- A new diabetes drug appears to be effective in treating depression-like symptoms in mice.
- Researchers say if these results can be duplicated in humans, they could pave the way for depression treatments with fewer side effects than current chemical antidepressants.
- They add that their study furthers the understanding of the links between metabolic factors in the body and psychological conditions.
A type 2 diabetes drug belonging to the same class of drugs as weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy could become a novel treatment for depression, according to a
Researchers reported that mice treated with dulaglutide — a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1) — had fewer depression-like behaviors after being subjected to four weeks of chronic stress compared to a control group of mice that underwent the same conditions but were not treated with the drug.
“Currently, the widely available pharmacological treatments are synthetic chemical antidepressants, which require weeks to months to elicit a response, have several side effects, and may even be toxic in high doses,” the study authors wrote. “As such, there is an urgent need for novel therapies with fewer adverse effects and greater efficacy.”
The scientists also observed chemical changes in the mice, including 64 distinct metabolites affected by the drugs and four chemical pathways that appeared to induce changes in depression-like behavior.
These findings follow similar mouse studies into dulaglutide, suggesting that it may help with vascular dementia, increase memory ability, and reduce Alzheimer’s-like cognitive impairments, the study authors noted.
“Overall, this is a robust animal model study,” said Dr. Jagdish Khubchandani, a professor of public health at New Mexico State University who was…
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