Carminati Matteo, Tondello Mattia, Zanardi Raffaella
Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
Mood Disorder Unit, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico (IRCCS) San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Front Psychiatry. 2024 Oct 4;15:1471083. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1471083. eCollection 2024.
Chronic and inappropriate benzodiazepine (BDZ) prescription and intake represent an important health and social concern worldwide. The aim of our study was to investigate the safety and efficacy of P. incarnata L., herba in reducing BDZ misuse in a real-world population of depressed and anxious patients in a long-term treatment with BDZs.
Over an 18-month period (from July 2021 to December 2022), we previously conducted a retrospective and naturalistic study on euthymic outpatients with a diagnosis of anxiety or depression and chronically taking BDZs. In this study we contacted patients 12 months after their enrollment in the previous study to assess their disease status and their BDZs and P. incarnata intake.
Our findings support the effectiveness of a dry extract of P. incarnata L., herba, as an add-on treatment during BDZ tapering in patients with anxiety or depression. We confirmed this effect to be sustained over time, and P. incarnata showed to be easily discontinued with no rebound, withdrawal or psychological dependence effect. The absence of side effects and adverse events confirmed the safety of P. incarnata in a real-world population. Personality disorders confirmed to be a relevant risk factor for maintaining addictive behavior, even when symptoms associated to withdrawal seem to be not particularly relevant.
We confirmed the possible effectiveness of P. incarnata as an add-on treatment in BDZ reduction. Further studies may be helpful to better investigate the promising properties of P. incarnata in the management of relevant clinical issues, such as anxiety disorders and addiction, that are classically known to benefit from GABAergic treatments.
长期不恰当使用苯二氮䓬类药物（BDZ）在全球范围内都是一个重要的健康和社会问题。我们研究的目的是在现实世界中，调查缬草在长期接受BDZ治疗的抑郁和焦虑患者中减少BDZ滥用的安全性和有效性。
在18个月的时间里（从2021年7月到2022年12月），我们之前对诊断为焦虑或抑郁且长期服用BDZ的心境正常的门诊患者进行了一项回顾性自然研究。在本研究中，我们在患者参与前一项研究12个月后联系他们，以评估他们的疾病状况以及他们服用BDZ和缬草的情况。
我们的研究结果支持缬草干提取物在焦虑或抑郁患者逐渐减少BDZ用量期间作为附加治疗的有效性。我们证实这种效果会随着时间持续，并且缬草显示出易于停药，没有反跳、戒断或心理依赖效应。没有副作用和不良事件证实了缬草在现实世界人群中的安全性。人格障碍被证实即使在与戒断相关的症状似乎不特别相关时，也是维持成瘾行为的一个相关风险因素。
我们证实了缬草作为减少BDZ用量的附加治疗可能有效。进一步的研究可能有助于更好地研究缬草在处理相关临床问题（如焦虑症和成瘾）方面的潜在特性，这些问题传统上已知可从GABA能治疗中获益。
