Anti-inflammatory drugs for depression: new review points to benefits, but more research needed

[Bob]

Anti-inflammatory drugs for depression: new review points to benefits, but more research needed
Helge Hasselmann
Nov 28 2014
The Mental Elf
http://www.thementalelf.net/mental-...-points-to-benefits-but-more-research-needed/

This seems like a careful summary of a nuanced review paper on the subject.

Some extracts from the article...

...to date there are hardly any state-of-the-art meta-analyses that systematically review the efficacy and safety of such drugs in the treatment of depression. To heat up the debate, Köhler et al. (2014) have recently published a paper that has taken a look at this issue.

Summary
The study concludes that:
"…anti-inflammatory treatment, in particular celecoxib, decreases depressive symptoms without increased risk of adverse effects."

Conclusion
This meta-analysis reports that easily available anti-inflammatory drug treatment (more NSAIDs and less cytokine inhibitors) can have antidepressant effects either on their own or as add-on to standard drug therapy. However, while it seems these drugs are generally well tolerated in the short-term, longer studies are needed to provide adequate safety data.
As the authors suggest, subgroups of patients with raised inflammatory markers or somatic comorbitidies may particularly benefit from such treatment. Specifically, celecoxib may prove to be a useful addition to antidepressant treatment, but more “unbiased” studies are needed to corroborate such an effect.

 

[Bob]

This is the research paper that the article is based on:

Köhler, O., Benros, M. E., Nordentoft, M., Farkouh, M. E., Iyengar, R. L., Mors, O., & Krogh, J. (2014). Effect of Anti-inflammatory Treatment on Depression, Depressive Symptoms, and Adverse Effects. JAMA Psychiatry. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.1611 [PubMed abstract]

 

[Marco]

On one and only one occasion a single Celebrex absolutely abolished my lifelong anxiety for a few hours shortly after taking it - not reduced but abolished completely. Unfortunately the box is ten years old (as they were at the time) and I haven't been able to repeat this and it could just be co-incidence but I haven't had another similar experience?