ReviewA review of safety, side-effects and subjective reactions to intranasal oxytocin in human research
Section snippets
Selection criteria
The search, retrieval and screening of studies were undertaken by the first author. Data sources included regulatory websites, such as the Therapeutic Goods Association (TGA) and The Foods and Drugs Administration (FDA), Medline, the Cochrane Library, Google scholar and a general internet search. Key works used in this search included oxytocin, pitocin, syntocinon, intranasal oxytocin, nasal spray oxytocin, adverse reactions oxytocin, and side-effects oxytocin. A recent systematic review of
Results
All studies collected data on side-effects for both oxytocin and placebo; in the results below, the term ‘side effects’ is thus used with reference to both unless otherwise specified. Questionnaires were returned from authors of 68% (26 out of 38) of studies, no corrections where made although additional information was provided by 21 authors. This additional information included, a statement highlighting that no side-effects occurred (n = 13), details regarding side-effects when they did
Discussion
This paper reviewed side effects and safety data on the use of intranasal oxytocin in 38 controlled trials conducted over the last 20 years. To date, 1529 participants have received intranasal oxytocin or placebo, of which only 279 reported mild side-effects. The main categories included: (1) increased calmness/euphoria or more energy; (2) light headedness, drowsiness and/or headache and (3) nasal irritation, dry mouth/throat. No difference in the type, frequency and severity of side effects
Role of the funding source
The authors did not receive funding for this project and so there is no role to report.
Conflict of interest
The authors have no conflict of interest in providing an impartial report. The authors report no biomedical financial interest. The authors are conducting a clinical trial investigating the impact of intranasal oxytocin with youth within the autism spectrum.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the researchers who kindly provided additional information regarding the monitoring and reporting of side-effects from their studies.
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