Evaluation of Metabolic Effects of Antidepressant Drugs in Patients with Mood Disorders: A Case-control Study

Abstract

Introduction: Treatment of mood disorders like Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and anxiety etc., includes longterm use of antidepressants which alleviate the symptoms with proven efficacy and safety. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of disorder which includes body weight gain, abdominal obesity, hypertriglyceridaemia, hypertension, and hyperglycaemia either individually or collectively. The link between metabolic adverse effects of antidepressants usage requires further elaboration. Aim: To evaluate the metabolic adverse effects of antidepressant drugs among the patients with mood disorders and also to compare with healthy controls. Materials and Methods: This case-control study was conducted in the Department of Pharmacology and Department of Psychiatry at a tertiary care teaching hospital, Puducherry, India from January 2018 to June 2018. A total of 66 participants following the inclusion criteria, were divided into two groups- group A: 33 age and sex matched healthy subjects were enrolled as control group and group B: 33 patients diagnosed to have MDD, anxiety and other mood disorders were the drug treated group. Metabolic profile was screened by body weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), Waist Circumference (WC), Fasting Blood Sugar (FBS) and lipid profile. Independent Student’s t-test was used to compare the lipid profile among groups and One way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by Dunnet’s t test was used to compare demographic data, lipid profile. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 42.0±13.0 years and 41.3±14.9 years in group A and group B respectively. In present study, male 38 (57.6%) outnumbered females 28 (42.4%). BMI in the groups A and B was 27.0±3.0 (kg/m2) and 29.4±0.9 (kg/m2) respectively (p<0.05). No differences were observed with height, weight and waist WC between the groups. FBS level was significantly increased in group B 114.6±13.8 (mg/dL) as compared to group A, 93.2±4.8 (mg/dL). No significant changes was observed for renal parameters, blood pressure and complete blood count except lymphocyte count (p-value=0.015) between the groups. The serum High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) was increased in group B as compared to group A but the increase was within the normal range. Statistically significant increase in Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) and total cholesterol was seen in group B when compared to group A. Conclusion: The present study elucidated the increase in the BMI, FBS, serum LDL and total cholesterol in the antidepressant treated group when compared with control group.

Keywords

• body mass index
• fasting blood glucose
• lipid profile
• waist circumference