Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Reduce Effectiveness Of SSRI Antidepressants
Posted Apr 26 2011 8:46am
Scientists at Rockefeller University have shown that anti-inflammatory drugs, which include ibuprofen, aspirin and naproxen, reduce the effectiveness of the most widely used class of antidepressant medications, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, often prescribed for depression and obsessive-compulsive and anxiety disorders. The discovery, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may explain why many depressed patients taking SSRIs do not respond to antidepressant treatment and suggests that this lack of effectiveness may be preventable.
In the recent study, investigators in Rockefeller’s Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research treated mice with antidepressants in the presence or absence of anti-inflammatory drugs. They then examined how the mice behaved in tasks that are sensitive to antidepressant treatment. The behavioral responses to antidepressants were inhibited by anti-inflammatory and analgesic treatments. They then confirmed these effects in a human population, finding that depressed individuals who reported anti-inflammatory drug use were much less likely to have their symptoms relieved by an antidepressant than depressed patients who reported no anti-inflammatory drug use. The effect was dramatic: in the absence of any anti-inflammatory or analgesic use, 54 percent of patients responded to the antidepressant, whereas success rates dropped to approximately 40 percent for those who reported using anti-inflammatory agents.
“The mechanism underlying these effects is not yet clear. Nevertheless, our results may have profound implications for patients, given the very high treatment resistance rates for depressed individuals taking SSRIs,” says Jennifer Warner-Schmidt, a research associate in Paul Greengard’s Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller.
Scientists at Rockefeller University have shown that anti-inflammatory drugs, which include ibuprofen, aspirin and naproxen, reduce the effectiveness of the most widely used class of antidepressant medications, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, often prescribed for depression and obsessive-compulsive and anxiety disorders. The discovery, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may explain why many depressed patients taking SSRIs do not respond to antidepressant treatment and suggests that this lack of effectiveness may be preventable.
In the recent study, investigators in Rockefeller’s Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research treated mice with antidepressants in the presence or absence of anti-inflammatory drugs. They then examined how the mice behaved in tasks that are sensitive to antidepressant treatment. The behavioral responses to antidepressants were inhibited by anti-inflammatory and analgesic treatments. They then confirmed these effects in a human population, finding that depressed individuals who reported anti-inflammatory drug use were much less likely to have their symptoms relieved by an antidepressant than depressed patients who reported no anti-inflammatory drug use. The effect was dramatic: in the absence of any anti-inflammatory or analgesic use, 54 percent of patients responded to the antidepressant, whereas success rates dropped to approximately 40 percent for those who reported using anti-inflammatory agents.
“The mechanism underlying these effects is not yet clear. Nevertheless, our results may have profound implications for patients, given the very high treatment resistance rates for depressed individuals taking SSRIs,” says Jennifer Warner-Schmidt, a research associate in Paul Greengard’s Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller.