Name: Warning over prescription drugs causing impulsive behaviour | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-02-13T17:18:13.000Z
Duration: 6 min 56 s
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Now the chair of the Commons Health Committee has called on the UK's drug regulator to review warnings about medications which can cause impulsive behaviour as a side effect.

A BBC investigations found that for some patients the drugs cause compulsive gambling or sexual behaviour.

Our correspondent Noel Titheridge has this special investigation.

He was incredibly straight laced, risk averse person.

Freddie's dad Bill was always a cautious man.

He worked as a teacher his whole career and then aged 54 retired early.

He'd developed some symptoms around his movement and speech, went on to medication.

Shortly after, Bill was prescribed drugs which boost dopamine activity to treat Parkinson's.

Watching pornography openly and driving erratically.

Before long he'd also sold the family home and suddenly needed money.

These side effects of severe impulse control disorder hypersexuality made dad the perfect victim for a romance scam.

Freddy had never been warned about the side effects and by the time he found out about them in 2017, his dad had lost around 300,000 pounds.

But the money was of total insignificance.

Our investigations heard from scores of families who say these impulsive behaviors have led to huge debts, the breakup of families and even criminality.

One man stole £600,000 to fund his impulsive behavior.

Another woman lost over £150,000 to to gambling.

From the age of 11, I was prescribed the drug that soon led to me going to arcades to gamble.

Brandon has Tourette syndrome and had only just started secondary school when he was prescribed aripiprazole, a separate drug that's known as a partial dopamine agonist but also causes impulsive behavior.

I'd borrowed from several people, maybe tens of people, just got considerably worse, consistently worse, until I found myself in a lot of debt.

Brandon's mother says the family even raised his gambling problems with doctors.

Brandon says they also never warned him about side effects and he's lost over £100,000 in total.

It's ruined my life, you know, I've pushed a lot of people away and struggled with just lying and being deceitful towards the people who have done everything for me in my life.

The UK's drug regulator, the MHRA, says it has no plans to strengthen warnings and doesn't list the frequency of these side effects because many people don't report them.

It's not just a side effect that affects an individual, it's affecting their families, their communities.

The Chair of the UK Health Select Committee says this needs to change.

It's so devastating as a lawmaker to see how badly those families have been let down by the system.

But what does it mean impulsive behaviours and how likely is it that they could get it?

And at the moment, patients don't have that information and without it, how can they be expected to mitigate it?

Manufacturers of the drugs say they were extensively trialled, continue to be approved by regulators around the world and side effects are clearly stated.

Freddie says he'll spend the rest of his life living with the consequences.

I dread to think how many people have been impacted.

Well, Joy, Noel joins me now in the studio.

I mean, it's a hard watch your investigation, isn't it, this?

I understand these cases just the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah, well, I've spent the past year speaking to families about the devastating consequences of side effects of this family of prescription drugs.

Now, schools have people have told me that they developed impulsive behaviors such as sex and gambling addictions that in turn led to huge debts, the breakup of marriages, criminality and even in one case, suicide.

One family told me about their previously well respected solicitor father who stole £600,000 to fund sex and bizarrely antiques he later took his own life.

Many of these people had two things in common.

They said they either weren't warned properly by doctors and they never made the link between their behavior and their medication.

It's been known for more than two decades that these drugs can cause impulsive behaviours and the side effects are common.

Around one in six Parkinson's patients are affected.

It's really difficult to listen to that, isn't it?

What do the manufacturers and the authorities say about your investigation?

Well, the government says our findings are hugely concerning.

But the UK drug regulator, the mhra, says there are no plans currently to change warnings.

Manufacturers say that these drugs have been extensively trialled, repeatedly approved by regulators across the world and that the side effects are clearly stated.

These drugs are an established treatment and prescribed over a million and a half times by GPs alone in the UK in England last year.

If you have any concerns, you should speak to your doctor.

And if we can just briefly talk a little bit more about how these drugs work because they're prescribed for things like you say Parkinson's.

How can they then lead to these sort of side effects?

Well, these drugs are called dopamine agonists, and

they work by boosting the activity of dopamine in the brain.

Dopamine's a key chemical for movement, for coordinating movement, and

so particularly helpful with Parkinson's, where sufferers face tremors and shakes.

But dopamine is also key in driving feelings of reward and enjoyment, and

it's thought that these drugs can overstimulate these feelings.

Okay, and is there any action that's likely to be taken on this?

What conversations now, moving this forward?

Well, the chair of the Health Select Committee has now written to the UK drug regulator asking them to review findings.

They want the commonality, the frequency of impulse control disorders to be included in warnings.

It's really important work that you've done, Noel.

I know it's taken you a long time to get to this as well, but

really appreciate you coming in and talking about your story.