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. 1986 Jul;22(1):73–79. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2125.1986.tb02882.x

Acute treatment with desipramine stimulates melatonin and 6-sulphatoxy melatonin production in man.

C Franey, M Aldhous, S Burton, S Checkley, J Arendt
PMCID: PMC1401089  PMID: 3741729

Abstract

Acute administration of the antidepressant drug desipramine (DMI) in man, increased evening melatonin secretion, which reached peak plasma levels 2-4 h earlier than after placebo administration. The increase at set time points 21.00 h-22.00 h was directly proportional to an individual's integrated night-time secretion of melatonin. We have shown that this stimulation was not an effect of DMI inhibition on the hepatic metabolism of melatonin to 6-sulphatoxy melatonin (aMT6s), indeed aMT6s is in itself a good index of the evening melatonin rise. The stimulation of early evening melatonin by DMI might be exploited as a simple pineal function test.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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