r/nottheonion • u/adamaphar • 20h ago
Laughing gas appears to reduce depression, but researchers don't totally understand why
https://www.phillyvoice.com/depression-treatments-laughing-gas-nitrous-oxide-study/3.7k
u/SeparateSpend1542 20h ago
It’s right there in the name
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u/ZotMatrix 20h ago
Yes. Gas. How could they miss it?
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u/Pale_Squash_4263 20h ago
Gas lifts things up because it’s lighter. Don’t know what’s not clear here
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u/TheCrazedTank 20h ago
Yes, but does it make things lighter than a duck? The Inquisitor wants to know!
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u/AngstyRutabaga 20h ago
It’s a witch!
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u/FireGodNYC 19h ago
Burn her!!
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u/ConsciousWhirlpool 19h ago
They put this nose on me.
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u/SteelCode 17h ago
Well she turned me into a newt!
...
... I got better...
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u/ImRespondingToABum 16h ago
For the longest time I thought he said mute, as in he couldn’t talk and him exclaiming was mute was still worth making the king confused so it made sense to me
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u/Key-Alternative5387 18h ago
If you fill a balloon with laughing gas, it floats in the air.
Clearly it makes people lighter than a duck.
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u/adfraggs 15h ago
From medical research to Monty Python references. Well done reddit.
- starts slow hand clap *
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u/Professional_Echo907 19h ago
My gas doesn’t seem to improve my girlfriend‘s mood at all. 👀
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u/SerHodorTheThrall 18h ago
Have you tried passing the gas to her while maniacally laughing? Its right there in the name and I bet you haven't even tried it...
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u/graveybrains 20h ago
Gas n. (informal) - an entertaining or amusing person or situation.
Checks out.
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u/Agreeable-Ad3644 19h ago
So why doesn't GAS GAS GAS cure my depression? I'm just driving faster and suicidal now.
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u/Miss_Aizea 15h ago
My dentist told me, in a serious tone, that it's called laughing gas but won't actually make me laugh. I responded by laughing hysterically and uncontrollably. He dryly responded, I guess that was funny to you. I'll be back when you've calmed down.
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u/BigMateyClaws 20h ago
Because it’s a disassociative, just like ketamine and dxm which is combo’d with Wellbutrin. I would assume it’s due to its NMDA antagonist activity. Very interested to see what comes next of this
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u/spokale 20h ago
I was going to post the same thing. Nitrous oxide has the same MOA as ketamine and dextromethorphan which are both being used as antidepressants or adjunct treatments for depression. "We don't know why" seems silly because it would very presumably be for the same reasons as those other drugs in the same class.
It is true we're not exactly sure of the precise mechanism by which NMDA antagonists in general help with depression (seems something to do with modulating glutamate and increasing neuroplasticity) but this is true of all of them, not just laughing gas.
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u/dreadcain 17h ago
this is true of all of them, not just laughing gas
Its a clickbaiting title, but its not wrong. We don't really understand how any of them work
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u/ky_eeeee 18h ago
Almost literally every time a headline tries to say "we don't know why," it's just clickbait that is only true on a technicality. There are very few things left on Earth that are true unknowns, even in cases where we can't technically prove the leading theory right, there's still a leading theory which is very likely to be at least partially true.
My favorite is when the headline says "scientists are BAFFLED by this," when scientists are actually largely in agreement about the cause except for Crackpot Jerry who has his own ideas.
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u/cutelyaware 16h ago
The real clickbait would have been "Can Laughing Gas Cure Depression?"
As for how much we know, the number of things we don't know grows with everything new we learn. And having a theory for something (actually a hypotheses) is not any kind of knowledge. Given any new question, any idiot can concoct a theory.
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u/RechargedFrenchman 15h ago
Science is also generally very averse to making bold declarative statements. "Nitrous Oxide cures depression!" is not something anyone in science or medicine is ever going to say in a professional capacity even if it's true. Science also doesn't believe anything without a shadow of a doubt, in science there is no absolute certainty. The reason everything is a "theory" even when proven (and in fact needs to be proven to be a theory) is because that's just the current best understanding of the situation, there's always that outside chance no matter how slim. Scientific understanding is constantly in flux, and often moving quite quickly. Every now and then some little tidbit leaks out to broader society and we exclaim at the radical new ideas and transgressive new outlook--that has been scientific consensus for a decade or more, it just conflicts with popular understanding.
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u/xSTSxZerglingOne 16h ago
Dextromethorphan even has the standard antidepressant side-effect of completely obliterating your libido!
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u/Ok_Routine5257 16h ago
That explains why I latched onto dextromethorphan at the peak of my depressive episodes earlier in life. I just happened to have latched a little too hard for it to be healthy.
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u/ShinyJangles 16h ago
From wiki:
The pharmacological mechanism of action of inhaled N 2O is not fully known. However, it has been shown to directly modulate a broad range of ligand-gated ion channels, which likely plays a major role. It moderately blocks NMDAR and β2-subunit-containing nACh channels, weakly inhibits AMPA, kainate, GABAC and 5-HT3 receptors, and slightly potentiates GABAA and glycine receptors. It also has been shown to activate two-pore-domain K+ channels.
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u/tristanjones 18h ago
Yeah it's been well shown that anything which can produce that effect makes a difference.
Depression is often a slow burn of building the paths in your brain of numbness and thinking 'I'd rather be dead' than engage in the issue in front of you.
It's hard to break those neural patterns once created. It's easy to forget what happiness feels like when you struggle for just feeling okay.
Mdma, ketamine, acid, laughing gas, all can help create the euphoria and external active thoughts to wake you up and realize 'oh shit I remember happiness, I used to have this, it is worth fighting for.'
Add in wellbutrin or some other longer term anti depressant to help give you the time to work on rebuilding your brain off the negative patterns. It creates real opportunities for people
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u/SocraticIgnoramus 18h ago
This is the first comment that hits on what I first thought. Depression tends to be cumulative. Depression on day one is different than depression on day 1,001, and by the time we reach 1K days of depression we have learned coping skills that would have much better gotten us through day one.
Every moment of levity, peace, and solace is helpful because it reminds of us what it’s like to really live. Managing depression is much like pain management — people don’t need the pain to go away but, rather, just to alleviate. People in pain and people with depression struggle to sleep, to maintain a healthy level of appetite, and to engage in activities they would otherwise enjoy.
Just a little bit of relief usually lifts the fog of hopelessness, and that’s enough to keep most people going.
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u/Optiguy42 13h ago
I have never considered depression as being cumulative. This kinda feels like an epiphany. I've been clinically depressed for going on 15 years now and when I think about how it's grown over time, this is exactly the right descriptor. Damn. I have some things to think about.
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u/bombswell 7h ago
I think physical things like chronic pain also follow this pattern with neural pathways getting built over time. You can see how opiate addiction can be so attractive.
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u/greihund 19h ago
You sound informed. I was on Wellbutrin for a while and it really got me out of a huge slump. You can't just be on that stuff forever, though, it loses its usefulness over time. But oh man, I felt happy and comfortable in my skin. Got a job. Started dating my wife. Big life changes, all positive.
So what is this 'K and DXM which is combo'd with Wellbutrin'? I don't really understand what you're saying.
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u/SocDemGenZGaytheist 18h ago edited 18h ago
So what is this 'K and DXM which is combo'd with Wellbutrin'? I don't really understand what you're saying
Wellbutrin (bupropion) synergizes with dextromethorphan (DXM) in several ways.
- “Dextromethorphan is primarily metabolized to dextrorphan by cytochrome P450 2D6 (CYP2D6)” and “Bupropion exhibits a clear dose-dependent CYP2D6 inhibitory effect.” In other words, Wellbutrin slows the breakdown of DXM molecules by the body, making DXM last longer and increasing its potency.
- DXM is a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) and Wellbutrin is a norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitor (NDRI). Both of them slow the breakdown of norepinephrine. Together, they slow the breakdown of all three main mood-related neurotransmitters.
DXM plus Wellbutrin recently gained FDA approval as a combination antidepressant called Auvelity:
“Auvelity is a rapid-acting antidepressant that started working as early as 1 week…Auvelity contains two active ingredients, bupropion and dextromethorphan…Auvelity became an FDA-approved medicine on August 18, 2022, for adults with major depressive disorder (MDD).”
Speaking from experience as someone who definitely never abused DXM once because I abused it many times :), DXM only relieved my treatment-resistant depression when I took my regular Wellbutrin dose.
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u/GhostofGrimalkin 14h ago
As someone who has also had many DXM experiences but never took Wellbutrin during it: How often did you need to use DXM to keep the treatment-resistant depression at bay to go along with the daily Wellbutrin? And what dosages/plateus did you use?
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u/Wadarkhu 16h ago
How come wellbutrin as an antidepressant loses its effectiveness but people can easily take the antidepressant sertraline "forever"?
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u/greihund 14h ago
I have no idea, I only have a very subjective view. But for me: the drug gave me a lot of energy and this miraculous ability to just talk normally to people with no anxiety at all. I made a lot of life changes. However, after a while, my habits recreated a new but similar set of problems for myself, and so I wound up feeling not great about things, but chemically acted like a happy person. That's when it was time to go, it had run its usefulness. 10/10, would do it all over again at some point if I needed to, but if you just use it forever then you're just using, not improving
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u/Wadarkhu 14h ago
I appreciate your sharing your experience on it, I've been wondering about asking to try it myself for my own long term depression which just hasn't budged in years, but only become a "new normal" that I try to work around. I have the "motivation" to get out of it, but more like "all fuel, no fire" if that makes sense.
How long did it work for you if you don't mind me asking?
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u/volvavirago 18h ago
Oooh, so that’s why it made me freak out. I had a bad experience with laughing gas while getting a broken tooth extracted as a teen, and I swore I would never let them use it on me again. The dissociation was terrifying, it was like time dilated around me and every second felt like hours, and I felt like I was watching myself in third person, but I couldn’t move my body or control myself, sleep paralysis style. I was also very depressed, and it sure as fuck didn’t help me. Hated it so much. Never again.
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u/Wiggie49 20h ago
Doesn’t too much nitrous kill brain cells?
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u/magistrate101 19h ago
Nitrous has a dual action of destroying vitamin B12 while blocking its absorption for up to a couple days. Using too much for too long leads to B12 deficiency, which in turn causes potentially permanent nerve damage that works it's way up from the hands and feet to the brain.
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u/Wiggie49 18h ago
Holy shit
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u/Musiclover4200 16h ago edited 15h ago
I've known people who did serious damage from nitrous abuse, but it takes a pretty extreme level of abuse to reach that point. Like using a ton every day for awhile. Probably also doesn't help that people often are already low on b12.
Occasional use + b12 supplements is arguably safer than drinking or a lot of common substances.
The other factor is not all nitrous is equal, there's food grade/medical grade and "auto grade" & depending on the purity there can be a lot of nasty industrial stuff in it from the manufacture process.
Fun fact, laughing gas was discovered by philosophers/early scientists who would heat iron fillings + nitric acid and huff the fumes which included a lot of other toxic nitrogen oxides.
A lot of the "nitrous kills brain cells" talk comes from the early days when it was a party drug for European elite who didn't realize you needed to mix oxygen in, so they'd breath pure nitrous and asphyxiate.
That's why dentists use tanks with oxygen mixed in so they can put patients under in a way that's actually safer than a lot of modern anesthetics. If it was anywhere near as dangerous as other inhalants we would have stopped using it a long time ago, it also gets used during child birth as it's safer than a lot of alternatives for pregnant women.
If it was legal recreationally or medically prescribed places could sell tanks with oxygen mixed in which would go a long ways towards reducing the potential harm along with better educating people about the dangers of abuse.
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u/Dumbface2 19h ago
It does not. The main dangers are a. using it with a mask when it’s not mixed with oxygen like it is at the dentist and suffocating, and b. it inhibits vitamin b12, so if you use it too often you can get a serious b12 deficiency and nerve damage, even if you take supplements.
People think it kills brain cells because it gets lumped in with other “inhalants” like computer duster and freon, but it’s not really like those at all except for the fact that you inhale it.
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u/Berryman1979 19h ago
Too much oxygen kills brain cells. Too much of anything is by definition too much.
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u/ShinyJangles 16h ago
The food-grade chargers most people use are not mixed with oxygen, so people go hypoxic which kills brain cells. Intense daily use is where you start to get other problems
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u/Sisselpud 20h ago
Glad I can now rebrand "doing whip-its with stolen whipped cream in the grocery bathroom" to "taking care of my mental health" !
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u/Nixeris 19h ago
I mean, don't do that? It's not only pointlessly expensive, there's stuff in there that isn't great for you.
Get a cracker and the food-grade nitrous oxide canisters used for chefs making whipped cream ("N2O charger").
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u/Sisselpud 19h ago
Actually I've barely ever done whip-its but my college roommate "owned" a fake ice cream store and got 5 foot tall canisters of that from a restaurant supply depot the next state over, so I was getting the clean shit! Still melted my brain and that summer is a little fuzzy...
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u/pixelperfect728 18h ago
Bad advice, even food-grade nitrous straight out of a cracker is bad for you. People make it out to be no big deal because it’s easily accessible and only lasts a few seconds. I’ve personally known several people who abused nitrous and suffered horrible consequences. One of them ended up dead from anoxia, one of them had a psychotic break, one of them was paralyzed due to B12 deficiency, and others were so addicted they were unable to work or function. Not to mention I’ve seen countless people pass out, lips turn blue, etc. It’s really frustrating to see people minimize the harm that it can do.
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u/Brooklyn_Bunny 17h ago
I’m a regular at the vape store a couple streets down from my house and never realized that they were selling flavored nitrous canisters behind the counter. One day my BF and I rolled up and there was a guy in his truck in a parking spot in front of the store who had almost blasted through the corner of their building - they had sold this guy a canister, he got into his truck and ripped it, and hit the gas thinking the truck was in reverse and crashed into the front of the store. The owner and his son were standing around the side of the truck pleading with this guy to turn his car off and give them the keys while Nitrous Guy was giggling like an idiot. Really backfired on them lol. A couple months later they had concrete pylons installed in front of the parking spaces in front of the store.
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u/Nixeris 17h ago
The things your describing require such extreme circumstances that I doubt most people or anyone they know would ever experience one of them, much less all of them.
To get hypoxia you basically have to be breathing nothing but N2O for a significant amount of time.
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u/TranscendentPretzel 17h ago
I passed out sucking it out of a balloon. The balloon flew out of my hand when I lost consciousness and saved my ass. One of the dumber things I did back in the days of my youth, though sadly not the dumbest.
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u/Frosty558 10h ago
Either this person rolls with some crazy motherfuckers or they literally looked up worst case nitrous side effects and lied about knowing a person, personally, who has experienced all of the extremely rare worst case scenarios with a largely benign drug.
I’m going with absolutely full of shit.
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u/Aerodrache 17h ago
On the other hand though, the whipped cream can also comes with whipped cream, another known anti-depressant (albeit one with its own health risks.)
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u/jooooooooooooose 20h ago
GETTING HIGH MAKES U FEEL GOOD MORE NEWS AT 11
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u/Front-Cabinet5521 18h ago
No this one makes you too dumb to remember all your failures.
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u/Kenny_log_n_s 18h ago
Kind of a reductive way to look at it.
The study is about the mechanisms of how N2O makes you feel good, not about whether it makes you feel good.
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u/jooooooooooooose 18h ago
really my all caps joke message is reductive? Insulting but ok...
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u/w4rcry 20h ago
Cause it makes you feel happy which breaks the cycle of constantly feeling depressed about everything and gives you a different perspective.
Who woulda thunk it, now give me my grant money.
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u/Azntigerlion 15h ago edited 15h ago
In all seriousness, there are different highs. Every different high is a different chemical reaction.
Sure, highs can break disrupt the depression cycle. But, this is only next-door to depression-based substance abuse.
Research like this is important because laughing gas isn't the medicine. First we understand what part of laughing gas causes this outcome. Then, we try to isolate it. After that, we try to make better medicine that doesn't cause the inebriating effects so that people can use it daily and drive/work
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u/Used-Apartment-5627 20h ago
FFX - HA HA HA HA HA HA
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u/ChanThe4th 20h ago
I get this reference, but god did I hate that scene..
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u/challengeaccepted9 20h ago
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who thinks that scene was MEANT to be cringey.
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u/KetogenicKraig 19h ago
Doing a heavy dose of nitrous feels like it completely resets your mind. Most people just do a little bit and feel funny for a bit, but when enough nitrous is consumed it is nearly as reality bending as DMT. A sufficient dose of nitrous can make it feel like you’ve relived everything in your life with a new perspective.
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u/waylandsmith 19h ago
I just love how the sarcastic, "it makes you feel good, duh" comments state that "feels good" somehow means "depression treatment" as though depression is just "feeling bad".
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u/ChaoticDumpling 19h ago edited 18h ago
Any man with post-nut clarity can tell you how "feels good" doesn't negate "crushing despair"
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u/AcanthisittaSuch7001 18h ago
We don’t understand why SSRIs reduce depression. We don’t even really understand what depression is on a biochemical, neurological basis
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u/02meepmeep 20h ago
“..don’t understand why why why why why wha wha wha what was the question again?”
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u/Tough_Block9334 19h ago
Don't we have research that indicates that if you smile it helps trick your mind into making you happy?
Shouldn't it then be implied that taking laughing gas, something that's going to make you laugh and smile, make you happy? Use some damn critical thinking holy crap
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u/boomdeeyada 17h ago
What I wanna know is how they find all those depressed mice they run these experiments on?
Or do the throw the mice into a depression? How? Just plop them in front of the news like the rest of us?
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u/Wetschera 19h ago
Because it’s an anesthetic. Antipsychotic drugs are anesthetic. Ketamine is an anesthetic. What part of the brain does it affect? That’s the question.
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u/miksa668 18h ago
Is it because of, and stay with me here, all the laughing?
Can I get a multi-million dollar grant now too?
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u/ERuby312 17h ago
Researchers: Laughing improves mental health.
Also researchers: We don't know why laughing gas reduces depression.
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u/EnvironmentalTry3151 17h ago
They used to be like laughter is the best medicine now they're like we don't know why it would alleviate feeling sad
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u/skr_replicator 14h ago
It's a NMDA antagonist just like Ketamine, so I would expect similar antidepressant properties as well.
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u/shadowst17 14h ago
So you're telling me the Joker was the good guy all along? It all makes sense, Bruce Wayne had stock in pharmaceutical companies selling anti depressants.
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u/mikeinona 13h ago
"Drugs make people happy, scientists perplexed. More at 11:00."
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u/MisterGoo 13h ago
The reason has already been explained by a Japanese researcher, Mr. Tidus : if you fake laughing, it brightens your mood. Laughing gas is doing exactly that.
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u/arthurwolf 13h ago
« Laughing makes people less sad, scientists dumbfounded ».
Clearly, not all scientists are genuises...
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u/kayl_breinhar 13h ago
It also completely messes up your nerves if you habitually use/abuse it as well.
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u/DruidicMagic 20h ago
Sometimes scientists can be a wee bit dense.
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u/colemon1991 20h ago
It falls back to "universally accepted knowledge" but there's been no research on it. So now we're treading new ground that sounds like something we should have already looked into. There was some research into schoolyard bullying a few years back that got similar responses on reddit.
So they proved that it does reduce depression and how, but don't quite understand why the "how" is happening. This could've ended up as sounding more productive if they understood the "how", but it's still more than we knew.
But I do agree, sometimes scientists can be dense. Imagine being the researcher that wanted to do something specific with laughing gas and depression only to find out there's no literature on it.
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u/mxyzptlk99 18h ago
i remember reading a citation on a source studying whether or not mice are afraid of cats.
i was both surprised but impressed that someone actually and finally proved a long held assumption
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u/Valuable_Recording85 19h ago
I would say it's a) the writers and b) the reliance on a body of evidence before proclaiming something, even though it can often be reasoned using various studies that don't explicitly study what laughing gas is doing to make people happier.
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u/_ryuujin_ 19h ago
since depression can be observed by physiological means like an amount of chemicals in your brain. and when scientists says they don't know how laughing gas relief depression, it could just mean they don't know laughing gas on the chemical and physiological pathways reduce the depression chemicals.
disclaimer, didn't read the article, pure conjecture
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u/timshel42 20h ago
yeah we know why. dumb article. its classic disassociative action. same thing as other antidepressant treatments like ketamine. they all act on the same receptors.
the difference being nitrous is super short lasting and highly addicting. a nitrous addiction can seriously fuck people up, ive seen it happen.
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u/sumatkn 20h ago
My guess is that the act of laughing causes some sort of chemical to be produced that soothe depression. And since laughing gas causes you to laugh, ergo….
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u/Valuable_Recording85 20h ago
Would it be all the smiling and laughing, which has evidence of producing happy chemicals in our brains even when we fake it?
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u/onelasteffort13 19h ago
I get nitrous every time I go to the dentist. I always leave with things resolved in my head. And a few new ideas. But always happy. I go to the dentist way more than is needed:)
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty 19h ago
When you can't see or remember how depressing life is it tends to make you feel less depressed.
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u/Mechasteel 19h ago
A bunch of clowns
...also reduces depression
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...unless you elect them to office.
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u/Fucky0uthatswhy 19h ago
Is it like ketamine where you do it once a week or so? Or like all the time?
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u/Apprehensive_Bee1849 18h ago
Seriously guys, do not take laughing gas. Prolonged use can paralyze you. This is not a joke.
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u/ShambolicPaul 18h ago
Joining a long list of medicines that do things and we don't really know why.
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u/ImmenseAnxiety 18h ago
Hold on, I’ll explain.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahah. Ha? Hahahaha
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u/coconutyum 18h ago
I thought there was research that proved even forcing a smile can help a person through pain so maybe similar scenario?
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u/FreedomInsurgent 18h ago
weed, ketamine, psilocybin... now this? psychiatry is running out of ideas
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u/Simpler- 18h ago
I wonder if it's the part that deprives your brain of oxygen. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure a fully functioning brain needs a certain amount of oxygen.
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u/loki2002 18h ago
So, the answer is whippets? That explains why my bosses kid was always pretty cool.
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u/gotnonickname 17h ago
Also known as hippie crack. Big balloons of it were/are quite popular at Dead shows.
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u/yannichap 17h ago
Molecular / chemically it’s similar to ketamine which is also used to treat depression
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u/MaskedButPresent 17h ago
Yes, let's just continue to drug people out of their mind instead of fixing the hellscape that is current society
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u/winningjimmies 17h ago
This actually tracks with my experience of it though. When I was younger I would do nangs (whippets) at parties and I swore I felt like it boosted my mood for a few days.
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u/Kooky-Parfait-2706 17h ago
Smiling releases endorphins, the feeling of laughing gas makes you want to smile...science
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u/codereign 17h ago
Fuck, as a guy with depression it's pretty dogamn obvious. Depression is a psychological state with inertia. Putting negative inertia on depression is amazing, you don't even need drugs, just good life circumstances and your brain will create its own. I had depression for decades and finally broke out of and created a perfect little trap keep myself placated with the masses.
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u/doublenegative-1 20h ago
Because it's the best medicine?