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An antidepressant best known as Prozac could offer the first treatment for the leading cause of blindness among people over 50, new research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine suggests. UVA's Bradley D. Gelfand, Ph.D., and collaborators have found early evidence that the drug fluoxetine may be effective against atrophic (or "dry") age-related macular degeneration, a condition that affects nearly 200 million people worldwide. The drug has shown promise in the scientists' lab tests and animal models, and the researchers bolstered by their results by examining two huge insurance databases encompassing more than 100 million Americans. That analysis...

New research published in the British Journal of Pharmacology indicates that two currently available medications — an antifungal drug and an antidepressant — can effectively inhibit the virus that causes COVID-19 in laboratory cells. Investigators found that the antifungal itraconazole and the antidepressant fluoxetine each blocked the production of infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus in cell culture lab tests. When either drug was used in combination with the antiviral drug remdesiver, the combination showed synergistic effects and inhibited the production of SARS-CoV-2 by more than 90%. “Preventive vaccination and therapeutic medicines against COVID-19 are both required to effectively combat pandemics caused by...

Certain types of antidepressants may put people at an increased risk for developing a deadly superbug infection, a new study suggested. Researchers from the University of Michigan revealed that individuals who suffer from depression and those taking antidepressants such as mirtazapine and fluoxetine had a much higher chance of contracting Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) – a life threatening infection that can cause severe diarrhea and inflammation of the colon. One of the most common infections acquired by patients at hospitals, C. difficile has been occurring with more and more frequency, resulting in the deaths of 14,000 individuals in the United...

Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suicide rates among the youngest and oldest Americans have steadily declined since the late 1980s, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a finding that contradicts popular conceptions that rates were rising. The study suggests that new antidepressant drugs may not raise the risk of suicide after all, the researchers said, but they acknowledge they are mystified by what might be causing the decline, because it is not affecting people aged 25 to 64. "For 40 years adolescent suicide rates rose," said Dr. Robert McKeown, a professor at the University of South Carolina's school...

Polaris Jeff Weise, whose rampage killed 10 people, took antidepressants. RED LAKE, Minn., March 25 - In their sleepless search for answers, the family of Jeff Weise, the teenager who killed nine people and then himself, says it is left wondering about the drugs he was prescribed for his waves of depression. On Friday, as Tammy Lussier prepared to bury Mr. Weise, who was her nephew, and her father, who was among those he killed, she found herself looking back over the last year, she said, when Mr. Weise began taking the antidepressant Prozac after a suicide attempt that...

Home Help Search Archive Feedback Table of Contents Author Keyword(s) Vol Page [Advanced] BMJ  2005;330:7 (1 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7481.7 Extract of this article PDF of this article Email this article to a friend Respond to this article Download to Citation Manager Search Medline for articles by: Lenzer, J. Alert me when: New articles cite this article News FDA to review "missing" drug company documents Jeanne Lenzer New York The US Food and Drug Administration has agreed to review confidential drug company documents that went missing during a controversial product liability suit more than 10 years ago. The documents appear to suggest a link...

PHOENIX, June 1 — In the midst of a worldwide debate on whether depressed children should be treated with antidepressant drugs like Prozac, a landmark government-financed study has found that Prozac helps teenagers overcome depression far better than talk therapy. But a combination of the two treatments, the study found, produced the best result. The study, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, was the first to compare psychotherapy and drug treatment for depressed adolescents. Statistically, the researchers found, talk therapy — in which a patient discusses problems with a therapist — was by itself no more effective in...