Is your medication affecting your MORALS? Antidepressants make people behave selflessly, while Parkinson’s drugs make you selfish, study claims
Researchers at University College London found that citalopram-takers were willing to pay almost twice as much to prevent harm to others than those given placebo drugs in an experiment. (Source: the Mail online | Health)
Source: the Mail online | Health - July 9, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Medical News Today: How do antidepressants affect moral decision-making?
The effects on moral decision-making of citalopram and levodopa - commonly prescribed drugs that affect the brain's levels of serotonin and dopamine - are compared in a new study. (Source: Health News from Medical News Today)
Source: Health News from Medical News Today - July 3, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Psychology / Psychiatry Source Type: news
Commonly prescribed drugs affect decisions to harm oneself and others
Healthy people given the serotonin-enhancing antidepressant citalopram were willing to pay almost twice as much to prevent harm to themselves or others than those given placebo drugs in a moral decision-making experiment. In contrast, the dopamine-boosting Parkinson's drug levodopa made healthy people more selfish, eliminating an altruistic tendency to prefer harming themselves over others. (Source: ScienceDaily Headlines)
Source: ScienceDaily Headlines - July 2, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news
Commonly prescribed drugs affect decisions to harm oneself and others
(University College London) Healthy people given the serotonin-enhancing antidepressant citalopram were willing to pay almost twice as much to prevent harm to themselves or others than those given placebo drugs in a moral decision-making experiment at UCL. In contrast, the dopamine-boosting Parkinson's drug levodopa made healthy people more selfish, eliminating an altruistic tendency to prefer harming themselves over others. The study was a double-blind randomized controlled trial and the results are published in Current Biology. (Source: EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science)
Source: EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science - July 2, 2015 Category: Global & Universal Source Type: news
Common Antidepressants Linked to Higher Fracture Odds in Menopausal Women
Drugs like Celexa, Prozac could undermine bone, research suggests (Source: WebMD Health)
Source: WebMD Health - June 26, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Common Antidepressants Linked to Higher Fracture Odds in Menopausal Women
Drugs like Celexa, Prozac could undermine bone, research suggests
Source: HealthDay
Related MedlinePlus Pages: Antidepressants, Fractures, Menopause (Source: MedlinePlus Health News)
Source: MedlinePlus Health News - June 26, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Is It Bedtime for Benzos?
“Bernard also laughed; after two grams of soma the joke seemed, for some reason, good. Laughed and then, almost immediately, dropped off to sleep.” — Aldous Huxley, Brave New World It’s been a tough few years for benzodiazepines, the pharmaceutical industry’s top-selling family of prescription drugs. Tough in every way, that is, except sales: Xanax remains the world’s most popular pill, and U.S. prescriptions for it and other benzos grow by 12 percent every year. It’s their reputation, long enjoyed, as harmless and effective medicines that’s taking a flurry of hits — some glancing, others on the nose. Fo...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - June 25, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news
A Troubling Potential Link Between Sleep Aids And Mental Illness
In today's "always on," high-stress world, it has become commonplace to turn to over-the-counter sleep aids for a little help with drifting off into dreamland at night. However, that habit, if made a consistent one, could lead to potentially serious damage when it comes to ones mental health.
A new study zeroing in on anticholinergic drugs -- a category that includes common non-prescription sleeping aids and antihistamines like Benadryl -- found that the long-term use of such medications in higher doses can lead to an increased risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, in the future. It's the first study...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - April 7, 2015 Category: Science Source Type: news
Medication and Anxiety
Medication can be an effective approach for managing various types of anxiety such as panic, hyperarousal, and constant worry. However, contrary to popular belief and subtle messages from pharmaceutical companies, medication is far from a cure. In fact, when it comes to “cures” for most psychiatric conditions, the data tends to support psychotherapy.
For example, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) responds very well to psychotherapy, whereas the positive effects of medication are somewhat limited. The same is true for panic disorder. Although certain types of medication are very good at relieving panic sympt...
Source: Psych Central - March 11, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Bret Moore, PsyD Tags: Anti-anxiety Antidepressants Benzodiazepines Disorders General Medications Panic Disorder anti-anxiety medications Drug Dependency Fear Hyperarousal Sedatives Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor snri Ssri Substance Abuse Source Type: news
Stimulant May Speed Antidepressant Response Time in ElderlyStimulant May Speed Antidepressant Response Time in Elderly
Methylphenidate combined with the antidepressant citalopram significantly reduced time to depression remission in elderly patients. Medscape Medical News (Source: Medscape Psychiatry Headlines)
Source: Medscape Psychiatry Headlines - March 4, 2015 Category: Psychiatry Tags: Psychiatry News Source Type: news
Excellent review of lipid rescue therapy
3.5 out of 5 stars
Intravenous Lipid Emulsion in the Emergency Department: A Systematic Review of Recent Literature. Cao D et al. J Emerg Med 2014 Dec 19 [Epub ahead of print]
Abstract
This excellent comprehensive review of lipid rescue therapy (LRT) is vitiated only by the unavoidable fact that available clinical evidence is so inconclusive. As the authors point out, published literature consists mostly of case reports and small case series. The vast majority of these reported cases have good outcomes and reflect positive effects from ILE, but the evidence is marred by multiple confounding variables (such as concurren...
Source: The Poison Review - February 25, 2015 Category: Toxicology Authors: Leon Tags: Medical intralipid lipid emulsion lipid rescue therapy lipid sink Review Source Type: news
Study suggests combination drug therapy to treat depression in the elderly
FINDINGS
This new study by researchers at UCLA found that the combination of Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Celexa (citalopram) can accelerate and improve the overall antidepressant effects of the medications in the elderly. Most patients who responded to the combination achieved remission in the first month. The researchers had also hoped to find that the combination would work more quickly and be tolerated better by this elderly population than either drug alone. They found that the combination was working faster, but the side effects and cognitive benefits did not differ between the groups.
IMPACT
Geriatric depression is...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - February 24, 2015 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news
Gut Feelings: Diet, Depression and Bacteria
In another setback for the notion that depression is all in your head, recent research suggests it may be a gut reaction. Literally.
Brain has always bested bowel in the body battles for executive organ status. However, the gastrointestinal tract is moving up in the world and recently was labeled the second brain. Laboratories all over the world have been mapping a bi-directional information highway between these two organs called the gut-brain axis.
This connection has revealed the gut's influence on a wide range of things, from satiety and obesity to mood and anxiety. Even how we respond to stress is no longer the sole...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - February 17, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Common anticholinergic drugs like Benadryl linked to increased dementia risk
This study is another reminder to periodically evaluate the all drugs you’re taking. Look at each one to determine if it’s really helping,” says Dr. Sarah Berry, a geriatrician and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “I’ve seen people who have been on anticholinergic medications for bladder control for years and they are completely incontinent. These drugs obviously aren’t helping.”
Many drugs have a stronger effect on older people than younger people. With age, the kidneys and liver clear drugs more slowly, so drug levels in the blood remain higher for a lon...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - January 29, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Beverly Merz Tags: Alzheimer's Disease Drugs and Supplements Mental Health anticholinergic drugs Source Type: news
Pain Research Pubs
2014 Is Already a Record YearI am pleased with the acceleration of publications by Pain Researchers using our Pain Research Markers and Gene Expression Analysis Tools.Here's a sampling of the most recent: Transfection Regent Publications: Lili Hou, Yanfeng Zhang, Yong Yang, Kai Xiang, Qindong Tan, Qulian Guo. Intrathecal siRNA Against GPNMB Attenuates Nociception in a Rat Model of Neuropathic Pain. Journal of Molecular Neuroscience. July 2014...Ten micrograms of siRNA1- GPNMB dissolved in 30 μl i-Fect transfection reagent (Neuromics, Edina, MN, USA) was administered intrathecally once daily for 7 days, starting from 1 day...
Source: Neuromics - August 7, 2014 Category: Neuroscience Tags: gene expression analysis Gene Silencing GPNMB Gene i-Fect pro-Dynorhin Antibody siRNA delivery in-vivo TRPV1 antibodies Source Type: news
