Healthcare

Although one of stroke risk may came from depression effects, however, there is remain unclear for the effects of antidepressant drugs itself.
Meanwhile, the cases of antidepressant medications induced bleeding complications and vasoconstriction of the large cerebral arteries evidently increased recently.

Therefore, due to this, the researchers from Taiwan investigated the effects of antidepressant drugs, especially to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) for the effect to cerebrovascular.

Reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry on March 15, 2011, the researchers said that the use of antidepressant drugs of SSRI adding the risk of stroke more higher.

This suggestion appeared after the study authors, Susan Shur-Fen Gau, MD, PhD, professor of the department of psychiatry at National Taiwan University, Taiwan, and colleagues conducted a case-crossover study to compared rates of antidepressant use during case and control time windows of 7, 14, and 28 days among 24,214 patients with stroke who were enrolled in the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan from 1988 to 2007.

Overall, the study authors write, “Our findings are compatible with those of studies showing that a high inhibition of the serotonin transporter has a more potent antiplatelet effect and is associated with a higher risk of abnormal bleeding in other organ systems.”

What surprising is in the findings was that SSRI may potentially associated with a greater risk for ischemic stroke.
Due to this, the researchers speculated that the mechanism may came from “antidepressant-induced vasoconstriction.”

However, the authors suggested that when the drugs really needed, starts with low doses and monitors the adverse events because the stroke risk appears to be dose related.