Amphetamines drug interactions

In addition to this serious diet-drug interaction, irreversible MAOIs also potentiate the effects of sympathomimetic drugs like ephedrine found in over-the-counter cold remedies and recreational stimulants like amphetamine. The MAOIs also interact with drugs that increase synaptic concentrations of 5-HT, such as the tricyclic antidepressant clomipramine and the herbal SSRI antidepressant St John s wort (Hypericum spp.). The resulting serotonin syndrome is characterised by hyperthermia and muscle rigidity. While devoid of these side effects the reversible MAO-A inhibitor moclobemide has yet to establish itself as a first-line alternative to the SSRIs. 

Drug interactions The depressant actions of morphine are enhanced by phenothiazines (see p. 127), monoamine oxidase inhibitors (see p.123), and tricyclic antidepressants (see p. 119 and Figure 14.5). Low doses of amphetamine (see p. 103) strangely enhance analgesia. Hydroxyzine (see p. 422) also enhances analgesia. 

The authors of the first report speculated that longterm therapy with methylphenidate could have desensitized the patient to the effects of amphetamines, since these drugs act in similar ways. It is also possible that amphetamine therapy interacted with the escitalopram. For this reason, they suggested caution when treating ADHD patients with amphetamines when they are also taking an SSRI. 

There was a high frequency of amphetamine abuse and withdrawal among patients from the Thai-Myanmar border area admitted to hospital with Plasmodium falciparum malaria (90). This co-morbidity can cause diagnostic confusion, alter malaria pathophysiology, and lead to drug interactions. Considering the potential neuropsychiatric adverse effects of mefloquine, an important component of current antimalarial treatment in Southeast Asia, it should be avoided in patients who abuse amphetamines. 

Anorectic drugs, which are structurally related to the amphetamines, act mainly on the satiety centre in the hypothalamus and also increase general physical activity (1). All of them, except fenfluramine, stimulate the central nervous system and can cause restlessness, nervousness, irritabihty, and insomnia. Adverse effects also occur through sympathetic stimulation and gastrointestinal irritation. Drug interactions can occur with monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Dexamfetamine, phenmetrazine, and benzfetamine can cause dependence. Some of them have been associated with cardiac valvulopathy and primary pulmonary hypertension (2). 

MAO inhibitors (MAOIs) These drugs (eg, phenelzine, tranylcypromine, isocarboxazid) are stmcturally related to amphetamines and are orally active. They inhibit both MAO-A (which metabolizes norepinephrine, serotonin, and tyramine) and MAO-B (which metabolizes dopamine). Tranylcypromine is the fastest in onset of effect but has a shorter duration of action (about a week) than do other MAO inhibitors (with durations of 2-3 weeks). In spite of these prolonged actions, the MAO inhibitors are given daily. These drugs are inhibitors of hepatic drug-metabolizing enzymes and cause many drug interactions. 

The main problems with early, irreversible MAOIs were adverse interactions with other drugs (notably sympathomimetics, such as ephedrine, phenylpropanolamine and tricyclic antidepressants) and the infamous "cheese reaction". The cheese reaction is a consequence of accumulation of the dietary and trace amine, tyramine, in noradrenergic neurons when MAO is inhibited. Tyramine, which is found in cheese and certain other foods (particularly fermented food products and dried meats), is normally metabolised by MAO in the gut wall and liver and so little ever reaches the systemic circulation. MAOIs, by inactivating this enzymic shield, enable tyramine to reach the bloodstream and eventually to be taken up by the monoamine transporters on serotonergic and noradrenergic neurons. Fike amphetamine, tyramine reduces the pH gradient across the vesicle membrane which, in turn, causes the vesicular transporter to fail. Transmitter that leaks out of the vesicles into the neuronal cytosol cannot be metabolised because... 

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