Atypical psychotropic medications and their adverse effects: A review for the African-American primary care physician

There are now five new-generation atypical psychiatric medications currently available. As these new treatments have become more common, they have grown to account for a significant percentage of all psychiatric medications prescribed. This is because of their efficacy in the treatment of several psychiatric disorders, ease of administration, and absence of the well-known extrapyramidal adverse effects long-attributed to the standard dopamine blocking anti-psychotic medications. As these medications have become treatments of choice, we have discovered additional information about their respective side effects. Issues such as bone marrow suppression, endocrine abnormalities, and most recently cardiac arrhythmia have produced concern. This paper will address all in an attempt to inform the primary care physician of the most prominent and clinically relevant adverse effects of these agents. A particular focus will address the increasing concern that these new medications can produce hyperglycemia and diabetes mellitus.