The antidepressant bupropion may hold promise for improving symptoms in younger women diagnosed with so-called hypoactive sexual desire disorder, a study suggests. The disorder, called HSDD for short, is diagnosed when a person has a persistently low interest in sex, and that disinterest is causing personal distress or relationship problems.

In the new study, Iranian researchers found that bupropion sustained-release (Wellbutrin SR) generally boosted sex drive among 116 women with HSDD who took the drug for 12 weeks. Compared with 116 women given an inactive placebo, their scores on a standard measure of sexual function were twice as high, according to findings published in the medical journal BJU International.

In some cases, low sex drive is related to underlying health conditions, like depression, or to side effects from some medications, like high blood pressure drugs or some antidepressants. HSDD, however, refers to low sex drive that is not better accounted for by depression or other mental health disorders, and not caused by a medical condition or drug side effect.

As it stands, there is no treatment for HSDD that is widely accepted by women, according to the researchers on the new study, led by
Dr Mohammad Reza Safarinejad of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. In Europe, a testosterone patch called Intrinsa is approved for treating HSDD in postmenopausal women.