A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that teenagers who take antipsychotic medications are at risk of becoming overweight or obese, and for developing metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome includes symptoms such as overweight, too much abdominal fat, and abnormal cholesterol and high blood pressure. Some of the teenagers who took these medications developed symptoms of cardiovascular disease.

• Dr. Christoph Correll of Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York and his colleagues studied 272 patients ages 4 to 19 years old who were taking drugs such as Abilify, Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Risperdal.
• Between 10 and 36 percent of the studied teens became overweight or obese.
  
• Dr. Correll recommended that "the cardiometabolic risk of these drugs in children should be balanced through careful assessment of the indication for their use, consideration of lower risk alternative, and proactive adverse effect monitoring and management."

"Cardiometabolic adverse effects, such as age-inappropriate weight gain, obesity, hypertension, and lipid and glucose abnormalities are particularly problematic during development," said Dr. Correll, "because they predict adult obesity, the metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular morbidity, and malignancy."

Labels: antipsychotic, medications, obesity

Three drug companies have asked the Federal Drug Administration's review board to approve the use of antipsychotic drugs for children as young as 10 years old who have bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

A June 5 Reuters article by Lisa Richwine and Susan Heavey provided the following details about the request:

The Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to approve AstraZeneca's Seroquel, Pfizer's Geodon and Eli Lilly and Co's Zyprexa for children and teens with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. All three are blockbuster medicines already sold for adults.

An FDA panel meets next week to make recommendations on the companies' bids to promote the drugs for children and teens.

Doctors can already prescribe them for children, but FDA approval would allow companies to promote the drugs, with combined sales of over $10 billion a year, more widely.

The request was followed by criticisms from organizations who are concerned about the effects of antipsychotic drugs on children.

"The studies done so far on these drugs provide almost no information about the long-term effects of them on children," said Diana Zuckerman of the National Research Center for Women and Families.

Labels: antipsychotic, bipolar, children, fda, medications, schizophrenia