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FRIDAY, July 25, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- The common antidepressant Celexa helps control compulsive shopping disorder, a condition marked by binge shopping and subsequent financial hardship.
A study by Stanford University Medical Center researchers found people who took the drug scored lower on a scale that measures compulsive shopping tendencies than people who took a placebo.
Most of the compulsive shoppers taking citalopram rated themselves "very much improved" or "much improved" and reported a loss of interest in shopping, according to the study, which appears in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
The researchers conducted a seven-week, open-label trial followed by a nine-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with 23 women and one man, all of whom were suffering from compulsive shopping disorder.
"I'm very excited about the dramatic response from people who had been suffering for decades. My hope is that people with this disorder will become aware that it's treatable and they don't have to suffer," study author Dr. Lorrin Koran, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, says in a news release.
It's estimated that between 2 percent and 8 percent of people in the United States are affected by compulsive shopping disorder. People with the condition suffer a preoccupation with shopping for unneeded items and an inability to resist buying such products.
Some people who suffer from the disorder end up with closets or rooms filled with unwanted purchases. For example, one person in the study bought more than 2,000 wrenches, while another owned 55 cameras.
People with compulsive shopping disorder often damage their relationships with loved ones because they lie about their purchases and rack up enormous debts.
"Compulsive shopping leads to serious psychological, financial and family problems including depression, overwhelming debt and the breakup of relationships. People don't realize the amount of damage it does to the sufferer," Koran says.
More information
Here's some advice on how to control compulsive shopping.
