Schizophrenia is a complex type of psychotic mental illness characterized by thoughts that are uncoupled from reality.
Huge gains in the effective treatment of individuals with the disease began in the 1950s with the development of the first generation of antipsychotic drugs. The medications allowed physicians to treat the “positive” effects of the illness (delusions and hallucinations) and, to a lesser extent, the “negative” symptoms (apathy). The second generation of antipsychotics – known as atypical antipsychotics (AAP) – began in 1990. These newer medicines have proven as effective in treating the positive aspects of the disease and more effective in combating the negative ones.
As is the case with nearly all medications, antipsychotics have side affects, including weight gain and some other risk factors of metabolic syndrome, which puts an individual at greater risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Physicians are concerned that these side effects will cause their patients to stop taking their medications.
A team of French researchers has now found in an animal model that consuming at least one of the AAPs exhibit some of the risks related to metabolic syndrome that are similar to those found in patients. This model allows researchers to explore the sequence of early metabolic events that result from AAP treatment.
Presentation at the 121st Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society
Montserrat Victoriano, Gilles Fromentin, Jean-Francois Huneau, and Dominique Hermier of the Department of Human Nutrition, INRA, Paris, France; and Renaud de Beaurepaire, Department of Psychopharmacology, Hospital Paul Guiraud, Villejuif, France, conducted the study. It is entitled Energy Metabolism Disturbances Induced by Antipsychotic Treatment in a Rat Model. Dr. Hermier will present the team's findings at the 121st annual meeting of the American Physiological Society (APS; www.the-APS.org/press), part of the Experimental Biology 2008 scientific conference.
Summary of the Study
The researchers had previously developed a model for antipsychotic-induced weight gain in the male rat, which allowed them to clearly distinguish between those antipsychotic drugs that produce some weight gain, moderate weight gain or no gain at all. These distinctions corresponded to the response in humans. Their latest study is built on these findings.