For many people who experience seasonal affective disorder or SAD, autumn marks the start of a slide into depression that may last until spring. But one drug manufacturer is working on a way to ward off the condition before it settles in for the winter.
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The cure for SAD? Time and sunshine. (Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette) |
GlaxoSmithKline is conducting a clinical trial to determine whether its antidepressant Wellbutrin (bupropion hydrochloride) will help treat SAD if taken before symptoms strike. People with SAD have used special light-emitting devices to treat themselves, but usually only after they're feeling low.
Glaxo's trial began in September, with 300 participants taking a once-daily Wellbutrin pill -- a version that has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In the spring, the participants will go off the drug, and investigators will determine whether taking the drug helped head off SAD symptoms.
Because SAD primarily strikes people who live in the north, all study participants live above 38.5 degrees latitude.
Norman Rosenthal, the psychiatrist who coined the term SAD in the 1980s, is investigator for the trial's Bethesda, Md., site. He says this is the first study aimed at developing a preventive treatment.
Though SAD is estimated to affect 5 percent of the U.S. population -- roughly 14 million people -- the condition occupies the margins of psychological diagnosis. DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition) describes SAD as a "pattern specifier" of conditions such as major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, but doesn't give SAD its own designation.
"I'm thrilled that a major pharmaceutical house has taken notice," said Rosenthal, clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine and a former National Institutes of Health researcher. "I think the trials will boost the condition so more people will research it."
Rosenthal said he has always "winterized" his SAD patients, reminding them in September to make sure their light-box bulbs are working and prescribing antidepressants. But it took funding from a big drug company, he said, to study a preventive treatment.
Glaxo spokesman Stephen O'Quinn said the company chose to study Wellbutrin for SAD over its other antidepressant, Paxil, because Wellbutrin works better on forms of depression, like SAD, that are accompanied by low energy and food cravings.
Will we soon see TV commercials touting Wellbutrin as the new answer to SAD? That may depend on the results of the clinical trials.
But Rosenthal is hopeful. "A depression where you can predict when it's going to come and go -- I can't imagine where you have a better crack at unlocking the biochemistry."
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