Serotonin side effects: what 265 FDA adverse event reports show

Serotonin · 7 reaction terms · 435 drug–reaction co-reports · data 2026-09-14

Drug class

Neurotransmitter

FDA label, Indications wording

Who reports

265 reports · 78% serious · 7 with death outcome · 73% female

openFDA FAERS counts, all years, deduplication not applied

Used for

Temporarily eases low serotonin symptoms such as - Stress-Anxiety - Depression - Overactivity - Sleeplessness Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that keeps us calm, relaxed, and in control. Serotonin is found in the brain and throughout the body. Use Liquid Serotonin in conjunction with amino acids to boost serotonin.

FDA label, Indications and Usage

Boxed warning

None in the current label

How to read this page. FAERS is a spontaneous-reporting system: counts are not incidence rates and a signal is not proof of causation. Each reaction below is run through an automated screen — is the term in the FDA label (known), in the indications (the disease being treated), an administrative/coding term, or none of these (unlabeled)? That screen is mechanical text matching, not a causality assessment. The 30 hand-written Bradford Hill assessments are on the causality assessment page. Not medical advice.

Causality screen of the 7 strongest signals

Reporting / coding artifact 3No label text to screen 4

What the badges mean

Reporting / coding artifact An administrative, monitoring or exposure term (product issue, off-label use, 'test normal', overdose...). Not a biological reaction; a high PRR here reflects how reports are coded.
Not in label — unassessed Not found in the label text, not an artifact pattern. This is a genuine candidate for a formal causality assessment (Bradford Hill / WHO-UMC); it has NOT had one here.
No label text to screen No validated FDA label was retrievable for this product, so the screen could not run. Disproportionality only.

Strongest disproportionality signals

Flagged terms (PRR ≥ 2, χ² ≥ 4, n ≥ 10), ranked by PRR; infinite PRRs (no comparator reports) excluded. The EBGM column is a second, shrinkage-based estimate (MGPS) with its 5th percentile EB05 and the BCPNN IC025; a pair flagged by PRR alone is marked PRR-only and should be read as fragile. The strata column recomputes the PRR on serious reports only and flags pairs whose reports are unusually skewed by sex or come mostly from consumers rather than clinicians. 0 further terms are in the interactive explorer. Reaction links open the term's cross-drug page.

Show: hide coding/lab/outcome terms hide indication terms unlabeled only hide PRR-only

Reaction	Reports	PRR 95% CI · ROR · χ²/p	EBGM EB05 · IC025	Label screen	Serious-only & strata	Trial cross-check
Serotonin syndrome	82	340.7 284.4–408.0ROR 492.8 · χ² 27,337 / p <1e-300	314.3 EB05 261.2 · IC025 +6.4 3/3 methods agree	No label text to screen label has no adverse-reaction text	serious PRR 252.1 · ♀ 98% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Metabolic acidosis	82	205.5 171.6–246.1ROR 297.1 · χ² 16,465 / p <1e-300	195.7 EB05 162.6 · IC025 +6.2 3/3 methods agree	No label text to screen label has no adverse-reaction text	serious PRR 151.8 · ♀ 98% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Suicide attempt	85	110.8 93.0–132.1ROR 162.7 · χ² 9,156 / p <1e-300	108.1 EB05 90.1 · IC025 +5.7 3/3 methods agree	No label text to screen label has no adverse-reaction text	serious PRR 81.7 · ♀ 98% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Intentional overdose	81	100.7 83.9–120.7ROR 144.5 · χ² 7,907 / p <1e-300	98.3 EB05 81.6 · IC025 +5.6 3/3 methods agree	Reporting / coding artifact	serious PRR 77.0 · ♀ 98% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Drug interaction	88	43.9 37.0–52.1ROR 65.2 · χ² 3,673 / p <1e-300	43.5 EB05 36.4 · IC025 +4.8 3/3 methods agree	Reporting / coding artifact	serious PRR 35.5 · ♀ 97% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Drug resistance	10	30.8 16.8–56.6ROR 32.0 · χ² 260 / p 1e-58	29.2 EB05 16.8 · IC025 +2.6 3/3 methods agree	Reporting / coding artifact	serious PRR 25.5	no trial data cached
Plasma cell myeloma	7	14.2 6.8–29.4ROR 14.5 · χ² 73 / p 6e-18	11.2 EB05 4.7 · IC025 +1.6 3/3 methods agree	No label text to screen label has no adverse-reaction text	serious PRR 11.3	no trial data cached

Trial evidence (ClinicalTrials.gov)

Trial cross-check not yet run for this drug (ClinicalTrials.gov pull covers the 800 most-reported drugs first).

Most frequently reported reactions

By raw co-report count, regardless of disproportionality. Common terms here are often the illness itself or generic outcomes.

Reaction	Reports	PRR 95% CI · ROR · χ²/p	EBGM EB05 · IC025	Label screen	Serious-only & strata	Trial cross-check
Drug interaction	88	43.9 37.0–52.1ROR 65.2 · χ² 3,673 / p <1e-300	43.5 EB05 36.4 · IC025 +4.8 3/3 methods agree	Reporting / coding artifact	serious PRR 35.5 · ♀ 97% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Suicide attempt	85	110.8 93.0–132.1ROR 162.7 · χ² 9,156 / p <1e-300	108.1 EB05 90.1 · IC025 +5.7 3/3 methods agree	No label text to screen label has no adverse-reaction text	serious PRR 81.7 · ♀ 98% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Metabolic acidosis	82	205.5 171.6–246.1ROR 297.1 · χ² 16,465 / p <1e-300	195.7 EB05 162.6 · IC025 +6.2 3/3 methods agree	No label text to screen label has no adverse-reaction text	serious PRR 151.8 · ♀ 98% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Serotonin syndrome	82	340.7 284.4–408.0ROR 492.8 · χ² 27,337 / p <1e-300	314.3 EB05 261.2 · IC025 +6.4 3/3 methods agree	No label text to screen label has no adverse-reaction text	serious PRR 252.1 · ♀ 98% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Intentional overdose	81	100.7 83.9–120.7ROR 144.5 · χ² 7,907 / p <1e-300	98.3 EB05 81.6 · IC025 +5.6 3/3 methods agree	Reporting / coding artifact	serious PRR 77.0 · ♀ 98% (drug 73%)	no trial data cached
Drug resistance	10	30.8 16.8–56.6ROR 32.0 · χ² 260 / p 1e-58	29.2 EB05 16.8 · IC025 +2.6 3/3 methods agree	Reporting / coding artifact	serious PRR 25.5	no trial data cached
Plasma cell myeloma	7	14.2 6.8–29.4ROR 14.5 · χ² 73 / p 6e-18	11.2 EB05 4.7 · IC025 +1.6 3/3 methods agree	No label text to screen label has no adverse-reaction text	serious PRR 11.3	no trial data cached

Unlabeled candidate signals

Every screened signal with n ≥ 20 was either labeled, an indication term, or an artifact pattern — no unlabeled candidate stood out in the top signals.

Want to assess one of these properly? The runbook describes the Bradford Hill / trial-evidence workflow used on the assessment page, and handoff_top1000_signals.csv lists the strongest unassessed pairs across all drugs.

Common questions

What are the most reported side effects of Serotonin?

In FDA FAERS, the most frequently co-reported reaction terms for Serotonin are suicide attempt, metabolic acidosis, serotonin syndrome, plasma cell myeloma. These are report counts, not rates: FAERS has no denominator, reporting is voluntary and uneven, and a term can be reported because of the illness being treated rather than the drug.

Does Serotonin have an FDA boxed warning?

No. The FDA label retrieved for Serotonin has no boxed warning; see the label's Warnings and Precautions for the recognised risks.

Do FAERS signals prove that Serotonin causes these side effects?

No. A disproportionality signal (PRR, ROR) means a reaction is reported more often with this drug than with others in the database. That can reflect a real effect, but also the disease being treated, stimulated reporting after news or litigation, co-medications, or how reports are coded. Causality needs temporality, dose-response, biological plausibility, consistency across data sources and, ideally, trial or cohort evidence. This page screens each term against the FDA label and ClinicalTrials.gov results; it does not establish causation.

Sources & methods

FDA label via openFDA (set ID 3110db40-0209-48ca-be5e-0f77b27506f8, effective 20240110; matched on openfda.generic_name.exact:"SEROTONIN")
Bayesian shrinkage measures computed offline over all 1,317,300 cached pairs: BCPNN information component (IC, with Norén closed-form IC025) and MGPS empirical-Bayes geometric mean (EBGM, EB05) with a two-component gamma prior fitted by maximum marginal likelihood (α₁=0.57, β₁=0.02, α₂=1.42, β₂=0.70, w=0.17); unstratified
FAERS pair statistics from the OpenPV build of 2026-09-14 (openFDA count= aggregation, field patient.drug.openfda.generic_name.exact, 7 reaction terms, min 3 co-reports); PRR/ROR with 95% CI, chi-square with Yates correction
Serious-only and stratified counts (serious:1, patient.patientsex, primarysource.qualification) from openFDA count queries; serious-only PRR uses the drug serious report total and the term global serious total (N_serious=11,882,979); strata shown only when n ≥ 20
Seriousness and sex counts from openFDA count=serious, patient.patientsex, seriousnessdeath

Page generated 2026-10-08. Label and PubChem text are retrieved automatically and may lag the current label; always check the current prescribing information. OpenPV is a beta research tool of the Open Source Medicine Foundation.