Bright light therapy, widely understood to be an effective treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), can also be helpful in treating other types of depression , finds a new meta-analysis published on Oct. 2 in JAMA Psychiatry. “Major depressive disorder (MDD) is currently the leading cause of functional disability and one of the most critical mental health issues,” write the authors, a group of doctors and medical students in Brazil and Argentina, in the study’s introduction.
But the estimated response rate to initial treatment works only about half of the time , they note, eventually requiring alternatives. “Given this,” they explain, “bright light therapy (BLT) has been studied as a potential adjunctive treatment for MDD, as light exposure is well understood to affect human mood and cognitive function.” The analysis combed through databases for randomized clinical trials evaluating the effects of BLT on patients with non-seasonal depression, revealing that BLT was indeed an effective adjunctive treatment for nonseasonal depressive disorders—with an estimated response rate of 40% compared to the control group’s response rate of 23%.
The study results, note the authors, not only suggest that BLT offers significant benefits as an adjunctive treatment for non-seasonal depressions, but that bright light therapy also accelerates the response to the initial treatment. “I hope that my study can provide evidence for guidelines recommending the use of brigh.
