Aging: Some Antidepressants Tied to Bone Loss, Findings Show

By Nicholas Bakalar, The New York Times

July 10, 2007

Two new studies have found that the use of the antidepressants called S.S.R.I.’s is associated with an increased rate of bone density loss in older people.

Researchers studied 2,722 women with an average age of 78, following them for an average of 4.9 years. After adjusting for weight, diet, smoking and other health behaviors, they found that S.S.R.I. users had an average hip bone density decrease of 0.82 percent per year, compared with 0.47 percent per year in nonusers. Decreases among women who used tricyclic antidepressants, an older type, were the same as among those who used no antidepressants at all.

The authors acknowledge that depression itself may be linked to bone density loss, and they emphasize that their findings cannot be generalized to other populations.

In a second study, of 5,995 men 65 and older, bone mineral density was 3.9 percent lower at the hip and 5.9 percent lower at the lumbar spine in men who used the drugs compared with those who did not. In that study, however, only 160 men were using S.S.R.I.’s, a percentage smaller than in the general population, and the results are based on a single analysis, not progression over time.

“These studies don’t prove a cause and effect relationship between S.S.R.I.’s and bone loss,” said Dr. Elizabeth Haney, the lead author of the second paper and an assistant professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University . And she added that no one should stop taking antidepressants based on these findings.

Both studies appear in the June 25 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine.