Help for Spendaholics: Obsessive shoppers who risk...

Help for Spendaholics: Obsessive shoppers who risk bankruptcy to buy things they don’t really want or need can be helped by a pill already used to treat other compulsive behaviors, a preliminary study suggests.

It is the first formal study of medication for the condition, which has no standard treatment, experts say.

Donald Black, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa School of Medicine in Iowa City, found that of the 10 compulsive shoppers in the study, nine cut their shopping at least in half after they started taking fluvoxamine twice a day. Fluvoxamine is most commonly used in the United States to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, a condition marked by intrusive thoughts and irresistible rituals such as hand-washing. The study was sponsored by two pharmaceutical companies that jointly market the drug in the United States: Solvay Pharmaceuticals of Marietta, Ga., and Upjohn Co. of Kalamazoo, Mich.