Hypertension drug boosts antidepressant efficacy
A drug normally used to treat high blood pressure may help to make the popular antidepressant fluoxetine work better. Researchers claim that combining pindolol with fluoxetine helped the antidepressant to work faster and longer in severely depressed patients.
Fluoxetine is a specific serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). It works by stopping the body from re-absorbing serotonin, an important eurotransmitter or message-carrying chemical linked with mood.
But because the body has complicated systems for keeping the delicate levels of these chemicals correct, SSRIs are not completely effective. Pindolol, a beta-blocker, is a type of drug that blocks the cell receptors involved in this process.
Researchers at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Barcelona, Spain, noted that fluoxetine and pindolol might have complimentary actions. Researchers gave fluoxetine and either pindolol or a placebo to 111 depressed patients. Study findings include the following:
r The proportion of patients who responded to treatment with fluoxetine and pindolol was greater than that with fluoxetine and placebo.
r Seventy-five percent of patients given pindolol showed an improvement in symptoms, compared with 59% percent of the placebo group.
The researchers cannot explain such results as the two medications did not seem to interact. Typically, beta-blockers do not work against depression; sometimes they even cause it.
Severe depression afflicts about 5% of the population. Current antidepressants work only on about two-thirds of patients and are often slow in taking effect.
[See: Perez V., et al. Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of pindolol in combination with fluoxetine antidepressant treatment. Lancet 1997; 349:1,594.]
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