Originally published July 27 2005
Parkinson's drug may encourage compulsive gambling, study says
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
When drug ads list side effects, you don't expect to see something like compulsive gambling, but a study by Mayo Clinic researchers (and a number of other studies) found that some Parkinson's disease drugs, especially pramipexole -- prescribed under the name Mirapex -- is linked to compulsive gambling in its users.
A handful of drugs that are commonly prescribed for Parkinson's disease can convert a tiny fraction of patients into compulsive gamblers in as little as a month, according to a study published today in the journal Archives of Neurology.
The study is one of several to show the link and confirms that the drug pramipexole --- widely prescribed under the brand name Mirapex --- is the most likely to cause the rare side effect.
Dodd emphasized that pramipexole and other drugs were beneficial for improving mobility and alleviating the uncontrolled trembling associated with Parkinson's disease.
Dr. Mark Stacy, a neurologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., who previously studied a different group of compulsive gamblers, noted that researchers had studied compulsive gambling in fewer than 30 patients and cautioned against raising unnecessary alarm.
About 30% of Parkinson's patients take the drugs that have been linked to compulsive gambling, Stacy said.
"These drugs have helped hundreds of thousands of patients," said Stacy, who estimated that 1% of Parkinson's patients develop problems with compulsive gambling.
But Dodd said the research highlighted the need for patients to overcome their embarrassment and flag early signs of destructive behavior.
"We want people to talk to their neurologist in the event they experience strange behavior," she said.
Dodd's study found that when patients were started on pramipexole or ropinirole, or when their dosages were increased, uncontrollable gambling followed within three months in most cases.
One patient in the study described the effect as being "like a light switch being turned off."
Parkinson's disease is a neurological disorder that impairs physical mobility, typically producing uncontrolled trembling, stiffness and slowness of movement.
The main cause is believed to be a shortage of the chemical dopamine in the part of the brain known as the substantia nigra.
The drugs linked to gambling are dopamine agonists and work by mimicking the function of dopamine in the brain.
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