Prozac for Stroke Recovery? 11 Multi-Use Drugs

Widely Prescribed for One Use, Many Drugs Used for Other Purposes

Prozac is one of the most widely prescribed antidepressants, but according to a new study, it also shows great promise in the recovery of people left moderately to severely disabled from strokes.

While it's not FDA-approved as a drug that can help stroke patients enhance their motor skills, Prozac is certainly not alone in being a double-duty drug.

There are other drugs that perform dual roles, including a skin cancer cream used to smooth out your facial wrinkles, a baldness drug to protect against prostate cancer, and a drug for enlarged prostate and possibly prostate cancer that may stop baldness.

Once a drug has been approved for one use, doctors can prescribe it "off-label" when it is shown to be useful for something else. And an increasing number of drugs are prescribed in this manner. Off-label use of medicines accounts for about one fifth of all prescriptions, according to a 2008 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Many of these off-label uses meet with controversy and questions about their value, particularly since the FDA has not yet approved them. (As a result, drug companies cannot advertise off-label uses.)

Though the hair loss drug finasteride is recommended by some medical organizations as a preventative measure against prostate cancer, many doctors say that such a use is inefficient and ill-advised.

But in many other cases, the alternative uses are well-known in the medical community -- though perhaps not among the general public -- and are regularly exploited.