(Press-News.org) The class of antidepressants known as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), taken to curb menopausal symptoms, may boost bone fracture risk, suggests research published online in the journal Injury Prevention.
The heightened risk seems to last for several years, the findings show, prompting the researchers to suggest that shorter treatment length may be preferable. Further studies are warranted to see if the same association is found at lower doses of these drugs, they say.
SSRIs have become the third most frequently prescribed class of drug in the US, and are often prescribed for disorders that are not ostensibly psychiatric in nature.
These include irritable bowel syndrome and the hot flushes and night sweats typically associated with the menopause, for which SSRIs are seen as an effective alternative to hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Psychiatric disorders, such as depression, have been linked to increased fracture risk, and the researchers wanted to know if SSRIs might be associated with a heightened risk of bone fractures among middle-aged women prescribed them to curb menopausal symptoms.
They used the PharMetrics Claims Database, which contains detailed information on medical and drug treatment claims made by 61 million patients in more than 98 managed care plans in the US.
They focused on 137,031 women with no mental health issues and aged between 40 and 64, who started treatment with SSRIs between 1998 and 2010. The SSRIs included citalopram, hyrdrobromide, escitalopram oxalate, fluoxetine hyrdrochloride, fluvoxamine maleate, paroxetine hydrochloride and sertraline hydrochloride.
They were compared with more than 236,294 women of the same age, prescribed H2 antagonists or proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), typically used to treat indigestion, over the same timeframe.
Analysis of the data showed that fracture rates were significantly higher among the women treated with SSRIs.
The fracture rate was 76% higher among those prescribed SSRIs one year after starting treatment, 73% higher after 2 years, and 67% higher after 5 years than it was among those treated with indigestion drugs.
This is an observational study so no definitive conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, but the researchers point to a previously published theory to explain the associations they found.
Antidepressants may alter bone turnover, shifting the balance in favour of bone thinning rather than bone strengthening activities, they suggest.
"SSRIs appear to increase fracture risk among middle aged women without psychiatric disorders, an effect sustained over time, suggesting that shorter duration of treatment may decrease [this]," they conclude.
They point out that the number of women prescribed SSRIs for menopausal symptoms is likely to increase in the wake of the US drug regulator's green light for another SSRI for this treatment indication.
"Future efforts should examine whether this association pertains at lower doses," they add.
INFORMATION:
Recent changes to regulations on the transport of pets across Europe may have increased the threat of introducing rabies from rescue dogs into countries considered free of the disease, suggests research published in Veterinary Record.
In 2012 the European Union (EU) changed its requirements for the non-commercial movement of cats, dogs, and ferrets across the borders of EU and European Economic Area countries.
Up to that point, countries free of rabies virus - the UK, Ireland, Malta, Sweden and Norway - had required an additional blood test to be carried out a month ...
Women in developed countries still find it very difficult to get an abortion in early pregnancy, despite facing fewer legal constraints than in other parts of the world, concludes an analysis of the available evidence, published in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care.
Inadequate local service provision, negative attitudes towards abortion, and too few training opportunities for healthcare professionals all hinder access, say the researchers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that for every 100 live births in the developed world, there ...
Proposed amendments to India's abortion law are "contradictory" and need "urgent redrafting" to prevent women from making ill informed decisions and risking their lives with illegal terminations, writes a senior doctor in The BMJ this week.
Nikhil Datar, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at Cloudnine Group of hospitals & Lifewave Hospital in Mumbai, explains that India legalised abortion in 1971 by passing the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MPT) Act. This allows termination of pregnancy until only 20 weeks' gestation.
Except for when a woman's life is at ...
A new test can accurately predict within minutes if an individual has Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), according to new research published in The Lancet. The study is the first to show that a point-of-care EVD test (ReEBOV Antigen Rapid Test; Corgenix) is faster than and as sensitive as a conventional laboratory-based molecular method used for clinical testing during the recent outbreak in Sierra Leone.
This new rapid diagnostic test (RDT) could cut back on the lengthy process usually required to confirm if a patient has EVD, help identify case contacts, and ultimately curb ...
Washington, DC (June 25, 2015) -- Experts have identified strategies for using electronic health records to improve care for patients with chronic kidney disease. The guidance, which will appear in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), may help clinicians and hospitals better manage individual patients with chronic conditions and identify groups of patients most likely to benefit from different treatment strategies.
Well-designed electronic health records (EHRs) can help clinicians monitor and care for patients with long-term ...
Schizophrenia, which affects 2 million to 3 million people in the U.S., causes hallucinations, delusions and disorganization. Left untreated, the disease can cause a significant loss in quality of life, including unemployment and estrangement from loved ones. But many people with schizophrenia can control the disorder and live without symptoms for several years if they consistently take prescribed antipsychotic medication, typically a daily pill.
The problem is that many people don't continue taking their medication once their symptoms improve.
Now, a UCLA study has ...
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jun. 26, 2015) -- Researchers at the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging have completed a study that revealed differences in the way brain inflammation -- considered a key component of AD-- is expressed in different subsets of patients, in particular people with Down syndrome (DS) and AD.
People with Down syndrome have a third copy of Chromosome 21, and that chromosome is the same one responsible for the production of a molecule called amyloid precursor protein. Amyloid overproduction can lead to brain plaques that are a cardinal feature ...
A new NASA supercomputer simulation of the planet and debris disk around the nearby star Beta Pictoris reveals that the planet's motion drives spiral waves throughout the disk, a phenomenon that causes collisions among the orbiting debris. Patterns in the collisions and the resulting dust appear to account for many observed features that previous research has been unable to fully explain.
"We essentially created a virtual Beta Pictoris in the computer and watched it evolve over millions of years," said Erika Nesvold, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore ...
Chronic disease and mental health issues disproportionately affect low-income African-Americans, Latinos and Hispanics, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two new studies by the UCLA Center for Culture, Trauma and Mental Health Disparities shed light on the causes and impacts of this disparity.
The first study, published online by the journal Psychological Trauma, analyzed certain types of negative experiences that may affect low-income African-Americans and Latinos. It found five specific environmental factors, which the researchers call "domains," ...
Every time you put on bug spray this summer, you're launching a strike in the ongoing war between humans and mosquitoes -- one that is rapidly driving the evolution of the pests.
Scientists studying mosquitoes in various types of environments in the United States and in Russia found that between 5 and 20 percent of a mosquito population's genome is subject to evolutionary pressures at any given time -- creating a strong signature of local adaptation to environment and humans.
This means that individual populations are likely to have evolved resistance to whatever local ...
