MONDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) ??? Common over the counter antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, in accordance with a mouse and human study from The Rockefeller University in New York.
SSRIs — which are so are utilized by millions of folks and the most typical antidepressants — contain such popular drugs as Paxil, Prozac, Lexapro and Zoloft. The possible interaction between these drugs as well as the painkillers known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may be a reason that a number of individuals don’t respond to SSRIs, the research workers report.
“In one study, we found that anyone who reported use of an anti inflammatory or analgesic agent had a considerably poorer treatment results in comparison to folks who did not report any use of NSAIDs,” said study lead author Jennifer Warner-Schmidt.
One of the questions that were open is over what time period to produce this effect, what dose is required, said Warner-Schmidt, a research associate in the university’s lab of cellular and molecular neuroscience. “Until a double-blind actual clinical trial is performed, we can not say what the dose is [or] what the time course is,” she said.
“We may only be looking at individuals who are taking NSAIDs over an extended time frame, but it’s not clear,” she described.
In addition, why NSAIDs blunt the effect of SSRIs is not known, Warner Schmidt said, adding that “we have some speculative hypotheses we will be investigating in additional studies.”
Despite these caveats, Warner Schmidt characterizes the effect of the interaction between these drugs as strong.
“If people out there are having trouble with SSRI effectiveness and they chance to be taking anti-inflammatory drugs, they may choose to speak with their clinician to gauge whether or not they have to keep on the anti-inflammatory drugs, and if that’s the case, they may consider altering their antidepressant to a different class of antidepressant,” Warnerschmidt said.
The report was printed in the April 25 on-line edition
The researchers gave mice SSRIs with and without. The researchers found those behaviors inhibited in the mice given NSAIDs by looking at how the mice acted in jobs sensitive to antidepressants.
Warner Schmidt’s team confirmed these findings using data from a previous study that is individual. In that trial, people were less likely to possess their depressive symptoms alleviated by SSRIs than those not taking NSAIDs.
In fact, 54 percent those not taking these anti-inflammatory painkillers said their depressive symptoms were relieved by SSRIs, compared with 40 percent of those taking Warner-Schmidt, both SSRIs and NSAIDs said.
To Alzheimer’s patients, these findings can also be significant in addition to their implications for treating depression, based on lead researcher Nobel Laureate Paul Greengard, the Vincent Astor Professor of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at The Rockefeller University.
“Many elderly people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease also have arthritic or related diseases and as a consequence are taking both antidepressant and anti-inflammatory medications. Our results suggest that doctors should carefully balance the pros and cons of continuing anti-inflammatory therapy in patients being treated with antidepressant medicines,” he said in university news release.
“This is a crucial observation that needs to be followed up,” said Dr. Charles Nemeroff, the Leonard M. Miller Professor and chairman of the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
“If it really is possible that drugs that treat pain in just about any manner antagonize the consequences of antidepressants, it’s vital to understand due to the widespread use of both agents,” Nemeroff added, noting that blue patients with persistent pain are difficult to take care of.
“The belief has always been that they can be difficult to treat because depression, however this is really another wrinkle. This would imply it may be that drugs used to take care of their persistent pain may, in fact, be obviating the results of antidepressants,” he said.
While it is too early to draw definitive clinical conclusions from this study, Nemeroff believes physicians should ask their patients when they’re taking NSAIDs when prescribing SSRIs.
“If you treat [patients] with an SSRI and they don’t react, maybe we ought to ask them if they’re taking high doses of NSAIDs,” Nemeroff said. “If they may be, we might think about finding another method to take care of their pain or inflammation,” he said.
