New Review of Antipsychotics for Schizophrenia Questions Evidence for Long Term Use

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A systematic review of the limited research available on the long-term effects of antipsychotics finds fewer symptoms in those off of the drugs.

Antipsychotics Change the Architecture of the Colon

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Researchers in Singapore find that antipsychotic medications are associated with changes to colonic architecture, which could result in difficult colonoscopy and increased colonoscopy-related risks....

Scant Evidence for Combining Antipsychotics

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Researchers in Barcelona, Spain retrospectively reviewed the use of antipsychotics in 117,811 patients, of whom 9,855 were given combinations of antipsychotics and 13,763 were...

Antipsychotics Increase Risk of Dementia; New Research Illuminates Why

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In JAMA psychiatry, researchers outline new theories connecting antipsychotic use in people with schizophrenia and increased dementia risk.

Multiple Medications Associated With Poorer Outcomes

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Research from Germany finds that people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective diagnoses given multiple medications - an antipsychotic plus a benzodiazepine or more than one...

Landmark Schizophrenia Study Recommends More Therapy

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Results of a large government-funded study call into question current drug heavy approaches to treating people diagnosed with schizophrenia. The study, which the New York Times called “by far the most rigorous trial to date conducted in the United States,” found that patients who received smaller doses of antipsychotic drugs with individual talk therapy, family training, and support for employment and education had a greater reduction in symptoms as well as increases in quality of life, and participation in work and school than those receiving the current standard of care.

Medications May Add to Mortality Rate in Schizophrenia

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Dutch researchers write in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology that, in a prospective study of 7415 persons with diagnoses of schizophrenia, use of a first-generation...

Why the Delay Between Psychotropics’ Immediate and “Therapeutic” Effects?

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Writing in Neuron that antipsychotics' "functional consequences and the subcellular sites of their accumulation in nervous tissue have remained elusive," researchers from Germany and...

Antipsychotics Associated with White-Matter Reduction

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Researchers in China find an acute reduction in white matter in the frontal lobe following six weeks of antipsychotic treatment for "first-episode schizophrenia". Results...

Lower Education Linked to Higher Antipsychotic Use in Swedish Elderly

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Elderly people in Sweden are five times more likely to be taking antipsychotics if they have a diagnosis of dementia, according to research published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. And among those people with dementia, the lower their education the higher the likelihood they’re taking antipsychotics.

Alarm About Antipsychotics as Sleep Aids

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Canadian sleep researchers, writing in The Lancet, warn that weight gain, lipid and glucose dysregulation, restless leg syndrome, sleep-walking and eating while asleep, and...

Antipsychotics Rise in Youth, But Hospitalization Rates Stay the Same

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Researchers from Tufts and Harvard find in a review of 233 medical charts of psychiatrically hospitalized youth at three points in time (1991, 1998...

Very Slow Taper Best for Antipsychotic Discontinuation

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An article in JAMA Psychiatry advises very slow tapering for best results when discontinuing antipsychotic drugs.

Study Finds Improved Functioning for ‘Schizophrenia’ Without Antipsychotics

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Long-term treatment with antipsychotic drugs is currently considered the standard treatment for patients diagnosed with ‘schizophrenia.’ A new study challenges this practice, however. The...