Brain activity prior to treatment flags vulnerability to antidepressant side effects
... changes in brain activity prior to treatment with antidepressants can flag patient vulnerability. Published in the April 2005 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the study is the first to link brain function and medication side effects, and to show a relationship between brain function cha...Costs of antidepressants could have funded effective alternatives
...ween 1991 and 2002, prescriptions per head for all antidepressants increased almost three-fold and the total cost (adjusted for inflation) increased by 310m. These costs could have been used to deliver cognitive behaviour therapy to 1.54 million patients, more than a third of the adults in the UK with depression or ...Depression may explain higher risk of heart attack associated with antidepressants
...art attack with either the newer or older class of antidepressants within the first month of prescription. Patients w...o had been prescribed the older class of tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) for the first time were twice as likely to have a heart attack within the next seven days as ...St. John's wort amplifies effect of blood thinner Plavix
... interact with other drugs, including prescription antidepressants and some antiviral drugs, and to increase the skin's sensitivity to light. In most cases of interactions known to date, St. John's wort decreases the activity of a medication, rather than increasing it as appears to happen with clopidogrel. Says Er...Study reveals frequent non-guideline treatment of late-life depression
...n half (55%) were given the recommended first-line antidepressants according to the Canadian Psychiatric Association. "The rest (45%) were given other drugs, some of which are known to be unhelpful for depression, especially in the elderly," explains Dr. Sewitch. One medication--a group of psychotropic drugs known a...Suicidal behaviour caused by antidepressants 'cannot be ruled out'
...n over 146,000 patients taking SSRIs and tricyclic antidepressants for the first time. Risks of self harm and suicide...of self harm. The finding that SSRIs and tricyclic antidepressants have a similar risk profile with respect to suicide and self harm is reassuring, say the authors. Th...Treatment for brain tumor does not always follow recommendations
...edications (n = 497; 88 percent), but few received antidepressants (n = 38; 8 percent) or prophylactic heparin (n=42; 7 percent). Most received radiation therapy (n = 479; 87 percent) in addition to other therapy, but fewer received chemotherapy (n = 300; 54 percent). Practice patterns varied significantly between a...No magic pill for treating dementia symptoms
...d for dementia symptoms, including antipsychotics, antidepressants and mood stabilizers. They found that two drugs (risperidone and olanzapine) in a class known as atypical antipsychotics have the best evidence for effectiveness. "However, the effects are modest and are complicated by an increased risk of stroke," ...News Tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...Why does it take weeks for the clinical effects of antidepressants to develop? It has not escaped notice that this time course is similar to the antidepressant-induced enhancement of neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus and upregulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its receptor trkB. In this week's ...Exercise helps reduce symptoms of depression, UT Southwestern researchers find
...with mild to moderate depression were treated with antidepressants or cognitive therapy, said Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, professor of psychiatry and director of UT Southwestern's mood disorders research program. "The effect you find using aerobic exercise alone in treating clinical depression is similar to what you fin...Common antidepressants lower effects of tamoxifen in many women
INDIANAPOLIS - Additional evidence that a class of antidepressants can reduce the effectiveness of tamoxifen has been...howing that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants may hinder the effectiveness of tamoxifen, a drug commonly administered to breast cancer patients. T...BMJ turns missing murder case documents over to FDA
...sturbances. The FDA recently issued a warning that antidepressants can cause stimulatory side effects such as agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, and aggressiveness. These documents provide "the missing link" between the recent FDA advice and what Lilly scientists knew 16 years ago, says Harvard psychiatrist Dr Jose...Small study shows SAMe may improve treatment of depression
...combining SAMe with antidepressant treatment after antidepressants had proven insufficient on their own," says Alpert...d NIH-funded study will compare SAMe with standard antidepressants and with placebo as a single-drug therapy. More information on these new studies is available toll-...Insomnia poorly understood by medical profession
... widespread use of standard hypnotics and sedating antidepressants for chronic insomnia, their role for this indication still remains to be further defined by research evidence. Non-pharmacological treatments, particularly stimulus control and sleep restriction, are effective for conditioned aspects of insomnia and ...Antidepressants may increase risk of abnormal bleeding
...e, or low) of serotonin reuptake inhibition of the antidepressants they were taking. Among study participants, the...between degree of serotonin reuptake inhibition by antidepressants and risk of hospital admission for abnormal bleeding," the authors write. "Antidepressants with a h...Rush University Medical Center testing magnetic stimulation for depression
...r depression." Depression is commonly treated with antidepressants and other pharmaceuticals, psychotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for severe cases when patients do not respond to other therapies. This study focuses on patients who have not responded to antidepressant medication for their depression. Ru...Brain's nicotine receptors also target for anti-depressants
... mice, she and her colleagues tested the action of antidepressants with and without mecamylamine, a noncompetitive antagonist (blocker) in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). In a separate study using knockout mice that lack these receptors, they found that the function of the nicotine receptor in the brain ...New brain cells develop during alcohol abstinence, UNC study shows
...well," Crews said. "Pharmacological agents such as antidepressants and behaviors such as running, increased physical activity and learning experiences apparently help regulate the process of neurogenesis," he added. "Our research suggests they could be considered in the treatment of chronic alcohol dependency." In t...One in 6 chronically ill adults skip Rx drugs due to cost
...ercent of those patients who had prescriptions for antidepressants cut back on those depression medications each month due to cost. In addition to Piette, the study's authors include Michele Heisler, M.D., M.P.A., also of the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the U-M Medical School, and Todd H. Wagner, Ph.D., of t......ith psychological symptoms who were presented with antidepressants as a treatment showed improved outcomes. The study concludes that physicians need to search for new or modified interventions for depression when treating a patient with physical symptoms to improve the outcome. Media wishing to receive a pdf of th...