Bright light therapy doesn’t seem to boost depression treatment

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-03-14 02:00

International

PHOTO: Sebastian Staines/Unsplash

Wearing morning bright light therapy glasses didn’t provide any additional edge for teenagers aiming to treat their moderate to severe depression. More than 220 young people ages 12 to 18 already receiving inpatient treatment in Germany were assigned to either four weeks of morning bright light therapy via special glasses, or dim red light used as a placebo treatment. The team found both groups benefited equally from their usual treatment, but that future studies should include treatment as usual without the red light placebo to rule out any potential influence from the placebo effect.

Media release

From:

Journal/
conference: JAMA Psychiatry

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University Hospital Hamm for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Germany; see PDF for full list of author affiliations

Funder: Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Dück reported serving as the organizer of an annual symposium sponsored by MEDICE, InfectoPharm, Loewenstein Medical Technology, Somnomedics, Takeda, and Mementor; the author has no personal or financial relationships with the companies. Dr Ruckes reported grants from the German Research Foundation during the conduct of the study. Dr Deuster reported personal fees from University Medical Center Mainz outside the submitted work. Dr Holtmann reported personal fees from Hogrefe Publishers, Takeda, and MEDICE outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported. Funding/Support: This study was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (FKZ 01KG1713).

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.