Posted by andrewb on November 16, 1999, at 15:37:09
The thyroid hormone T4 may be effective in treating treatment resistant depression according to the abstract of the study quoted below. For lots more info. on strategies for dealing with treatment resistant depression see Ivan Goldberg’s ‘Depression Central’ website at http://www.psycom.net/depression.central.html
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Source Biol Psychiatry 1999 Jan 15;45(2):229-33
Title Treatment of refractory chronic depression and dysthymia with high-dose
thyroxine.
Author Rudas S, Schmitz M, Pichler P, Baumgartner A
Address Community Mental Health Service of Vienna, Austria.BACKGROUND: An 8-week open trial was conducted to investigate whether patients
with treatment-resistant, chronic depression and/or dysthymia could profit from
high-dose thyroxine (T4) augmentation. METHODS: Nine patients whose current
depressive episode had lasted for a mean of 15.5 +/- 8.6 months (range: 2-30
months) received T4 in addition to their current medication. RESULTS: Two
patients dropped out of the study owing to side effects. The remaining 7
patients received a final mean dose of T4 of 235 +/- 58 micrograms/day (range:
150-300 micrograms/day). Their scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale
had fallen from a mean of 21.1 +/- 4.1 before inclusion in the study to a mean
of 8.0 +/- 2.8 at the end of the 8th week. Five patients were full responders,
1 a partial responder, and 1 a nonresponder. CONCLUSIONS: Augmentation with
high-dose T4 proved to have an antidepressant effect in more than 50% of the
previously treatment-resistant patients with chronic depression and/or
dysthymia.
poster:andrewb
thread:15315
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991108/msgs/15315.html