While researchers are evaluating ketamine, "possibly the biggest advance in the treatment of depression for 50 years," it is being pushed by "a bunch of white coats with the same grassroots energy that has propelled the medical marijuana movement," Gary Stix reports in his Scientific American blog, Talking Back.
In a three-part post (here, here, and here), Stix looks at ketamine's move from the clubs, where it has been a popular drug of abuse, to the clinics, where researchers have found that it can ease symptoms of depression in hours, far more rapidly than other antidepressants.
He explains the science behind ketamine, and explains how pharmaceutical companies are trying to craft their own versions of the drug, which they can patent and profit from. Ketamine, a generic drug, "does not make pharmaceutical marketing departments salivate."
In part 2, he tells the stories of people who have been hugely helped by ketamine and are finding it at small clinics, where there is often little follow-up for patients in whom ketamine doesn't work. In part 3, he gets into the science behind the drug, and the regulatory issues raised by its unapproved, but legal, use as an antidepressant.
It's a smart, carefully reported series of posts.
-Paul Raeburn
i am glad to be here this post is very informative thanks for sharing it with us.
http://www.sellophone.com/