Journal article
Statins in depression: a repurposed medical treatment can provide novel insights in mental health
- Abstract:
- Depression has a large burden, but the development of new drugs for its treatment has proved difficult. Progresses in neuroscience have highlighted several physiopathological pathways, notably inflammatory and metabolic ones, likely involved in the genesis of depressive symptoms. A novel strategy proposes to repurpose established medical treatments of known safety and to investigate their potential antidepressant activity. Among numerous candidates, growing evidence suggests that statins may have a positive role in the treatment of depressive disorders, although some have raised concerns about possible depressogenic effects of these widely prescribed medications. This narrative review summarises relevant findings from translational studies implicating many interconnected neurobiological and neuropsychological, cardiovascular, endocrine-metabolic, and immunological mechanisms by which statins could influence mood. Also, the most recent clinical investigations on the effects of statins in depression are presented. Overall, the use of statins for the treatment of depressive symptoms cannot be recommended based on the available literature, though this might change as several larger, methodologically robust studies are being conducted. Nevertheless, statins can already be acknowledged as a driver of innovation in mental health, as they provide a novel perspective to the physical health of people with depression and for the development of more precise antidepressant treatments.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.9MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1080/09540261.2022.2113369
Authors
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis Group
- Journal:
- International Review of Psychiatry More from this journal
- Volume:
- 34
- Issue:
- 7-8
- Pages:
- 699-714
- Publication date:
- 2022-08-23
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-08-09
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1369-1627
- ISSN:
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0954-0261
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1275265
- Local pid:
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pubs:1275265
- Deposit date:
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2022-08-23
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- De Giorgi et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
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