For years now, doctors have been using antidepressants to help people quit smoking, and now a drug that helps people kick their nicotine addiction may be effective as an antidepressant.
Not long after Chantix hit the market, several doctors noticed it could drastically improve the moods of depressed smokers who didn’t respond to established antidepressants. Last year they started a small clinical trial to test the effect.
At the time, the FDA had just warned that Chantix could cause suicidal behavior after a musician who was taking the anti-smoking pill became aggressive and was shot dead by his girlfriend’s neighbor. When that incident made headlines, scores of people wrote blog and message board comments saying that the drug had made them feel miserable or suicidal. But those stories did not dissuade the researchers, who had seen evidence to the contrary.
"Varenicline (Chantix) demonstrated an ability to augment the effects of ongoing antidepressant treatment," says Noah Philip, a psychiatrist who led the study. "Also importantly, no patients became suicidal during the study."
Philip gave the drug to eighteen depressed smokers, along with their other medications. Ten of them responded remarkably well to the medication.
The drug may be able to help the half of people who suffer from depression who don’t get better when they take traditional antidepressants. Most of those drugs work by slowing the uptake of signal-sending chemicals called neurotransmitters. Chantix works in a completely different way, by interfering with two brain proteins that are stimulated by smoking.
"It holds promise, but additional much larger, placebo-controlled trials would be necessary to reach conclusions of effects and best doses and regimens as a treatment option," says Jotham Coe, a chemist who invented the drug while working for Pfizer.
Chantix has some other problems that could keep it from becoming a blockbuster medication. It can cause stomach upset, trigger psychedelic dreams, and may not be suitable for long term use — most people take it for less than 24 weeks.
See Also:
- Antismoking Pill Chantix May Ease Depression — Or Cause Suicidal Thoughts
- Is the Smoking Cessation Drug Chantix an Antidepressant or a Source of Suicidal Thoughts
- Antidepressants May Thwart Quest for True Love
- FDA Holds Hearings on Epilepsy Drug Suicide Risk
Photo courtesy of Pfizer
