Injection May Treat Depression Much Faster
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 8, 2006; A11
Government researchers announced yesterday that they have had striking success in treating depression in a matter of hours, using an experimental injectable drug that acts much more quickly than conventional antidepressants.
The study, based on a small sample, is part of a push by researchers to develop treatments that can bring quick relief to patients with mental disorders. Patients and their doctors report that it often takes weeks or months for most available medications to improve symptoms.
Much more work needs to be done before patients can see benefits from the breakthrough, the researchers said. Among the unanswered questions are whether patients will be able to tolerate the drug for long periods, and whether it will continue to be effective. Researchers said they hope the finding will prompt the pharmaceutical industry to develop similar compounds with fewer side effects that can then be tested on a large scale.
"Psychiatrists have gotten used to the idea we have to wait weeks or months, but we can break the sound barrier and get an antidepressant effect within hours," said Carlos Zarate Jr., chief of the mood disorders research unit at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Zarate and his colleagues published a paper about their findings in yesterday\'s issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
In the study, 18 patients were injected with a drug called ketamine, which has been used for a long time as an anesthetic. Patients briefly experienced a well-known side effect of the drug -- a mild feeling of dissociation, where they felt disconnected or found it difficult to put thoughts into words.
Ketamine is a controlled substance and can produce mild euphoria.
But the dissociative symptoms disappeared within a couple of hours, and shortly afterward patients and physicians reported a dramatic improvement in mood. Half the patients had a 50 percent decline in depression symptoms after two hours, and by the end of the first day, 71 percent reported a similar improvement. More than a third continued to report such a benefit after seven days, and nearly a third reported a complete end of symptoms. Conventional antidepressants approach those kinds of numbers only after eight to 10 weeks of treatment.
"We can truly raise the bar on what we can expect of antidepressant treatments," said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "A modest response after six weeks is what we used to define as success. What I love about this project is it redefines success not in terms of weeks, but in terms of hours."
Rather than go after the conventional targets of serotonin and norepinephrine, the new drug targets an entirely different neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate.
"This is not a subtle change," Insel added. "It is almost like rebooting a computer. It is a chemical reboot, and the striking thing is the effect lasts for about a week."
? 2006 The Washington Post Company
now, i won\'t lie, way back in my headiest days, i did, indeed shoot ketamine. its intramuscular, so its not as spooky as shooting other things, except for what you\'re actually putting into your body. my experience was that i was supremely depressed (why else go to such extremes?) and my junkie friend showed up saying, you\'ve gotta try this! so what the hell, ya know? well, after having a telepathic couple hours (we both remembered both sides of our conversation, but neither of us spoke - somewhere i probably still have the empty tape from that night) i came back around and felt terrific! so good, in fact, that i wrote a paper and showed up for an exam i wasn\'t planning on showing up for. i promised myself that i would never do that again, because i\'d had such a positive experience, and i know howthings are great the first time and get worse from then on.
apparently i was wrong!!!
:shock1: I have some friends who told me to do this, I\'ve always told them that I\'ll never use a needle even muscularly. THis is def an interesting piece of info
well, yours is probably the smarter position, especially considering that you really have to pay attention to your weights and measures.
im injections are easy- i had to do them for over a year ... but how do you know what dosage you\'re getting? im assuming theyre talkign about prescribed in which case .... since when is cat tq/ gen anesthesia a good idea for humans.
This makes pefect sense to me because nothing elevates your mood better than a good ol vacation! getting launched into k rock spaceland is a blast.
so, k-man and otto were right all along.
And....don\'t forget....OUR tax $$$ at work here folks!!!! :sigh:
The google add that I\'m looking at on tis page:
Cleansing the Doors of Perception
Huston Smith
The Little Book of Ketamine
Kit Kelly
Rush - R30 - 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
:lol:
Of course this study is useless until long-term effects have been documented....
so, k-man and otto were right all along.
Sonofabitch.....HA!!!!! I guess so....
so, k-man and otto were right all along.
Sonofabitch.....HA!!!!! I guess so....
not only did they have better directions. they knew about the K long before any of us did.
hear\'s to you k-man and otto!
I\'m probably one of the most straight edge people on here and while I\'m not going to tell you what to do with your own life, I never have and never will use needles. or put something up my nose. Or inhale something out of a balloon. I don\'t even smoke or drink. With the exception of caffeine I don\'t use anything and I like it that way. Have fun though. If I want a high I\'ll go on a 6 hour bike ride and let my
endorphines kick in.
Another widely publicized effect of endorphin production is the so-called "runner\'s high", which is said to occur when strenuous exercise takes a person over a threshold that activates endorphin production. Endorphins are released during long, continuous workouts, when the level of intensity is between moderate and high, and breathing is difficult. This also corresponds with the time that muscles use up their stored glycogen and begin functioning with only oxygen.
The closest your ever going to see me to a needle is when I give blood.
im with paul
seriously, there\'s no better feeling than getting past mile 3 or so on a 90 deg day. the 1st 2 are tough but once you hit that 3rd mile, you feel like you could take over the world.
but folks, this
cures depression!! its not recreational (like that running stuff you\'re talking about), it therapuetic!!
running and biking can be very therapeutic. One of my favorite things about a long bike ride is being alone with my thoughts to sort through everything.
I just don\'t know if all of you are up to exerting that much effort for a natural high when you can just inject one and veg out. It\'s such a Rosie Ruiz thing to do.
I\'m probably one of the most straight edge people on here and while I\'m not going to tell you what to do with your own life, I never have and never will use needles. or put something up my nose. Or inhale something out of a balloon. I don\'t even smoke or drink. With the exception of caffeine I don\'t use anything and I like it that way. Have fun though. If I want a high I\'ll go on a 6 hour bike ride and let my endorphines kick in.
That\'s fine too. Cause I have never seen you giving me or anyone else a hard time about their own extra cariccular activities.
"to each their own is fair indeed"