Antidepressants Linked to Increased Risk for Death, Stroke in Postmenopausal Women

Antidepressants Linked to Increased Risk for Death, Stroke in Postmenopausal Women: Postmenopausal women taking either a tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) or a selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) appear to be at increased risk for all-cause mortality, and SSRI users seem to be at increased risk for hemorrhagic and fatal stroke, although the absolute event risks are low, according to an analysis from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study. It was reported that new use of either a TCA or an SSRI during a mean follow-up of 5.9 years was not significantly associated with an increased risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in this large prospective cohort of postmenopausal women. In contrast, compared with women who did not use antidepressants, “those using SSRIs had a 45% increased relative risk of incidence stroke and a 32% increased risk of death in models stratified on propensity and adjusted for multiple covariates,” the investigators report. TCA use in turn was associated with a 67% higher relative risk for all-cause death (hazard ratio [HR], 1.67; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.33 – 2.09). The TCA’s also increase stroke risk, but not significantly so. Archives of Internal Medicine, Dec. 2009. See this weeks’s Item #10.