Could This Simple Light Therapy Cure Your Depression?

Could This Simple Light Therapy Cure Your Depression?
Could This Simple Light Therapy Cure Your Depression?Credit | iStock

United States: Light therapy has long been used to help and benefit people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and new research finds that it also may help people with other forms of depression. Basically, SAD is a type of depression that sets in if winter arrives, and evenings grow shorter.

Spending time in front of a light box could ease feelings of depression for more people than previously thought.

The new review of data was completed by Artur Menegaz de Almeida of the Federal University of Mato Grosso in Sinop, Brazil. Right now, they have only proven the efficacy of the light therapy against SAD, his team said.

‘However, he stated in a news release from the American Psychiatric Association, ‘Bright light therapy has been investigated as potentially adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder because of its effects on human mood and cognitive functioning.’

HealthDay reports the Brazilian team said Oct. 2 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry that they studied data from 11 randomized clinical trials including a combined 858 patients and determined the diagnoses of those included had nonseasonal forms of major depression or bipolar depression, occurring at Mato Grosso in Sinop, Brazil. His team noted that, right now, light therapy’s effectiveness has only been proven against SAD.

However, “Bright light therapy has been studied as a potential adjunctive treatment for this kind of major depressive disorder, as light exposure is well understood to affect human mood and cognitive function,” he said in a news release which is  from the American Psychiatric Association.

Reporting Oct. 2 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, the Brazilian team pored through data from 11 randomized clinical trials involving a total of 858 patients. These people had diagnoses of nonseasonal forms of major depression or bipolar depression.

In addition to whatever medication they had been taking, some patients used light therapy. To define therapy, subjects sat in front of fluorescent 10,000 lux powered light box for at least 30 minutes and for at least 1 to 6 weeks.

They were compared to the outcomes of patients on other adjunct treatments, including air ionizers or dim red light.

Good response to treatment was defined as a 50 percent or more reduction in depressive symptoms.

According to the researchers, 60.4 percent of those engaged with the light therapy achieved that goal, compared to 38.6 percent of those getting the other add-on treatments. Full remission from depression was also markedly higher among the light therapy group vs. those who didn’t get the therapy: 40.18.8 percent versus 7 percent. These were rapid successes, with a good response or remission in the month.

“But at a cost of a few dollars per week, light boxes are much cheaper than many drugs or psychotherapy sessions,” said the research team.

Also, the primary supportive argument in the favor of using the bright light as an adjunctive treatment is the cost, “they wrote and even though outpatient treatment costs with antidepressants which are widely variable exposure to external light generally involves no costs or the limitations which reinforces the need to firm as an efficient adjunctive treatment for the nonseasonal depressive disorders.