Accutane is a member of the drug type known as retinoids, which have been shown to alter the way the body reads genes. Use of the drug while pregnant is known to harm fetuses and reduce the amount of brain cells that they generate. This is why cautions are taken to ensure that women who are pregnant or who can become pregnant do not take the drug. However, recent studies suggest that brain-cell generation may be equally important in adolescents and adults. Researchers at the University of Baths and the University of Texas in Austin suggest Accutane might also interfere with the body's synthesis of the mood hormone serotonin.

While evidence from the more than 13 million users of Accutane worldwide suggests that just 5 to 10 percent experience from side effects, retinoids have also been implied in connections to Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia, so doctors are eager to understand how the drug works.

Depression Linked to Acne Treatment

Acne treatment with the drug isotretinoin (Accutane) has been implicated in an elevation in feelings of depression among adolescent users, and while the link has never been demonstrated, scientists have collected evidence through an animal study.

Although researcher Dr. Sarah Bailey noted that it is not possible to ask a mouse if it is depressed, its behaviour can be analyzed and modeled through two tests. The first involves causing the adolescent mice to experience stress by forcing it to swim, while the other one produces stress by hanging the mice by its tail.

Acne Cure Tested for Side Effects

Normally, a mouse will swim, climb or struggle, and only periodically stop in a period of resignation. A depressed mouse will remain in its resigned state longer than one that is healthy. The mice given human-equivalent doses of Accutane tended to demonstrate increased depression-related behavior.

Accutane maker Roche claims, "While no causal relationship has been demonstrated between Accutane and either depression or suicide, we are constantly monitoring all available safety databases on Accutane worldwide." However, the World Health Organization has confirmed 720 cases of psychiatric complications associated to the use of Accutane, including 84 suicides and suicide attempts.

The allegation that isotretinoin promoted depression and suicide has won a few lawsuits, and is in part responsible for the severe control of the drug, especially in the US. Various case studies of depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and suicide in people treated with the acne skin care isotretinoin have been sent to the U.S. FDA Adverse Events Reporting System, with 431 cases reported between 1982 and May 2001 - of these 37 patients had committed suicide.

Idiosyncratic Effects From Acne Skin Care

Studies have demonstrated that people with acne, the population group eligible to undergo isotretinoin treatment, have an elevated risk of clinical depression compared with the general population. Isotretinoin associated depression is "an idiosyncratic side effect." Often anxiety can bring on acne and depression, leading to more anxiety. Also, treatment of severe acne with isotretinoin has been demonstrated to minimize anxiety and depression.

One study using positron emission tomography (PET) showed functional brain imaging variations in patients treated with isotretinoin, however the clinical relevance of this finding is unclear.

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