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Medicine Science

Laughing Gas Can Help Treat Depression, Small Study Finds (gizmodo.com) 90

Posted by BeauHD from the no-laughing-matter dept.
PolygamousRanchKid shares a report from Gizmodo: A dose of laughing gas may just help some people with hard-to-treat depression, suggests a new, small clinical trial published Wednesday. The study found that people who inhaled nitrous oxide reported improvements in their depression symptoms afterward. It also found that people felt similar improvements with a smaller dose as they did with a larger one, but experienced substantially fewer side effects. Nitrous oxide (NO) is a colorless, non-flammable gas at room temperature that's long been used as an anesthetic and sometimes as a recreational drug, due to the euphoria and dissociative hallucinations it can cause upon inhalation. But several years ago, Peter Nagele, a researcher and trauma anesthesiologist at the University of Chicago, and his colleagues began looking into nitrous oxide as a potential treatment for depression.

The small trial recruited 28 participants in a crossover design, which is when all the volunteers go through each of the trial's conditions and their responses are compared to one another (as opposed to two or more distinct groups that either take the drug or placebo). The team found that these volunteers on average experienced a greater improvement in depression symptoms when they took the nitrous oxide at either dose than they did after taking the placebo (based on the primary survey they completed) -- an improvement that lasted for up to two weeks. Some doctors and patients had been using generic ketamine, taken through IV, as an experimental depression treatment for years. But Johnson & Johnson didn't fund expensive clinical trials to secure an approval for ketamine as a depression treatment; it instead developed a patentable form taken as a nasal spray, called esketamine. That sort of commercialization isn't something that's possible with nitrous oxide, according to Nagale. The study has been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
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Laughing Gas Can Help Treat Depression, Small Study Finds More

Laughing Gas Can Help Treat Depression, Small Study Finds

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  • Yeah we know that No2 makes you feel happy whether its released in the lungs or the nethers. Whats new?

    • > No2 makes you feel happy

      Maybe even NO and N2O.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by irving47 ( 73147 )

      The new part is documented lasting effects.

    • Re: In other news : Viagra works (Score:5, Informative)

      by ByTor-2112 ( 313205 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @09:45PM (#61475584)
      NO and NO2 (aka NOx) are hazardous and turn into acid in your lungs. You want N2O. Chemistry is too hard for journalists.

    • What do you think science does? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @10:11PM (#61475636) Homepage Journal

      Yeah we know that No2 makes you feel happy whether its released in the lungs or the nethers. Whats new?

      The new part is that the patients in the study experienced a reduction in depression for 2 weeks after treatment.

      What exactly did you think scientific studies *do* anyway?

      After reading the article in the firehose I went on a digging spree through modern drugs and NMDA receptors and discovered that an estimated 1/2 the population is deficient in Magnesium, and that Magnesium supplements are possibly curative for treatment resistant depression.

      Do your own reading [mentalhealthdaily.com], but recent studies indicate that Mg supplementation can reverse depression within 7 days [nih.gov].

      Magnesium is cheap, few side effects or contraindications, and a 7-day personal experiment would cost less than $10. If it doesn't work, you're only out $10.

      (Mg affects the NMDA receptors, which are the same receptors affected by NO2, Ketamine, some psychadelics, and a raft of other depression meds.)

      • ... which are the same receptors affected by NO2, Ketamine

        Doh! I meant N2O, and got sidelined by the parent poster's misspelling.

      • Re:What do you think science does? (Score:4, Informative)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @02:39AM (#61475998) Journal

        Yeah we know that No2 makes you feel happy whether its released in the lungs or the nethers. Whats new?

        Do your own reading [mentalhealthdaily.com], but recent studies indicate that Mg supplementation can reverse depression within 7 days [nih.gov].

        Magnesium is cheap, few side effects or contraindications, and a 7-day personal experiment would cost less than $10. If it doesn't work, you're only out $10.

        I can vouch for that and is exactly the research I found too. So about 3 years ago I started taking magnesium at night and in the morning and it has done wonders for my mood. In the morning I have it with B group vitamins and a night with zinc.

        Also it helps me figure out who the assholes are in my life that are affecting my mental health and figure out an emotionally intelligent way to get rid of them because I have more presence of mind and am more likely to put boundaries in place.

      • Seriously, I already have a bag of it in the bathroom, so I'll just take a tiny piece every day and see what happens.

        Cost in this case would be less than a penny a day.

        • I'm too lazy to find references, but not all Mg compounds are created equal when it comes to Mg being absorbed by the intestines and being made available to the body (you could probably read the Wikipedia article on Epsom Salt and follow references from there). And Epsom Salts (MgSO4) is one of the worse ones. Bets are you won't see much happening (that is if you discount the "healthy" bowel movement...).

          On the other hand, one can absorb Mg through the skin too, which is why people (like you presumably) pu

          • but not all Mg compounds are created equal when it comes to Mg being absorbed by the intestines

            While this is true, the way I read storkus [slashdot.org]' comment was that he ingests lumps of magnesium metal. To get to a penny a day, maybe he's chewing lumps of alloy off a wrecked alloy wheel from the scrap yard, but hey, that's his choice.

            I am not recommending or denigrating any self-medication choices in this posting. Though I might be interested in observing the treatment. I have binoculars.

          • Donâ(TM)t forget magnesium skin creams, watch out for the mg chloride ones tho, they can be a little burny if you get it in tender areas.
            Helps with sleep alsoâ¦

    • This is from the Onion, right? I surely hope no one actually paid for such a study. Who's dumber? Oh, and for a buck I'll tell you a secret about water.

    • "The nethers"?

      Just how the hell ARE you ingesting your nitrous oxide?!?!?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ghoul ( 157158 )
        Viagra works by generating N2O in the cells of the penis which helps them to relax. N2O is a vasodilator. Most erectile dysfunction is because the cells of the penis are not getting enough blood. Silfanil when it breaks down produces N2O in situ that is in your nethers acting as a local vasodilator. The local part is important as the population needing Viagra also have heart issues in general so you dont want a general vasodilator.

        • Wow. I never knew the mechanics of how Viagra actually works. Thank you for taking my off-hand attempt at making a joke and informing me. You don't see that on slashdot very often anymore.

  • Indeed.

  • Little Shop of Horrors (Score:4, Funny)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @09:12PM (#61475506)

    Cant help but think of Steve Martin here.

    https://filmfork-cdn.s3.amazon... [amazonaws.com]

  • I could imagine that the laughter that could come with the gas could lift one's mood.

    If one could trigger giddiness and laughter in depressed people without the gas would you get a similar result? What if you brought in depressed people who were ticklish and ticked them with feathers, would they have similar results?

    • Or if a supermodel sexbot came to have sex with them and their aging was treated so they are 20 again. Some of 'depression' is likely a natural result of environment and not a result of 'chemical imbalance in the brain' and other quack theories. (Reason it's a quack theory : does a computer get depressed from under/over volting it?)

    • One, you're missing the point. "Laughter is the best medicine", is an ancient saying. Laughing gas to cheer people up, should have been about as obvious as fucking brings pleasure.

      Second, you're really missing the point suggesting free-ware feather solutions. Tickling, isn't patently profitable. Big Pharma, will be looking to promote their cut.

      • Laughing gas to cheer people up, should have been about as obvious as fucking brings pleasure.

        Oh hell yeah, and sex after laughing gas is doubly good!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          I received "laughing gas" a couple times in my teens (1970s) at the dentist. I was fully aware of what he was doing, but the feeling was as though I didn't give a shit...he could have been cutting my nuts off and I wouldn't have cared. I recall having a swim meet the evening after one of these, and crushing my previous best time...wish I could have experimented with that.

          • You can, go buy a bunch of whipped cream chargers.

            • This is very dangerous though. Getting nitrous from a dentist means it's being carefully measured and controlled by someone trained and certified to do so.

              • This is very dangerous though. Getting nitrous from a dentist means it's being carefully measured and controlled by someone trained and certified to do so.

                Nah, discharge the whippet into a balloon so you aren't breathing really cold nitrous, inhale that, and the idea isn't to do this until you pass out.

                Note - there was a college student in our town that incredibly stupidly rigged up a tank of Nitrous, a face mask, and sat back and died.

                I've never heard of anyone expiring from whippets or whipped cream dispensers. Another story, when my wife was a teenager, she worked at a restaurant. for some reason the whipped cream dispensers kept failing. The cooks

          • Ya that was my experience having nitrous at the dentist. Such as the point where I think "that must have hurt".

            For those who didn't have it, I wasn't laughing or anything. But it really felt like having a buzz from a couple too many shots of alcohol. Except that when done I was given some oxygen and I sobered in just a couple of seconds which was on odd sensation in itself. But there's no after effect like alcohol or the depression that alcohol brings.

          • Swim meet and talking about your nuts? Are we entering fetish territory?

    • If one could trigger giddiness and laughter in depressed people without the gas would you get a similar result?

      For example, by taking them to the pub for a chat and a couple of beers.

      The question is, would the novel treatment (magnesium, in an unspecified form) provide a greater effect (e.g, lasting for several weeks, as reported) or smaller side-effects than the standard treatment. That is the actual test applied in most drug evaluation tests because that is the question that doctors are interested in. (N

      • I think if you tried this with a pub, you'd go broke in about a month. Who can afford a $10 beer every night?

      • Alcohol though is a depressive. There's the early part where you feel good but there's the tail end as the alcohol wears off. And not everyone even gets the feedl good part when drinking, some go straight to the feeling bad or being a bit depressed part. You never see happy alcoholics for example.

  • Noted (Score:5, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @10:02PM (#61475618)

    Subject laughs upon inhaling laughing gas.
    Laughing is a sign of joy.
    Conclusion: Subject cured of depression.

  • "Some doctors and patients had been using generic ketamine, taken through IV, as an experimental depression treatment for years. But Johnson & Johnson didn't fund expensive clinical trials to secure an approval for ketamine as a depression treatment; it instead developed a patentable form taken as a nasal spray, called esketamine. That sort of commercialization isn't something that's possible with nitrous oxide, according to Nagale."

    Supposing ketamine is significantly better than esketamine, then like f

    • Re:Funding (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RockDoctor ( 15477 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:35AM (#61476400) Journal

      Supposing ketamine is significantly better than esketamine

      Taking your question slightly more seriously than it is intended (I suspect), my bet (to the value of a litre of beer, no more) is that "better" applies to the sum of (intended effects) + (side effects), and the difference being in the (side effects) part of "better".

      If you're looking at home treatment (i.e., not depression severe enough to require hospitalisation), then the range of common side effects from IV treatment includes missing the vein, major mis-dosing, and lethal sepsis from not cleaning the injection site properly on your 345th injection of the year. All of which have considerably smaller consequences in a hospital setting.

      The nasal spray form, since it doesn't involve breaking the skin, has a different profile of side effects to the IV form.
      You could well argue that the oral tablet route also has "doesn't break the skin" advantages, but since ketamine is already a relatively popular drug of abuse, that has other side effects to consider.

      • "Taking your question slightly more seriously than ..."

        Thanks for your response. When I cut and paste the text I quoted I didn't think about the IV aspect, which you make clear affects things. But I was serious when I questioned the finding for studies on un-patentable medications.

        Considering the spray still has to be administered in hospitals or doctors offices, and like by IV it's very expensive (>$250 a dose), and studies on the spray don't seem to be producing much in the way of support:

        "Esketamine w

      • "but since ketamine is already a relatively popular drug of abuse"

        I don't think that's a valid reason to avoid studying or using the medication. Drug abuse is a public health problem not a law enforcement issue.

        Like the last study I quoted said: "Intravenous and intranasal routes may be monetarily more promising [profitable], but the oral route could be of greatest service"

        https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]

      • You absolutely should clean the injection site to prevent sepsis, but if your skin isn't covered in dirt, you're probably not going to die. After all, if you skinned your knee, the blood gets dirt, right? (And you rinse it out with, what?? Unsterile tap water?) Use a clean needle every time though, they are literally like a quarter on Amazon.
      • Also, while ketamine is *usually* given as an IV (and properly setting up an IV is tricky if you're not a professional nurse), it *can* be given intermuscularly. (IM) which is easier. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
  • Laughing gas. What in the world did they expect to find? I mean really.
  • Since it's a legal "drug", and easily obtained via "whippet" canisters, it isn't hard to try out. This is going to piss off drug manufacturers.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by redback ( 15527 )

      its a surprisingly developed hidden industry too. you can even get flavoured nitrous.

      • its a surprisingly developed hidden industry too. you can even get flavoured nitrous.

        When there's something new I learned!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Brace for another wave of dubious busts for "drug paraphernalia".

      • Brace for another wave of dubious busts for "drug paraphernalia".

        "Your Honor, The defendant was observed to have a number of balloons, some tacks and several small canisters that were determined to be filled with contraband gas upon analysis. Further, a can of Reddi-Whip was found in his refrigerator."

    • I was wondering if anyone else was aware of this.

      One of my fellow-traveller jobs in the oil industry uses CO2 canisters as a convenient, cheap (and safe to ship - very important!) source of moderate pressure for testing a (well-buffered, pH-wise) liquid mixture. Great, fine, marvellous.

      One day, the shore base stores balls-up on their re-stocking, and someone had the bright idea of getting a box of "CO2 canisters" from a local cooking supplier. They got it wrong (if we worked for the same company, I'd susp

      • While it can be abused, it is legitimately used to make whipped cream. Go look at a can of whipped cream it will say the whipping gas is N2O.

        • While it can be abused, it is legitimately used to make whipped cream. Go look at a can of whipped cream it will say the whipping gas is N2O.

          True, although abusing whippets is about as low on the list as you can get.

  • Explain something to me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Krishnoid ( 984597 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @12:18AM (#61475850) Journal
    Hasn't this been used for over a century for dental anaesthesia? Wouldn't an effect like this have been noticed in depression-suffering individuals coming in for major dental work, in all that time?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by bardrt ( 1831426 )
      I feel like the effect would be instantly reversed upon receipt of the bill.

      Especially with how poorly almost every american insurance plan "covers" dental.

      Non-amalgam fillings are still "cosmetic" and 100% NOT covered on most plans, for crying out loud.
      • "Bill"?

        In a medical setting?

        What sort of barbarian third-world witch-doctory do you inhabit, that you get treated with duck body-parts and then charged for it?

        Here, I pay for your medical treatment (and vice versa) via the averaging effect ofg the general taxation system. And the medical companies have far lower profit margins as a result (which has me crying worlds-tiniest-crocodile-tears).

        • I couldn't find an image for worlds-tiniest-crocodile-tears [wikimedia.org], but that is a very dinky skull. And look at the ornamentation of the skull plates - so cute a scute!

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by bardrt ( 1831426 )
          Most Americans who even HAVE dental insurance (which is a much, MUCH lower percentage than those who have medical insurance) typically have what's called "100/80/50 Coverage".

          This means it pays 100 percent of the cost of routine preventive and diagnostic care, such as checkups and cleanings;
          covers 80 percent for fillings, root canals and other basic procedures; and
          50 percent for crowns, bridges and major procedures. Although you have this coverage, once you have any procedure (including a cleaning) it

    • One of the early uses of cocaine was as an oral anesthetic for dentistry. This was the last time in history people sought out dental procedures.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      At least half a century. I was given it a couple times back in the 70s at our dentist. Good stuff.

    • Most dentists don't actually give you nitrous anymore. And if you're dentist-phobic enough to seek out the ones who do, as I am; the nitrous does a lot to even out the short-term anxiety and horror of being at the receiving end of dental work. After that, and the relief of escaping that chair and walking out that door, the therapeutic value of the nitrous I've ingested is probably expended getting me through the short-term anxiety, leaving none left to help with longer-term issues like depression.

  • Used it in college. (Score:4, Informative)

    by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @01:37AM (#61475926)

    It's a weird experience if you've never done it. The main thing I remember is for me I'd always hear this like droning, repetitive "whomp whomp whomp" noise that's hard to describe as you start coming back to your senses. And when you are coming out of it (it only lasts a few seconds from a balloon) you feel like you just had a conversation or were listening to someone and had a whole long experience of something but you don't remember the details, a bit like coming out of a dream you don't quite remember.

    Hmm.. now I kind of want to try it again, it's been 25 years.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      Sounds like your experience was the recreational variety. Mine was twice at the dentist. I felt fully conscious, but felt no pain, and a bit of euphoria. I was a teenaged athlete at the time, and swam my personal best at a meet a few hours after one of those appointments.

  • means you are pushing nonsense, large study of Slashdot headlines finds.

  • If anyone wants to play with nitrous oxide, be sure to take b12 supplements at least. Nitrous oxide is known to deplete B12 sufficiently to cause deficiency disease.

  • The only thing that will benefit from 'breathing' Nitrous Oxide (NO) is your hotrod.

    Gotta get that extra oxygen in the combustion chamber!

  • Do you have to tell it a joke, first?

  • Let's issue a warning to people reading this. Too much nitrous oxide can cause serious vitamin deficiency disease. Nitrous oxide deactivates vitamin B12. In small doses there is always enough vitamin, but with large doses taken daily it's dangerous.
  • This doesn't make any sense to me. There are much better cures for depression that are natural and don't have any side effects. If you're feeling sad, buy cbd gummies [aifory.com] and eat them daily. Make sure to order from Aifory where you can choose from a variety of strengths and forms of CBD gummies. Medicine like this will make you feel better instantly.

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