Prozac Could Help People With Macular Degeneration

Antidepressants could be used to help treat a common eye disease one day. Researchers found that the antidepressant Prozac could help people with macular degeneration (AMD). Scientists at the University of Virginia found similarities in the antidepressant Prozac and AMD. ​​Dr. Bradley Gelfand says finding new uses for old drugs could be the future of medicine, considering that getting a new drug approved by the FDA takes 10 to 12 years.

"Prompted by this interesting observation, we did a lot of research in models of macular degeneration and found that indeed this Prozac appeared to be beneficial in those experimental models," said Gelfand. "And then we really took it a step forward by looking at real-world data from people who take Prozac, looking at their health insurance records and what we found was that people who take Prozac were protected against or, excuse me, had a reduced risk at developing age-related macular degeneration."

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"Antidepressant could treat leading cause of blindness"