To evaluate the effects of antidepressant drugs on pregnancy outcomes in a university hospital of Turkey.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effects of antidepressant use on pregnancy outcomes. METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Pharmacology, Manisa Celal Bayar University, Manisa, Turkey, and comprised pregnant women who were admitted to the Department of Gynaecology between 2008 and 2017 who had been prescribed antidepressant drugs before pregnancy and continued to use them during any week of their respective pregnancies. The women were contacted by telephone after delivery to obtain information about the pregnancy outcomes. Data was analysed using SPSS 23. RESULTS: There were 183 women with a mean age of 31.3 ± 5.3 years (range: 18-44 years). There were congenital defects in the newborn in 11(7.65%) cases. The most commonly used antidepressant group was selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor 138(75.4%), and escitalopram was the most frequently used drug 46(25.1%). Spontaneous abortion rate was higher with escitalopram than the other antidepressants (p=0.062). Induced abortion rate was significantly higher in multidrug users compared to those on a single drug (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor was found to be the most used class of antidepressants during pregnancy due to the low side effects and teratogenic effects. When antidepressant treatment is necessary during pregnancy, a single drug can be more suitable.

Melatonin and L-carnitin improves endothelial disfunction and oxidative stress in Type 2 diabetic rats.

Vascular dysfunction is thought to play a major role in the development of diabetic cardiovascular disease. The roles of endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and dyslipidemia will be considered. Melatonin as well as L-carnitine were shown to possess strong antioxidant properties. Diabetes induced with high fat diet (for 8 weeks) and multipl low doses intraperitoneal injection of STZ (twice, 30mg/kg/d i.p). The diabetic animals were randomly assigned to one of the experimental groups as follows: Control group (C), high fat diet (HFD), STZ-induced diabetic group (HFD+STZ) , HFD+STZ diabetic group received melatonin (10mg/kg/d i.p), HFD+STZ diabetic group received L-carnitine (0.6g/kg/d i.p), and HFD+STZ diabetic group received glibenclamide (5mg/kg/d, oral). The serum fasting blood glucose, insulin, total cholesterol, HDL- cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, triglyceride and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were tested. Acetylcholine induced endothelium-dependent relaxation and sodium nitroprusside induced endothelium-independent relaxation were measured in aortas for estimating endothelial function. Also, glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and nitric oxide (NO) levels activities were determined in rat liver. According to our results melatonin and L-carnitine treatment decreased fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, and LDL levels. MDA levels significantly decreased with the melatonin treatment whereas SOD levels were not significantly changed between the groups. The results suggest that especially melatonin restores the vascular responses and endothelial dysfunction in diabetes.