Comments: Seroquel Being Trialed For Anorexia
Drugs for anorexia? That makes no sense at all. Unless you are talking about medically caused anorexia in which case there are already drugs on the market for increasing appetite and they certainly aren't psychotropics. Icky yes, liquids, but not psychotropics. The mainstay of treatment for anorexia is systems therapy with families or for adults intensive psychotherapy and sometimes residential help in respectful places such as Renfrew Centers. Seroquel and Zyprexa? What will they think of next?
Posted by Alison Hymes at April 23, 2009 10:53 PM
Seroquel, like most antipsychotics, causes enormous weight gains. This is probably why they are conducting these trials.
Off subject here, but I watched on TV last night the Craigslist murderer. There was a video of the court appearance and he had an extreme case of excessive eye blinking. Even my hubby noticed it. SSRIs are widely known to cause this kind of tic and there is much info on the Net about excessive eye blinking and SSRIs. Just a thought.
Posted by Rosie at April 24, 2009 06:10 AM
While patients, especially women, all over the U.S. are committing suicide and also murdering people while on SSRIs and the atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel, the medical community is studying something as ridiculous as "Psychoneuroendocrinology" So we are back to Freud again, only with a twist. Common sense no longer matters.
Makes one want to weep.
Posted by Rosie at April 24, 2009 06:58 AM
Is that a drug trial or snake oil advertising? If the study is double blind - as it should be - how does the patient know what she is taking. If the patient knows what she is taking, how does she know it is not a placebo effect? This is bad science by the researcher, or a drug advertisement, or yellow tabloid journalism. For shame.
Posted by Jinnah Mohammed at April 24, 2009 08:48 AM
ONE patient? And this is better than sheer random chance how???
Posted by Sherry at April 24, 2009 08:51 AM
What the anorexic fears is being fat, and the medications cause weight gain. Ones visible physical appearance is important to oneself . I knew a woman who killed herself from becoming fat from the forced antipsychotics. What happens when the anorexic has the freedom to hurt themselves outside of a hospital?
Posted by Mark(p.s.2) at April 24, 2009 10:01 AM
My knowlege on treating anorexia is the same as Alison's: systems based family therapy. as far as psychotherapy goes, there are a lot of cool things going on regarding anorexia. but still fam systems as a mainstay.
this is a perverse announcement, though: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade -- if a drug gives people weight gain, sell it as an anorexia treatment.
this is as crazy as AZ working on diabetes treatment - uh, yeah, cuz you are giving ppl diabetes!
Posted by MedsVsTherapy at April 24, 2009 10:10 AM
I think for patients who are at the stage where thier low weight has become a danger a drug that works fast to increase your appitite while also sedating you enough that you have a hard time using the messed up thinking that's lead you to resist eating thus far (cause you're so sedated), yet still feeling soooo hungry... well it's a good SHORT TERM treatment idea versus a feeding tube or death.
Long term, probably not a good idea unless other treatments have failed. And yes I DO think they should use POT first, with something like xanax to avoid any bad reactions to the pot, cause it is safer for your health and so are the benzo's like valium and xanax, than are the atypicals. (again - short term). But we're STILL sadly not at that point in our culture so the next best thing is anything that can get a person to RELAX enough while also increasing thier appitite enough to get them to eat something until they are past the point of being so thin they might just die from starvation.
Again, long term, it's probably not the best idea for a 1st choice in treatment.
Posted by katielou82 at April 24, 2009 10:42 AM
A big, fat core issue for anorexics is control. Their body is their last bastion. I can only imagine the permanent damage one could do forcibly medicating an anorectic person with a drug that causes massive weight gain. Once again, "We had to destry the village in order to save it."
Posted by Sherry at April 24, 2009 11:08 AM
It seems to me that this would effectively add a new problem on top of an old one.
Posted by Paul Scott at April 24, 2009 12:45 PM
What an easy way to market insulin treatment, ala Lilly and Zyprexa insulin pens.
Marketing blitz aside--people w anorexia (men are anorexic also) is that food is such a strong force of negativity, that adding swallowing a pill regardless of its side effects can be overwhelming and probably in a hospital setting it would be forced for discharge, like how they make ppl weigh a certain amount before they are released. Body image is so warped, that everything in your mind makes you fat, you are fat, and fat is disgusting...that's how the thought works. I only got over my anorexia because I was tired of the stress. It's not easy keeping that lid screwed down. I was down to one apple a day or a raisen a day, dry heaving, etc. It was not by a program or drug or even food that stopped that train in my brain, it was me and self-determination, and most of all self respect.
I never would have taken a pill, I wouldn't even listen to "reason". Looking back at my size, it's unbelievable how underweight i was, and only as an overweight person I saw it!
Oh yes, this is about Seroquel....
Posted by Stephany at April 24, 2009 01:32 PM
(re: my comment above)that was 30 years ago.
Posted by Stephany at April 24, 2009 06:47 PM
As someone noted, marijuana has proven scientifically to increase appetite in anorexics. It's a herbal remedy that should be sanctioned for eating disorders. Introducing hard psychotropic chemicals into the anorexia recovery process is sure to cause greater problems down the road. But then, we are not dealing with either science of common sense here, are we?
Posted by The Skeptic at April 24, 2009 10:51 PM
Vitamin supplementation prevents anorexia -
http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n02.shtml
From the Orthomolecular news service - free to subscribe
Posted by Lilly NC at April 25, 2009 12:42 AM
What should be patently obvious is that our field is a sham. Where else in medicine does one treatment fit all? I mean SSRI’s treat depression, anxiety, OCD, sleep problems, social phobia, pain, anorexia and on and on. Now anti-psychotics treat psychosis, depression (e.g. Abilify), bipolar, child bipolar, anorexia, anxiety and on and on. It’s all nothing but Pharma “spinning” and “pushing” their products on a very gullible public.
Posted by Tom at April 25, 2009 05:32 AM
Tom, also I think pharma is pushing and spinning to a vulnerable professional group too: doctors and psychiatrists. Hell, my PCP was a pharma reps dream come true! I got Seroquel from the PCP for insomnia. (samples)in 2006. (that's in the perverbial trash bin now)
Posted by Stephany at April 25, 2009 03:52 PM
Antipsychotics are used off label to treat anxiety, depression, OCD, generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD, ADD, panic attacks, obsessive thoughts, eating disorders, they are also used in rehab, too. Their are many advertisements for antipsychotics for anorexia. The Seroquel add is a lot less offensive than some of the other antipsychotics for anorexia ads. Some of them don't understand anorexia at all. Anyway, if your prescribed Seroquel for anorexia, there's a way you could lose weight on Seroquel. Just take glucaphage with it, glucaphage does the reverse of the metabolic stuff antipsychotics do, so if you take glucaphage while on antipsychotics, you'll lose weight. What's crazy about these off label uses that while antipsychotics are frequently marketed off label for OCD, ADHD, anxiety, depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, is that some of these off label sues are for conditions that antipsychotics cause or worsen. Risperdal is marketed for ADD. Risperdal makes concentration worse and they market it off label for ADD. That makes no sense. What's also weird is that they market Zyprexa for binge eating disorder. That just makes no sense. These off label uses get really weird. That's like giving out Wellbutrin for scitzophrenia. Some of these off label uses are for meds that cause the symptom they are prescribed to treat.
Posted by Princess at April 25, 2009 06:39 PM
There is just no comment to even make.
I am still stunned into silence by the seven year old boy in Florida.
Very important reading, which can be ordered from Amazon: Grace Jackson, MD "
Re-thinking Psychiatric Medications " She had to self-publish, though board certified in psychiatry, because no publishing house would touch it. But she knows her stuff and has done original analysis of Zyprexa clinical trials for use by Psych Rights in Alaska case.
And
by David Healy, MD "Mania" JOhns HOpkins uNiverSITY pRESS 2008. bOTh books are ESSENTIAL reading, IMO, and if you don't like AMazon, order through your local independent bookstore...keep the little guys in business as they are going out of business indroves due to Amazon.
The books are, to coinc a phrase,DEADLY ACCURATE.
Posted by sorrowful at April 26, 2009 10:25 AM