Botox, a drug derived from a bacterial toxin, is commonly used to reduce wrinkles. The injection of the substance into the forehead is also being tested in clinical trials for its ability to cure depression.
Researchers at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Diego, investigated what nearly 40,000 people reported happening after Botox treatment for a variety of reasons.
In the study published in Scientific Reports , the team found that people who received Botox injections reported depression less often than patients who received different treatments for the same reasons.
"For years, doctors have observed that Botox injected for cosmetic purposes appears to reduce depression for their patients," said Ruben Abagyan, PhD, professor of pharmacology.
Abagyan led the study with Tigran Makunts, PhD, who was a pharmacology student at the time and is now an FDA researcher, and Marc Axel Wollmer, MD, a psychiatrist and researcher in Germany who led previous clinical trials. in which Botox has been found to relieve depression.
The team focused on reports of people experiencing side effects after Botox treatment. What they found was not at all undesirable, because depression was reported 40 to 88 percent less often than patients taking Botox.
"This finding is fascinating because it supports a new treatment to influence mood and combat depression, one of the most common and dangerous mental illnesses - and is based on a very large body of statistics, rather than limited observations," Makunts said. .
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 264 million people worldwide suffer from depression. Depression is often treated with psychotherapy, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, dopamine-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, and / or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. However, these approaches are ineffective for almost one third of patients. That's why doctors and researchers are exploring other treatment options, such as electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, ketamine injections and, more recently, Botox injections into the forehead.