History
The older MAOI's heyday was mostly between the years 1957 and 1970. The initial popularity of the 'classic' non-selective irreversible MAO inhibitors began to wane due to their serious interactions with sympathomimetic drugs and tyramine-containing foods that could lead to dangerous hypertensive emergencies. As a result, the use by medical practitioners of these older MAOIs declined. When scientists discovered that there are two different MAO enzymes (MAO-A and MAO-B), they developed selective compounds for MAO-B, (for example, selegiline, which is used for Parkinson's disease), to reduce the side-effects and serious interactions. Further improvement occurred with the development of compounds (moclobemide and toloxatone) that not only are selective but cause reversible MAO-A inhibition and a reduction in dietary and drug interactions.
Irreversible MAOIs were the first antidepressants to be discovered, but they fell out of favour with the advent of the discovery of safer antidepressants; these newer antidepressant drug classes have fewer adverse effects, especially the dangerous irreversible MAOI food interaction with tyramine, sometimes referred to as the 'cheese syndrome', which leads to dangerous hypertension. However, reversible MAOIs lack these hypertensive adverse effects. Moclobemide, was the first reversible inhibitor of MAO-A to enter widespread clinical practice; its reversible inhibitory features give it a number of advantages over the older irreversible MAO inhibitors.
Read more about this topic: Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)