest warning against the use of antidepressants in teenagers and adolescents which lay emphasis on the related suicide risks. It extended this warning to people between 18 to 25 years.

Many psychiatrists had retaliated to these warnings by saying that psychiatric patients were scared away from the treatment for depression which is the leading cause of suicide.

According to a study by researchers these warnings actually led to an increase in the suicide rate of youth in the year 2004.

Another study showed that the imposition of the black box warning on children and young adults led to a decrease in the older adults seeking a treatment for depression thereby causing a decline in the treatment and diagnosis of depression.

Based on this steep decline the researchers forwarded a request to the FDA for revising its policy. The FDA conducted clinical trials involving 10,000 adults and it was found that the risk of suicide was strongly dependent on the age with higher risks in people under 25, no difference among those 25 to 64, and lower risks in people 65 and older.

It was seen that these antidepressants promote suicidal behavior in some patients and this risk lessened with age. In others cases these drugs relieved the patients of depression and thereby reducing the risk of suicide. Therefore it was concluded that more research needs to be done to understand these differences. (Additional reporting by Kativa Toor)