Antidepressants are effective drugs but in recent years they’ve been shown to also carry serious side effects, including suicidal thoughts. Now comes another potentially alarming risk. A new study suggests that postmenopausal women who take the drugs may face a slightly increased risk of stroke and death. But we can’t pin the blame entirely on the drugs just yet, because the underlying depression itself could also be the culprit.

So what should you do if you are taking antidepressants and have concerns? Your first step should be to discuss the risks and benefits of your antidepressant with your physician. These drugs help alleviate depression, which itself can be a debilitating, even fatal, condition, so small risks may be worth the relief they bring and you should not stop taking the drugs unless this is advised by your doctor. If you are concerned about your stroke risk, you may also want to take steps to control your other risk factors, including losing weight if you need to and ensuring your cholesterol levels and blood pressure are within healthy ranges.

In the study, which appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers looked at the number of strokes, heart attacks and deaths due to all causes in 5,496 women taking antidepressants compared to 130,797 women who were not taking the drugs. All the women were between 50 to 79 years old. The women on antidepressants were 45 percent more likely to suffer a stroke and 32 percent more likely to die from any cause. There was no difference in stroke risk between the two major classes of antidepressants: selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and tricyclic antidepressants.