Laughing gas relieves symptoms in people with treatment-resistant depression:
A single, one-hour treatment that involves breathing in a mixture of oxygen and nitrous oxide — otherwise known as laughing gas — significantly improved symptoms in people with treatment-resistant depression, according to new data from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Chicago.
[...] "A large percentage of patients don't respond to standard antidepressant therapies — the patients in this study had failed an average of 4.5 antidepressant trials — and it's very important to find therapies to help these patients," said Charles R. Conway, MD, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University and one of the study's senior investigators. "That we saw rapid improvements in many such patients in the study suggests nitrous oxide may help people with really severe, resistant depression."
[...] The primary conclusions in this study were that nitrous oxide — both at 25% and in a 50-50 mixture with oxygen — improved depression in 17 of those study participants. The differences between a 25% mix and a 50% mix mainly involved how long the antidepressant effects lasted. Whereas the 50% dosage had greater antidepressant effects two weeks after treatment, the 25% dose was associated with fewer adverse events, the most common of which was feeling nauseated.
"Some patients experience side effects — it's a small subset, but it's very real — and the main one is that some people get nauseated," Conway said. "But in our study, only when people got the 50% dose did they experience nausea. When they received 25% nitrous oxide, no one developed nausea. And that lower dose was just about as effective as the higher dose at relieving depression."
Of the 20 people who completed all of the study's treatments and follow-up exams, 55% (11 of 20) experienced a significant improvement in at least half of their depressive symptoms, and 40% (eight of 20) were considered to be in remission — meaning they no longer were clinically depressed — after breathing a nitrous oxide solution for one hour.
Journal Reference:
Peter Nagele, Ben J. Palanca, Britt Gott, et al. A phase 2 trial of inhaled nitrous oxide for treatment-resistant major depression [$], Science Translational Medicine (DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abe1376)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15 2021, @10:21PM (1 child)
From the article:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15 2021, @11:14PM
Such a cheap joke. Did you buy it wholesale?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday June 15 2021, @10:34PM (2 children)
Hasn't this been used for over a century for dental anaesthesia? Wouldn't an effect like this have been noticed in depression-suffering individuals coming in for major dental work, in all that time?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Tuesday June 15 2021, @10:52PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @01:20AM
Probably get hidden by the fact that getting cavities filled or painful teeth extracted is going to make you feel better anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15 2021, @10:50PM
Hopped up dose of dopamin/seratonin lifts up the mood to be more optimistic. All temporary, but who knows with repeated dosage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15 2021, @10:55PM
Tickling feet with a feather.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by IronClad on Tuesday June 15 2021, @11:28PM
A little for me might help, but
A little for my '70 Hemi Cuda will really do the trick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @12:26AM (1 child)
They make you dumb. And 2 weeks later you'll just be dumb and depressed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Revek on Wednesday June 16 2021, @12:55AM
Hippy crack is harmless. Unless you are an idiots and end up with oxygen starvation.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 2) by RedIsNotGreen on Wednesday June 16 2021, @06:31PM (1 child)
All these "miraculous" "depression" "treatments": laughing gas, ketamine, antidepressants, are the equivalent of kicking a malfunctioning TV set, spraying some accelerant into an engine intake, or turning it on and off again.
They do not get to the source of the issue: unfulfilling existence, a culture of life-long overwork, and taking part in something which harms many others without knowing how to stop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @07:02PM
Well if it "works" for 50-60+ years that'll be good enough for most.
BTW it's the cheerful optimistic people who have something wrong with their brains and don't see the world and life as it is. ;)
So in many cases it's not a malfunctioning TV set but a normal TV set that would work pretty well if it wasn't kicked every day.