The annual rush to the mall is just part of the holidays for mostpeople, but for those who suffer from a serious compulsive shoppingdisorder all year, an anti-depressant drug is showing promise,researchers reported Monday.
Although it's classified as an impulse-control disorder,compulsive shopping (actually compulsive buying) has often beenassociated with depression.
"This chronic impulse, often used to relieve feelings of anxietyand depression in a patient, can be difficult to treat," said Dr.Lorrin Koran, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences atStanford University Medical School who's heading an ongoing study ofthe drug.
The disorder is marked by preoccupation with purchasing unneededitems to an extent that it causes distress, social or occupationalimpairment or financial problems, with many sufferers running up hugecredit card debt, taking out second mortgages on homes or divorcing aspouse.
Estimates of the extent of the disorder range from 2 percent to 8percent of the adult U.S. population, with women making up more than90 percent of the sufferers.
A preliminary test of the drug Citalopram, brand name Celexa, in19 women and two men showed that 80 percent of those taking it had apositive response, based on scores from two standardized measures ofcompulsive behavior taken before and during the 12-week study, whichwas sponsored by the manufacturer of the drug, Forest Laboratories.
"They reported feeling less anxiety, less depression, lessimpulsiveness," said Koran, who also heads the Obsessive-CompulsiveDisorder Clinic at Stanford. "The women in the study reported theystopped thinking about shopping."
The researchers suspect the drug works to reduce the compulsivebehavior much as it does for depression-by selectively inhibiting theuptake of the mood-altering brain chemical serotonin.
The test results were presented by Dr. Kim Bullock, a member ofthe team, during a meeting of the American College ofNeuropsychopharmacology in Puerto Rico.
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