Osteoporosis affects over 10 million Americans over 50. Bisphosphonate therapy, mainly alendronate, is amongst the most prescribed treatments for the disease. The use of alendronate and other bisphosphonates has been associated with depressive symptoms in recent case reports. In this study we quantified this association by analyzing over 100,000 adverse events reports from the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS) and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global database for adverse drug reactions, ADRs, VigiAccess. We found that alendronate therapy is significantly associated with depression and anxiety when compared to other first-line osteoporosis treatments. The reported risk of depressive ADRs was found to be over 14-fold greater in patients taking alendronate under the age of 65 and over fourfold greater for patients over 65 compared to the control. Several hypotheses concerning the molecular mechanism of the observed association of alendronate and depressive symptoms were discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.