New drug for bipolar disorder is now under investigation
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New drug for bipolar disorder is now under investigation
Oxford University researchers have identified a new drug to treat bipolar disorder, a psychiatric disorder in which people experience feelings of mania alternating with depression. The new drug is similar to lithium but it has no adverse effects or the toxicity of lithium, which is a major advantage for the patient.
The new compound, which was already tested on animals, is called ebselen and will be included in clinical trials to be studied in humans. Co-principal investigator Dr Grant Churchill of the Department of Pharmacology at Oxford University, said that lithium is used for over 60 years and remains the most effective method of treatment for bipolar disorder. He said that ebselen is a drug created for other conditions but works like lithium and has no toxic effects.
Bipolar disorder is a relatively common disorder in psychiatry. It is estimated to affect about one in 100 people and can occur at any age. People with bipolar disorder have extreme feelings of mania (hypomania) and depression that affect their everyday lives. Lithium remains the most effective method of treatment for bipolar disorder because it treats both mania and depression. In addition, what is important is that lithium reduces the risk of suicide.
Although lithium is effective in treating depression and mania in bipolar disorder, it still has a number of side effects that limits its use. Also note that long-term lithium use affects the kidneys which can lead to kidney failure. Also other unwanted effects are weight gain, which can be quite unpleasant for the patient, and thirst. Another thing that should be known about lithium is that it becomes toxic at twice the therapeutic dose, so it should be used with caution. Researchers have long wanted to discover a drug to act as lithium but their efforts were not successful.
Now researchers used a U.S. National Institutes of Health Clinical Collection containing drugs created for diverse disorders but with not precise indication. They looked especially for a drug that acts like lithium and found that this drug could be ebselen. Ebselen is an antioxidant that has been designed as a treatment for stroke but that never came to be released on the market.
Experiments on animals have shown positive results and now is to be tested in people with bipolar disorder to see if it has the same effect. The other lead author, Dr Sridhar Vasudevan of the Department of Pharmacology at Oxford University, said: “‘This is one of the first handful of examples of drug repurposing, where a new use has been found for an existing drug.”