Suicide Risks From Antidepressants Vary With Age, FDA Says
Younger people who take antidepressants are at greater risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts, but older adults who use the same drugs may not face the same increased risks, according to a newly released report by the Food and Drug Administration.
Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro, and Cymbalta are taken by millions of Americans, but they have been associated with increased risks of suicide and suicidal thoughts and other complications for years. In 2003, drug regulators in the United States and across Europe started warning about reports of people taking the drugs suffering from severe psychological side effects.
By 2005, the FDA had ordered “Black Box” warnings to be added to the drugs’ packaging to warn physicians and patients of the suicide risks among young children and teens. Two years later, in May 2007, those prominent warnings were extended to people ages 18 to 24.
A new analysis by FDA scientists finds a difference in the suicide risks depending on the age of the person taking the drugs. The researchers used data from eight drug makers taken from 372 clinical trials involving nearly 100,000 adults.
Study Finds Increased Suicide Risks in Some Antidepressant Users
They found that the risk of suicide was “strongly age-dependent,” with people under age 25 facing the highest risks, no increase among those 25 to 64, and lower risks found in people 65 and older.
The study findings, published on the website of the British Medical Journal, support the FDA’s warnings for antidepressants for people under age 25, the researchers said. More study is needed to better understand why the suicide risks from taking antidepressants vary with age, generally decreasing as users grow older, they said.
Differences in Classes of Antidepressants
There also were differences found in the specific type of antidepressant taken, with lower risks of suicide and suicidal thoughts found among patients taking the class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
People taking Zoloft, the Pfizer drug known chemically as sertraline, were about half of those who took placebo. But other drugs, including Celexa (citalopram) and Lexapro (escitalopram), appeared to increase the risks of suicidal events, the researchers said.
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