Nocturnal gastric secretion following treatment with trimipramine (Surmontil)

The study was conducted double blind in 12 healthy volunteers, average age 30 years (23-48). On separate days they were allocated at random to either two tablets of Trimipramine, 25 mg each, or two tablets of Placebo, one and a half hours before introduction of a Levine tube into the stomach. The volunteers had on the day of starting the experiment performed their normal duties, and consumed the last meal, the dinner, at 5 pm. The gastric juice was collected continuously in half hour samples from 11 pm until 7 am the next morning. The average recovery was 87% in 4 tested experiments. The volume of gastric juice was 448 ml/8 h for the series receiving Placebo compared to 418 ml/8 h for those treated with Trimipramine (Table 1). During the first half hour a relative high volume was aspirated, whereas in the following 3 half hours portions the volume decreased to a fairly stable level of about 15-23 ml. A significant lower volume was observed in the Trimipramine treated series in some of the morning portions. A significant lower concentration and output of HCl was found during the middle of the night and in some morning portions in the subjects given Trimipramine. Similarly the concentration and output of pepsin were lower in the Trimipramine series than in the Placebo treated subjects.