A Novel Insulin Sensitizer Drug Candidate—BGP-15—Can Prevent Metabolic Side Effects of Atypical Antipsychotics

Atypical antipsychotic drugs (AAPD) are widely used to treat severe psychiatric disorders, have well documented metabolic side effects such as disturbances in glucose metabolism, insulin resistance and weight gain. It has been shown that BGP-15, a hydroxylamine derivative with insulin sensitizing activity can prevent AAPD provoked fat accumulation in adipocyte cultures, and insulin resistance in animal experiments and in healthy volunteers. The aim of this study was to compare the preventive effect of BGP-15 with conventional oral antidiabetics on metabolic side effects of AAPDs. We found that BGP-15 that does not belong to either conventional insulin sensitizers or oral antidiabetics, is able to counteract insulin resistance and weight gain provoked by antipsychotic agents in rats while rosiglitazone and metformin were not effective in the applied doses. Our results confirm that BGP-15 is a promising new drug candidate to control the metabolic side effects of atypical antipsychotics. Data indicate that this rat model is suitable to analyze the metabolic side effects of AAPDs and the protective mechanism of BGP-15.