Researchers have found that the drug Prozac also increases bone mass, at least in grownup mice.
"Treating animals for six weeks with Prozac resulted in an increase in trabecular bone mass," stated examine lead author Ricardo Battaglino, assistant member of the employees within the department of cytokine biology at the Forsyth Institute in Boston. "It was a fairly significant 60 % increase."
Trabecular bone is one in all two major sorts of bone and makes up many of the spongy interior of the majority of bones.
Though it is method too early to advocate popping Prozac to reverse or cease bone loss, experts say it is a tantalizing lead for future research.
"For a number of causes, folks must be cautious because fluoxetine [the generic name for Prozac] has central nervous system effects," said Dr. Grant Mitchell, chief of psychiatry at Northern Westchester Hospital Center in Mount Kisco, N.Y. "However it is interesting that present remedies for bone loss in osteoporosis don't take this approach, so the concept that we may in some unspecified time in the future have one other approach to lowering bone loss or even rebuilding new bone is actually exciting. Having extra options would be great."
The study, which was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, is anticipated to be published in an upcoming problem of the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry.
Earlier analysis, a few of it by the same team, had discovered that serotonin receptors were commonly expressed on the floor of bone cells. Serotonin receptors govern the entry of serotonin -- a molecule that helps transmit indicators between neurons and is implicated in anxiousness and despair -- into cells.
Prozac is a member of a bunch of antidepressants known as "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors" (SSRIs) that act on this receptor.
The fact that these receptors populated bone cells "was stunning for us," Battaglino said, "as a result of we had been taking bone cells and serotonin, two molecules that apparently did not have a lot to do with every other."
The subsequent query was whether or not Prozac, which has an impact on serotonin, additionally exerted an affect on bone cells and, in the end, bone mass.
For this examine, laboratory mice were handled with Prozac for six weeks. The investigators had been particularly taken with seeing if the drug stimulated new bone formation beneath normal situations and if it blocked bone loss caused by inflammation or by lack of estrogen after taking out the ovaries.
Prozac each spurred the formation of latest bone beneath normal conditions and reversed general bone loss triggered by inflammation.
The drug was administered each systemically (like taking a pill) and locally (directly to the bone), and the consequences have been observed with each delivery methods, the researchers reported.
"They developed a strategy to deliver locally to the bone, which makes more sense," Mitchell pointed out. "The idea there would be to keep away from the [potential] mind effects."
Oddly, a previous study using Prozac found that the drug truly hindered bone growth. The discrepancy could have been as a result of manner bone mass or density was measured and also to the truth that it involved children, not adults, Battaglino said.
In the new research, Prozac was not efficient in female mice without circulating estrogen (i.e. after their ovaries had been eliminated). In these circumstances, Prozac "didn't prevent bone loss associated with estrogen deficiency," Mitchell said. "It appears like, to be efficient in relation to bone loss, Prozac needs to be within the presence of estrogen." This has implications for ladies moving into menopause who lose estrogen and have an increased danger of osteoporosis, he said.
The findings should be replicated and, in fact, tried in humans, but, given the number of people taking Prozac, the implications might be enormous.
"Fluoxetine is without doubt one of the most widely prescribed psychoactive medicine on this country and most certainly the world, and it has been like that for a minimum of 15 or 20 years," Battaglino said. "From the public health perspective, this might be pretty relevant."
The jury continues to be out on whether other SSRIs -- corresponding to Celexa, Paxil and Zoloft -- may need the identical impact on bone, Battaglino added, since comparable checks on those drugs have not yet been performed.
"This might be a class effect for SSRIs," he said. "Nonetheless, it is recognized that in addition to blocking the serotonin transporter, Prozac can goal different molecules -- for instance, some nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and even some serotonin receptors. So, this effect could be specific for Prozac. The experiments must be finished to answer the question."
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