Word: serotonin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Also feeding the trend for more diagnoses is the arrival of whole new classes of psychotropic drugs with fewer side effects and greater efficacy than earlier medications, particularly the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), or antidepressants. These have been rolled out with highly visible, to-the-consumer ad campaigns. While an earlier generation of antidepressants--tricyclics like Tofranil--didn't work in kids, SSRIs do. According to a study by Professor Julie Zito of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, use of antidepressants among children and teens increased threefold between 1987 and 1996. And that use continues to climb...
CYMBALTA Despite Prozac's much heralded introduction in 1987, its ability to adjust serotonin levels in the brain works for only about 30% of depressed patients. Undeterred, Prozac's maker, Eli Lilly, has filed for FDA approval of Cymbalta, an antidepressant that targets not just serotonin but norepinephrine levels as well. The FDA should decide by the end of the year. In tests, patients taking Cymbalta were up to three times as likely to find relief from depression as those taking a placebo...
...Food and Drug Administration heralded a whole new era. At first, just scientists were excited, because Prozac, as the Eli Lilly company christened it for the market, was the first in a new class of medications that would treat depression by exquisitely controlling the levels of serotonin, a brain chemical involved in mood. But the FDA's approval letter became the founding charter for a Prozac nation, as vast numbers of American consumers were seduced by a prescription to lift one's mood. Today they spend more than $1 billion on Prozac each year, to treat not just depression...
What makes serotonin such an important brain chemical is that it affects everybody, not only depressives. According to Dr. Jonathan Metzl, author of Prozac on the Couch, if you were to go on the drug today, there's a good chance that you would feel better, even if you aren't depressed. Dr. Peter Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac, describes the effect as feeling "better than well...
...other way. At Mt. Sinai, Siever is looking deeper into what makes people neurologically susceptible to PDs, studying the structure and function of the brain itself in order to determine which areas misfire in the course of the disorders as well as the role played by such neurotransmitters as serotonin and dopamine. Others are studying such possible causes as high levels of stress hormones in the womb or even poor nutrition during brain development. Understanding the biochemistry should make it easier to develop medications...