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Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors: Rehabilitation from Recent Research?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

David Nutt  and
Paul Glue
David Nutt*
Affiliation:
Reckitt and Colman Psychopharmacology Unit, Department of Pharmacology, The Medical School, University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TD
Paul Glue
Affiliation:
Reckitt and Colman Psychopharmacology Unit, Department of Pharmacology, The Medical School, University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TD
*
∗Correspondence
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Extract

For a long time, monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) have been the Cinderella drugs of psycho-pharmacy. Although they were introduced just before the tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), they rapidly became second-line treatments. Several factors contributed to this, in particular the dietary restrictions, the scattered reports of death from overdose and/or toxic interactions, and the unfavourable reports on the efficacy of phenelzine in depression from, among others, the Medical Research Council trial (1965). For a number of years afterwards, prescription of these drugs was limited to a few enthusiasts. More recently, however, their popularity has increased owing firstly to a re-evaluation of their effectiveness in tricyclic-resistant depression and in anxiety disorders, and secondly to growing awareness of the exaggerated claims made about their dangerousness (Pare, 1985).

Type
Annotation
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 154 , Issue 3 , March 1989 , pp. 287 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989 

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