Word: drugging
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Antidepressant drugs are as controversial as they are popular. And, boy, are they popular. As many as 1 in 10 Americans is on some form of antidepressant medication. Now a new study suggests that while the drugs benefit severely depressed people, they have a "nonexistent to negligible" impact on patients with milder, run-of-the-mill blues. The study, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed previously published data from trials of the popular drug Paxil and its older generic cousin, imipramine. Some doctors hope the findings will help tone down the popular image of antidepressant pills...
Researchers discovered the first antidepressants purely by chance in the 1950s. Seeking a treatment for schizophrenia, scientists at the Munsterlingen asylum in Switzerland found that a drug that tweaked the balance of the brain's neurotransmitters - the chemicals that control mood, pain and other sensations - sent patients into bouts of euphoria. For schizophrenics, of course, that only made their condition worse. But researchers soon realized it made their pill perfect for patients with depression. On first trying it in 1955, some patients found themselves newly sociable and energetic and called the drug a "miracle cure." The drug, called imipramine...
...very idea of a drug so powerful and transformative inevitably had its naysayers. Critics complained Prozac and its siblings were prescribed too liberally and were still unproven. Some previously sound patients reported turning violent or fantasizing about killing themselves after starting the drug and used a "Prozac defense" in court. Others appeared on talk shows calling themselves "Prozac survivors." (Despite anecdotal evidence linking antidepressants to violent behavior, scientists have reached no conclusive answer as to whether the drugs are to blame...
Other recent studies have also shown the power of environment over gene expression. For instance, fruit flies exposed to a drug called geldanamycin show unusual outgrowths on their eyes that can last through at least 13 generations of offspring even though no change in DNA has occurred (and generations 2 through 13 were not directly exposed to the drug). Similarly, according to a paper published last year in the Quarterly Review of Biology by Eva Jablonka (an epigenetic pioneer) and Gal Raz of Tel Aviv University, roundworms fed with a kind of bacteria can feature a small, dumpy appearance...
...good news: scientists are learning to manipulate epigenetic marks in the lab, which means they are developing drugs that treat illness simply by silencing bad genes and jump-starting good ones. In 2004 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an epigenetic drug for the first time. Azacitidine is used to treat patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (usually abbreviated, a bit oddly, to MDS), a group of rare and deadly blood malignancies. The drug uses epigenetic marks to dial down genes in blood precursor cells that have become overexpressed. According to Celgene Corp. - the Summit, N.J., company that makes azacitidine - people...