New Delhi, Feb 15 While antidepressants are commonly used to treat mental health disorders, new research showed their potential to prevent serious infections and life-threatening sepsis.
Scientists at the Salk Institute showed that antidepressants can regulate the immune system and defend against infectious disease. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, may lead to a new generation of life-saving treatments and enhance global preparedness for future pandemics.
The team found that the antidepressant Prozac -- also known as fluoxetine -- can protect tissues and organs while killing bacteria or virus.
"It's essentially playing offense and defense, which is ideal and especially exciting to see in a drug that we already know is safe to use in humans," said Professor Janelle Ayres, from Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
In the study, the researchers studied mice with bacterial infections and separated them into two categories: one pretreated with fluoxetine and the other not.
They found that the mice pretreated with fluoxetine were protected from sepsis, multi-organ damage, and death. In further tests, the number of bacteria was measured in each mouse population eight hours after infection.
Treatment with fluoxetine led to fewer bacteria, signifying a less severe infection.
The findings demonstrated that fluoxetine had antimicrobial properties, which allowed it to limit bacterial growth. Next, the researchers measured the levels of different inflammatory molecules in each group.
They saw more anti-inflammatory IL-10 in their pretreated populations and deduced that IL-10 prevented sepsis-induced hypertriglyceridemia -- a condition in which the blood contains too many fatty triglycerides.
This enabled the heart to maintain the proper metabolic state, protecting the mice from infection-induced morbidity and mortality.
The team found that fluoxetine can kill pathogens and also alleviate infection-induced damage to the body.
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