Jose de Leon, MD
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Positions
- Professor
College Unit(s)
Biography and Education
Education
Dr. Jose de Leon is a native of Bilbao, Spain, and received his medical training at the University of Navarre in Spain. He came to the United States in 1987 to hone his research skills in psychiatry. He completed fellowships in clinical psychopharmacology in Philadelphia for 4 years. In 1991, he was named Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University and, in 1995, promoted to Research Associate Professor. In 1996 he moved with his family to Lexington, Kentucky, where he became Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky (UK) Department of Psychiatry. In 2006 he was promoted to Professor in the Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy. He has served as Medical Director for the Mental Health Research Center at Eastern State Hospital (ESH) since 1996.
Research
Main contributions: 1) the association between smoking and schizophrenia is present worldwide (and partly explained by shared vulnerability); 2) the association of polydipsia with smoking and schizophrenia in patients with severe mental illness; 3) that CYP3A4 inducers and the CYP2D6 poor metabolizer phenotype may influence risperidone response; 4) valproate’s inductive properties for olanzapine and clozapine metabolism, and 5) some patients are ultrarapid metabolizers due to genetic or drug-drug interactions and need high doses.
Selected Publications
From 330 publications in PubMed (as 11/15/18):
1. de Leon J, Susce MT, Pan RM, Fairchild M, Koch W, Wedlund PJ. The CYP2D6 poor metabolizer phenotype may be associated with risperidone adverse drug reactions and discontinuation. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 66(1):15-27, 2005. PMID: 15669884. In October of 2018, according to ResearchGate there were more than 200 citations of this article.
2. de Leon J, Diaz FJ. A meta-analysis of worldwide studies demonstrates an association between schizophrenia and tobacco smoking behaviors. Schizophrenia Research 76(2-3):135-157, 2005. PMID 15949648. In October of 2018, according to ResarchGate there were more than 700 citations of this article.
3. de Leon J, Nikoloff DM. Paradoxical excitation on diphenhydramine may be associated with being a CYP2D6 ultrarapid metabolizer: three case reports. CNS Spectrums 13(2):133-135, 2008. PMID: 18227744. In October of 2018, according to ResearchGate this is my most read article with >2000 reads.
4. de Leon J. Is Psychiatry only neurology? Or only abnormal psychology? Déjà vu after 100 years. Acta Neuropsychiatrica 27(2):69-81, 2015. doi: 10.1017/neu.2014.34 PMID: 25849592. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/psychiatry_facpub/34/
5. de Leon J, Wise TN, Balon R, Fava GA. Dealing with difficult medical colleagues. Psychotherapy & Psychosomatics 2018;87(1):5-11, 2018. doi: 10.1159/000481200. PubMed PMID: 29306944.
6. de Leon J, Spina E. Possible pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic drug-drug interactions that are likely to be clinically relevant and/or frequent in bipolar disorder. Current Psychiatry Reports 20(3):17, 2018. doi: 10.1007/s11920-018-0881-3. Review. PubMed PMID: 29527636.
7. de Leon J. Teaching medical students how to think: narrative, mechanistic and mathematical thinking. Actas Españolas de Psiquiatria 2018;46(4):133-145. PubMed PMID: 30079927.