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The Carlat Psychiatry Report

Seasonal Affective Disorder (October) | 2006

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Light Therapy for Depression: Does it Work?

October 1, 2006

How convincing is the evidence that light therapy actually works? The pace of research on bright light therapy has accelerated over the last few years, and recently, two meta-analyses of this research have been published, one in the American Journal of Psychiatry, and the other in the web-based Cochrane Library. Read More

Blue Light: The Cutting Edge of Light Therapy

October 1, 2006

f you haven’t started hearing about the “benefits” of blue light therapy yet, you will soon. Blue light boosters argue that it is more effective than white light, and that it is the therapeutic ingredient of standard white light that eases seasonal depression. Read More

Light Boxes: An Unscientific Test Drive

October 1, 2006

Since I had never actually seen a light box in the flesh, I asked some of the larger companies to send me samples for a “review”—not for efficacy but for such qualities as convenience, asthetics, pleasantness, etc… Read More

Seasonal Affective Disorder: Two Quick Takes

October 1, 2006

Wellbutrin XL was approved for the prevention of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), based on the results three studies in which over 1,000 patients with SAD (but who were well at study entry) were randomly assigned to either Wellbutrin XL 150 to 300 mg QD or placebo. Do insurance companies pay for light boxes? Many of them do … or at least they say they do! Read More