Open Access

ARTICLE

Prenatal exposure to the fluoride containing psychiatric drug fluoxetine and anti-oxidative alterations in the neonatal rat brain

Ramesa Shafi BHAT¹, Amina El GEZEERY², Abir Ben BACHAN¹, Mona Awad ALONAZI¹, Leena Saleh ALSUHAIBANI¹, Afaf El-ANSARY^3,4

1 Biochemistry Department, College of Science, King Saud University
2 Human Genetic Department, Medical Research institute, Alexandria University, Egypt
3 Central Laboratory, Female Centre for Scientific and Medical Studies, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia
4 Medicinal Chemistry Department, National Research Centre, Dokki, Cairo, Egypt

* Address correspondence to: Ramesa Shafi Bhat,

BIOCELL 2019, 43(2), 65-71. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2019.07012

Abstract

Fluoride is a key ingredient of many psychiatric drugs like fluoxetine (Prozac^®, Fluoxetine^®). Pregnant women frequently use this drug as they suffer from depression and anxiety disorders during this period. Fluoxetine is able to reach the fetus through the placenta and passes to the newborn through milk. In the present study, female Wistar rats were treated with 5, 10, and 20 mg/L fluoxetine (containing 94% fluorides) from pregnancy day 10 to day 20. After delivery, the levels of the enzymatic antioxidants in the brain of their offspring at postnatal day 2 were measured. The results showed that, in all fluoxetine exposed groups compared with the control group, there was a significant decrease (P < 0.01) in the glutathione, catalase, glutathione S-transferases and potassium and a non- significant increase (P > 0.05) in the activity of malondialdehyde and creatine kinase. The results suggest that fluoxetine may be a developmental neurotoxicant due to presence of fluoride hence must be used carefully during pregnancy.

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