I'm changing depression for atherosclerosis

A common antidepressant led to an increase in
the number of atherosclerotic plaques in model animals

Marina Astvatsaturyan, Echo of Moscow

An antidepressant widely prescribed by doctors increased the number of atherosclerotic plaques in the coronary arteries of experimental primates by six times, according to researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, authors of an article in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine (Shively et al., Effects of Long-Term Sertraline Treatment and Depression on Coronary Artery Atherosclerosis in Premenopausal Female Primates – VM).

"Doctors have known for a long time that depression is closely related to cardiovascular diseases, but we did not think that its treatment could affect their development," the lead author of the study, Professor Carol Shively, quotes a press release distributed by the Wake Forest Center (Common Antidepressant Increased Coronary Atherosclerosis in Animal Model – VM).

The experiments of the Shiveli group were conducted on 42 middle-aged female monkeys, who were kept on the so-called "Western diet" containing fats and cholesterol-rich food for 18 months. At this preliminary stage of the study, depressive behavior was noted in animals, the signs of which the authors, drawing an analogy with depression in women, described earlier. In a 2005 article, Shively and co-authors reported that depressed female monkeys avoid communication, are less active and suffer from hormonal disorders. Depression is twice as common in women as in men, which led to the choice of female primates as a model.

Among the experimental monkeys kept on fatty foods, randomly selected those who for 18 months will have to receive a popular antidepressant, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, known by the trade name Zoloft. The rest of the animals represented a control group with placebo instead of Zoloft.

The antidepressant was given to monkeys in doses comparable to those prescribed to patients, and in the primate subjects who received Zoloft, the coronary arteries were clogged with atherosclerotic plaques three times more than in those animals who received placebo. But in monkeys with depression, the number of plaques was even higher. After the course of Zoloft, it increased six times compared to the control group that received a placebo. "Our data suggest that long-term therapy with this drug causes coronary artery atherosclerosis in non–human primates," says Shiveli.

The researcher believes that clinicians should pay attention to this, because about a quarter of middle-aged women, at least in the United States, take antidepressants, while the most commonly prescribed drug is Zoloft.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru21.04.2015