Small doses of ketamine, popularly called Special K, reduce depression symptoms within 24 hours, according to a new study.
The study was conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who conducted a small trial on 73 patients. All the participants had hard-to-treat depression and hadn't responded to any drugs. In this group, a small dose of ketamine, roughly a quarter of the quantity used to sedate people during surgery, temporarily reduced depression.
"Through this study, we've now confirmed in an optimized trial design that ketamine does have robust and rapid antidepressant effects," said Dr. Sanjay Mathew from Baylor College of Medicine and senior author of the study, according to a news release.
Researchers have known Ketamine's potential for use in anti-depression treatment. However, ketamine comes with a baggage of serious side-effects such as feelings of floating, blurred vision, altered sense of time (which is why the drug is a recreational drug).
In the new study, researchers pitched Ketamine against another psychoactive substance midazolam, which mimics some reactions of Ketamine, instead of using a regular placebo,
"The primary outcome was a change in depression scores 24 hours later; we found that 64 percent in the ketamine group and 28 percent in the midazolam group showed a favorable antidepressant response at this time point," said Mathew.
A follow-up of the patients showed that those who got Ketamine had lower depression even after seven days. Some people had lower scores even after a month of treatment.
Mathew added that only further studies will determine the safe dose for ketamine that can be used to treat people with depression. The drug can raise blood pressure and pulse. In their study, an anaesthesiologist monitored the participants' condition.
The study is published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.