Thursday, August 28, 2003

3 Schizophrenia Drugs May Raise Diabetes Risk, Study Says
August 25 New York Times front page article - "Three drugs commonly prescribed for schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses increased patients' risk of developing diabetes when compared with older antipsychotic medications, researchers said yesterday, presenting the results from a long-awaited study of patients treated at veterans hospitals and clinics across the country. The drugs — Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly, Risperdal, made by Jannsen Pharmaceutica, and Seroquel, made by AstraZeneca — were associated with higher rates of diabetes than older generation drugs for schizophrenia like Haldol, the study found. But the increased risk was statistically significant only for Zyprexa and Risperdal, the researchers said, possibly because of the smaller number of subjects who took Seroquel." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Merging NIDA, NIAAA Would Improve Science, Report Says
Feature article at the Join Together web site - "The influential National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has recommended merging the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), saying that research on alcohol and other drugs frequently overlaps and that arguments against a merger are 'primarily nonscientific'." See also the report by the Committee on the Organizational Structure of the National Institutes of Health, Enhancing the Vitality of the National Institutes of Health: Organizational Changes to Meet New Challenges.  
  

Sertraline May Be Helpful for Major Depressive Disorder in Children
A new CME unit from Medscape Medical News - "Sertraline may be helpful in treating children with major depressive disorder (MDD), according to the results of two randomized, placebo-controlled trials published in the Aug. 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. The editorialist reviews the recent history of use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for MDD in children and reminds clinicians not to initiate treatment with paroxetine. He suggests that fluoxetine and sertraline may be preferable." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, whish is free]. See also the JAMA article, which is available at no charge.  
  

Antidepressants Too Widely Prescribed in UK: Report
Reuters Health story at Medscape - "Antidepressant prescriptions issued by general practitioners in Britain more than doubled between 1975 and 1998 to 23.4 million per year--even though there is little evidence to justify such widespread use, according to a report in the latest edition of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin. Possible reasons for the sharp rise in prescribing include greater awareness of depression, guidelines advocating that patients stay on therapy for at least 4 to 6 months after resolution of their symptoms, and industry promotion of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, the report said.". [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, whish is free].  
  

Does fear of coercion keep people away from mental health treatment? Evidence from a survey of persons with schizophrenia and mental health professionals
An abstract at Wiley InterScience, of an article in Behavioral Sciences & the Law - "In multivariable analyses, only involuntary hospitalization and recent warnings about treatment nonadherence were found to be significantly associated with these barriers. These results suggest that mandated treatment may serve as a barrier to treatment, but that ongoing informal pressures to adhere to treatment may also be important barriers to treatment." Full text of the article is available from the linked page for a fee.  
  

A Canadian approach to early intervention in psychosis
An item in last week's Mental Health Notes (CMHA) - "Early assertive psychosis detection and intervention helps reduce remission rates, improve patients’ self-rated quality of life, and decrease their duration of untreated psychosis, according to a study of a Canadian program published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. The Prevention and Early Intervention Program for Psychoses (PEPP), established in 1997 in London, Ontario, provides clinical services in an early intervention and treatment setting. The Canadian authors of the study note that a major barrier to appropriate care is the difficulty of identifying early signs of psychosis. Treatment delays can also affect social functioning and quality of life."