risky antipsychotic drugs, scientists find
Among patients being treated with antipsychotic medication, including those who are taking the most recent generation of drugs, a new diagnoses of diabetes did not result in substantial changes in prescription, according to a study at the School of Medicine.
Second-generation antipsychotics -- including clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, zipradisone and aripiprazole -- are as effective in treating schizophrenia as first generation anti-psychotics, but some evidence suggests that these medications are associated with other side-effects, such as weight gain and increased risk of diabetes, says first author Douglas Leslie, assistant professor of psychiatry.
Of 56,849 patients who participated in the study of these drugs, 7.3% were later diagnosed with diabetes. The number of patients who switched or discontinued antipsychotics were small and were statistically significant only for patients who were taking risperidone before the diagnosis of diabetes, Leslie says.
Leslie and senior author Dr. Robert Rosenheck, professor of psychiatry, also looked at the costs of managing diabetes in patients on these drugs. They found the average cost was $3,104 over the average follow up of 15.7 months, or $6.59 per day.
"The results presented here offer important insight into the consequences of newly diagnosed diabetes among patients who have schizophrenia and take antipsychotics," Leslie says.
-- By Jacqueline Weaver
T H I S
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