Many of the modern anti-depressants work in a similar fashion...  but some are more effective than others.

Doctors now have at least a dozen modern anti-depressants to choose from when treating patients.

The drugs have a similar effect on brain chemicals... but have not been tested in many head-to-head trials.

To compare the drugs... researchers in Italy examined 117 clinical studies on 12 common anti-depressants.

They found that Zoloft and Lexapro had the overall best combination of effectiveness and tolerability... while Edronax was judged least effective.

The two medications beat out other popular drugs such as Prozac... Paxil... and Wellbutrin.

Effexor and Remeron also greatly improved symptoms of depression... but many patients had to stop taking them due to the side effects.

Overall... researchers gave the nod to Zoloft because it's available as a generic and thus less expensive.

The authors say patients might want to try Zoloft or Lexapro first when starting treatment... but people respond differently to the slight variations in the drugs.