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Laughing gas shows promise for treatment-resistant depression, small trial finds - NBC News

Laughing gas shows promise for treatment-resistant depression, small trial finds - NBC News

Jun 09, 2021 1 min, 11 secs

Laughing gas has been used to dull pain in dental offices and maternity units for more than a century, and researchers now think the gas, called nitrous oxide, may effectively treat depression when other therapies have failed.

The new study expanded on an earlier proof-of-concept trial, which showed that inhaling 50 percent nitrous oxide — the amount typically used for pain management during medical procedures — reduced depressive symptoms in people who were resistant to other treatments.

Twenty participants completed the full trial, which involved receiving two doses — at 25 percent and 50 percent concentrations — of nitrous oxide and a placebo in a random order over three months.

According to one of the three metrics of depression used to measure progress, the lower dose of nitrous oxide appeared to have a similar effect as the higher dose but with fewer side effects, which commonly included headache, nausea and tingling.

If they sourced similar effects, I would use the nitrous oxide every time," he said, noting that both drugs are cheap and easily administered but that nitrous oxide typically has milder side effects.

Madhukar Trivedi, director of the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said, "One thing has become clear, especially after the success of ketamine: It is necessary to find different mechanisms of changing brain function in patients with depression.

Nagele said the next step is to perform a larger trial that includes hundreds of patients

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