An unusually large number of patients taking Mirapex gambled themselves into debt, while patients taking other drugs did not, the team at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Research Centre at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, have reported.

Dr Mark Stacy and colleagues studied more than 1,800 Parkinson’s patients for a year. Of the 529 patients who got Mirapex, under the brand name Pramipexole, eight developed serious gambling addictions, Stacy and colleagues report in today’s issue of the journal Neurology.

“Seven men and two women were found to have gambling behaviour severe enough to cause financial hardship, and two patients reported losses greater than US$60,000,” the authors wrote.