Surprising effects strengthening Prozac’s resistance can lead to new methods of treating sepsis

Antidepressants, such as prozac, are usually prescribed in the treatment of mental health disorders, but new studies suggest that they can also protect against serious infections and life -threatening sepsis. Scientists from the Salk Institute have now discovered how drugs are able to regulate the immune system and defend against infectious diseases that could lead to a new generation of life -saving treatment and increasing global readiness for future pandas.

In the study, the room has the last findings that users of selective serotonin (SSRI) reuptake inhibitors, such as prozac, had less severe Covid-19 infections and less often developed a long covid. Another study has shown that prozac-also known as fluoxetine effectively protects mice from sepsis, is a life-threatening condition in which the body’s immune system exaggerates with infection and can cause failure of many organs and even death. Identifying the mechanism explaining the surprising effects of fluoxetine in defense, Salk researchers brought fluoxetine and potentially other SSRI closer to clinical trials to use infections and immune disorders.

The discoveries were published on February 14, 2025.

During the treatment of infection, the optimal treatment strategy would be one that kills bacteria or virus, while protecting our tissues and organs. Most of the drugs that we have in our pathogens kill pathogens, but we are glad that fluoxetine can also protect tissues and organs. Basically, the attack defense game, which is perfect, and especially exciting in a drug that we already know that you can safely use in humans. “

Professor Janelle Ayres, owner of the Salk Institute Legacy Feer and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Institute

While our immune systems try to protect us from infections, sometimes they can overdo it. In sepsis, the inflammatory reaction turns from the control that it begins to damage his own tissues and organs of the person to fail. The same excessive reaction is also characteristic of serious Covid-19 disease.

An obvious solution would probably be suppressing an inflammatory answer, but this can make patients more likely to their initial infection and more susceptible to new ones. Time is also crucial because immunosuppressive drugs must be administered before any tissue damage occurs.

Instead, ideal treatment 1) proactively control the intensity and duration of the immune response to prevent body damage and 2) killing infection that exposes the body to start with.

To understand what SSRIs can do in this context, scientists studied mice with bacterial infections and divided them into two categories: one initial fluoxetine and the other did not. They excitedly saw how the mice pre -treated with fluoxetine were protected against sepsis, damage to many organs and death. Then the team started a series of control experiments to understand these effects.

First, they measured the number of bacteria in each mouse population eight hours after infection. At this stage, fluoxetine treated mice had less bacteria, which means a less severe infection. Discoveries have shown that fluoxetine has antimicrobial properties, which allowed it to reduce bacterial growth.

Then the scientists measured the levels of various inflammatory molecules in each group. They saw more anti-inflammatory IL-10 in their pre-treated populations and deduced that the IL-10 prevented sepsis induced hypertriglyceridemia, in which blood contains too many fat triglycerides. This enabled the heart to maintain a proper metabolic state, protecting mice against incidence and mortality caused by infection.

The syndrome has sold this protection against damage to many organs and death against the earlier discovery of fluoxetine antimicrobial effects, while revealing the potential of double by the drug Potential 1) Killing pathogens and 2) alleviated damage to infection by induced body infection.

To understand how fluoxetine influence on serotonin levels can contribute to these effects, scientists also looked at two new mouse populations: both were initially treated with fluoxetine, but one had a circulating serotonin, while the other was not. Circulating serotonin is a small chemical relay that moves your brain and body to regulate such things as mood, sleep and pain, and is the main purpose of the effects of fluoxetine mental health. They discovered that the positive health results of fluoxetine were regardless of whether the mice had serotonin in circulation, experienced the same benefits of defending fluoxetine infection.

“It was really unexpected, but also really exciting,” says the first author of studies Robert Gallant, a former graduate researcher at the Ayres laboratory. “Knowledge of fluoxetine can regulate an immune response, protect the body against infection, have an antimicrobial effect-in the whole regardless of the circulating serotonin-it is a huge step towards developing new solutions that threaten the lives of infection and diseases. It really shows how to show how to show how to show how to show how to show it, how to show how to show how much more can be learned about SSRI. “

Ayres and Gallant claim that their next step is to examine the dosage schemes of fluoxetine suitable for separation. They are also happy to check whether other SSRIs may have the same effects.

“Fluoxetine, one of the most frequently prescribed drugs in the United States, promotes cooperation between the host and the pathogen to defend against illness and mortality caused by infection,” says Ayres, also the head of molecular and system physiology laboratories in Salk. “Finding double protective and defensive activities in a changed drug is really exciting.”

Other authors are Karina Sanchez, Emeline Joulia and Christian Metallo from Salk and Jessica Snyder from the University of Washington.

The works were supported by the National Institutes of Health (DPI AI144249, R01 AI14929, F31 AI169988, T32 GM007240-43, T32 GM133351, NCi CCSG: P30CA014195) and Nomis Foundation.