NEW YORK, April 25, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Scientists
at the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at The
Rockefeller University, led by Paul Greengard,
Ph.D., and Jennifer Warner-Schmidt, Ph.D., have shown that
anti-inflammatory drugs, which include ibuprofen, aspirin and
naproxen, reduce the effectiveness of the most widely used class of
antidepressant medications, the selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitors, or SSRIs, taken for depression and obsessive-compulsive
disorder and anxiety disorders. This surprising
discovery, published online this week in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, may explain why so many
depressed patients taking SSRIs do not respond to antidepressant
treatment and suggests that this lack of effectiveness may be
preventable. The study may be especially significant in the case of
Alzheimer’s disease. Such patients commonly suffer from depression
and unless this can be treated successfully, the course of the
illness is likely to be more severe. Depression in the elderly is
also a risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease and
researchers have suggested that treating depression in the elderly
might reduce the risk of developing the disease.

In the recent study, investigators treated animal models with
antidepressants in the presence or absence of anti-inflammatory
drugs. They then examined how the models behaved in tasks that
are sensitive to antidepressant treatment. The behavioral responses
to antidepressants were inhibited by anti-inflammatory/analgesic
treatments. They then confirmed these effects in a human
population.  Depressed individuals who reported
anti-inflammatory drug use were much less likely to have their
symptoms relieved by an antidepressant than depressed patient

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