Antidepressant Cheers SAD Patients
November 16, 2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- People suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) may benefit by beginning treatment with a standard antidepressant well before the symptoms set in.
Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., from Georgetown Medical School in Washington, was the first physician to identify the seasonal disorder 20 years ago. Now, he and colleagues have conducted a study and found starting patients on bupropion-XL early in the fall can minimize the chance they will fall into deep depression as the season progresses.
Dr. Rosenthal and his colleagues base their opinion on recent research involving more than 1,000 SAD patients from the northern United States and Canada. About 70 percent were women and all suffered from SAD in the past, however, nearly 60 percent were never treated for their depression.
In three prospective, randomized trials the investigators assigned patients to receive bupropion-XL or a placebo in the fall. They then followed the patients throughout the fall and winter and into the next spring. Researchers found people taking the antidepressant had a 44-percent reduced risk of suffering from seasonal depression. When the medication was discontinued in the spring, no difference was observed in relapse rates between patients in the active and placebo groups.
"SAD is an underrecognized clinical condition that, left untreated, can cause significant distress and create a public health burden, study authors say. "These studies demonstrated that it is possible to reduce the risk of recurrence of autumn-winter depression by beginning bupropion treatment early in the season before the onset of depressive symptoms."
SOURCE: Biological Psychiatry, 2005;58:658-667
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