Pete Davidson usa cetamina no tratamento da depressão. Como funciona?
Notícias ao Minuto, Agosto 30, 2023
It is a pain reliever that, for many years, was considered an illicit drug.
Recently, Pete Davidson, an American comedian, revealed that his treatment for depression includes ketamine, a painkiller that was considered an illegal drug for many years but was approved in 2019 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in certain treatments for adults with depression.
For years, ketamine was known as a party drug that induces euphoric out-of-body experiences in users. However, a growing number of studies are pointing to ketamine as a way to relieve symptoms of depression in the short term—and, in fact, in less than an hour, according to the Daily Mail.
Once it was approved, thousands of clinics began to appear in the U.S. where people with a more difficult-to-treat form of depression can undergo intravenous infusions of a refined version of the medication under the supervision of a psychiatrist. This treatment is available at several private clinics in Portugal.
There is yet another form of ketamine, approved by the U.S. regulatory agency, that is available as a spray under the name esketamine but marketed as Spravato.
Many of the treatments used today work in a similar way—that is, they target the same neurotransmitters: serotonin and norepinephrine. These medications are collectively known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). However, despite changes over the years, their effectiveness has plateaued.
Ketamine, on the other hand, combats the symptoms of depression in a different way. Conventional treatments typically increase levels of natural chemicals such as serotonin, but ketamine increases levels of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that plays a crucial role in regulating mood, learning, memory, and information processing.
In fact, a recent study conducted in Boston suggested that ketamine infusions are just as effective in treating severe depression as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the most commonly used treatment.
In addition, researchers at MindPeace Clinics, a ketamine therapy clinic, as cited in the Daily Mail, report that more than 70% of patients who used the medication for one year experienced improvements in their mood, with 40% showing no symptoms of depression after 10 routine infusions of the medication. Of course, even so, some doctors consider it a dangerous option.
