BACKGROUND Depression is a common psychiatric disorder worldwide, including in Iran, and is estimated to affect 10%-15% of the population. Antidepressant drugs can have multiple side effects, so a good choice of drug is important for successful treatment. This study compared the efficacy of nortriptyline with that of fluoxetine in the treatment of patients with major depressive disorder and ass...

BACKGROUND The observations that smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are at increased risk of depression and that nicotine may have antidepressant effects and regulate mood provide a rationale for the use of antidepressant drugs for smoking cessation in patients with COPD. No clinical trial has studied the efficacy of bupropion hydrochloride and nortriptyline hydrochloride...

BACKGROUND Studies have linked depression to sudden death and serious cardiovascular events in patients with preexisting cardiac illness. Recent studies have shown decreased vagal function in cardiac patients with depression and depressed patients without cardiac illness. METHODS We compared 20-hour, sleeping, and awake heart period variability measures using spectral analysis, fractal dimens...

Amitriptyline is a frequently prescribed tricyclic antidepressant. Although amitriptyline and its active metabolite, nortriptyline, have been widely detected in natural waters, their environmental fate due to photodegradation is poorly understood. Here we describe a study conducted to investigate the photodegradation of amitriptyline and its active metabolite under simulated sunlight. Neither a...

tidepressants, a group of drugs widely used for treating depressive diseases. Its chemical structure is shown in Fig. 1. Most existing methods for the determination of nortriptyline in bulk, pharmaceutical formulations and biological samples have been reviewed. Among other methods described for the assay of this drug are direct UV-spectrophotometry, derivatives spectrophotometry, fluorimetry an...

Nineteen identical (monozygotic) and 20 fraternal (dizygotic) sets of twins between 45 and 51 years of age were given nortriptyline orally in doses of 0.2 mg./kg. body weight three times daily for eight days. The steady-state plasma concentrations of nortriptyline were calculated from the mean of the determinations for days 6, 7, and 8. Identical twins, not treated with other drugs, achieved si...

BACKGROUND Smoking cessation rates with current therapy are suboptimal. Tricyclic antidepressants improve cessation rates. We hypothesized that addition of nortriptyline hydrochloride to transdermal nicotine would enhance cessation rates. METHODS We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center. Subjects were aged 18 to 65 ye...

Aim. To determine the ability of nortriptyline, alone and in combination with budesonide, to inhibit production pro-inflammatory cytokines peripheral blood natural killer (NK) cells patients chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) establish molecular mechanisms combined action these drugs. Material methods. Blood from COPD (n=21) were incubated or their combination. Cytokine production, ex...