Antidepressants

A young man reportedly taking the antidepressant Prozac has a history of significant psychiatric troubles, including self-cutting, obsessive thoughts and anxiety. But among the 27-year-old's current teachers and acquaintances, he has a reputation as a caring, dependable friend and a highly motivated student. Surely, say mental health professionals, this recovery was brought about by Prozac.

Daily antidepressant use doubled the risk of bone fractures in older adults, researchers reported Monday, raising new safety concerns about the widely prescribed drugs. The study published in Archives of Internal Medicine found that about 10% of daily antidepressant users older than 50 fractured a bone over a five-year period. Among people who did not use antidepressants, the fracture rate was 5%.

A drug can combat depression common among patients with severe heart disease, but psychological counseling doesn't seem to work, a study has found. The report from the University of Montreal Hospital Center said there have been few studies looking at how much antidepressants help heart disease patients with depression, even though as many as 27% may suffer from it. Doctors believe that treating the depression may also slow the deterioration of patients' health.

A study reported last week that people who take anti-depressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) put themselves at greater risk for fractures. Researchers are working to understand how depression and its therapies affect skeleton strength. One thing they know: Several hormones and neurotransmitters affect, to varying degrees, the building and breaking down of bone. --- From the outside, bones look stiff, unyielding, unchanging.

Biovail Corp. reached a settlement with four generic-drug makers that delays sales of cheaper copies of one form of its antidepressant Wellbutrin XL until next year. The deal resolves complaints against Anchen Pharmaceuticals, Impax Laboratories Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc., Mississauga, Canada-based Biovail said Monday. Biovail reported $302.2 million in Wellbutrin XL sales for the first nine months of 2006, or 42% of the company's product revenue.

Antidepressants, which are widely prescribed with mood stabilizers to treat patients with bipolar disorder, do not work in relieving the depressive symptoms of the illness, a large federal study reported Wednesday. The study in the New England Journal of Medicine narrows the already limited number of treatments for bipolar disorder, which affects 5.7 million adults in the U.S., experts said. "A new generation of drugs is needed," said Dr. Thomas R.

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the strongest possible warning for antidepressants to alert doctors and patients that the drugs could increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in adults 18 to 24. The so-called black box warning follows a similar labeling change approved in 2004 for children and adolescents.

Infants born to women taking commonly prescribed antidepressants during the first trimester of their pregnancies have an increased risk of serious birth defects, though the danger remains tiny, according to two studies published today. The reports in the New England Journal of Medicine found a higher risk of developmental problems affecting the intestines, brain and skull. Although life-threatening, all of the defects are rare and normally occur in no more than one in 2,500 births.

LOVE'S first rush is a private madness between two people, all-consuming and, if mutually felt, endlessly wonderful. Couples think about the other obsessively -- on a roller coaster of euphoria when together, longing when apart. "It's temporary insanity," says Helen Fisher, an evolutionary anthropologist at Rutgers University. Now, from her studies of the brains of lovers in the throes of the initial tumble, Fisher has developed a controversial theory. She and her collaborator, psychiatrist J.

After years of little progress, scientists are making headway in the search for a better, faster-acting antidepressant. Experiments with an anesthetic called ketamine have yielded important clues about the biology of depression, leading scientists to attack the mood disorder in new ways. Improved treatments are sorely needed. Depression affects about one in 10 adult Americans each year, while current drugs work in only 50% to 60% of patients, can cause sexual problems and take weeks to work.