Word: zoloft
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TODAY'S TREATMENTS Most antidepressants work by tweaking levels of various neurotransmitters, the chemicals that carry signals from one neuron to another. Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and the other SSRIs slow the absorption of serotonin. Effective antidepressants that act on both serotonin and norepinephrine include Effexor and Remeron. Drugs like Wellbutrin work in a similar way but probably on the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine. The tricyclic antidepressants (such as Elavil and Tofranil) also blocked the absorption of neurotransmitters, especially norepinephrine, but the drugs had significant side effects. Another class of first-generation drugs, the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) such as Nardil...
Then in the 1970s, neuropharmacologists realized that they could minimize side effects by focusing just on serotonin. Antidepressant drugs like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, were developed to keep serotonin from being reabsorbed quickly into nerve cells when it is produced...
...least one popular antidepressant doesn't seem to make a heart condition worse and might even help to improve it. Researchers from the U.S., Canada, Italy and Sweden reported in last week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that sertraline, better known by the trade name Zoloft, caused no more complications in depressed cardiac patients than did a placebo. Indeed, patients on Zoloft experienced 20% fewer adverse cardiovascular events than those who took the placebo. One other advantage: unlike older antidepressants called tricyclics, Zoloft does not seem to cause irregular heartbeats. But the study, paid for by pharmaceutical...
...might an anti-depressant make someone's heart condition better? Zoloft is one of a group of anti-depressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIS) that work by keeping a neurotransmitter called serotonin from attaching to certain biochemical receptors in the brain. But serotonin receptors are also found in lots of other places. Blocking these receptors in the bloodstream appears to reduce formation of artery-choking clots by preventing the aggregation of blood cells called platelets. In essence, SSRIS seem to perform double duty--as mood lifters and blood thinners...
Plenty of questions still need to be answered. "The study may have been too small to uncover all the drug-to-drug interactions with Zoloft," says Dr. Allan Jaffe, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who wrote an editorial that accompanied the JAMA report. In addition, he says, "the patients did not receive the antidepressant until one month after their heart attack, so it is unclear how safe it is immediately afterwards." One thing is sure: if you have recently had a heart attack and are depressed, you are not alone. At least now there...