Ketamine could help with depression

Medics have said that thousands of people suffering from severe depression could benefit from experimental ketamine treatment.

Doctors are calling for more specialists centres and trials to be set up to explore the drug’s potential under controlled conditions and to explore the long-term effects, after hailing it as potentially life changing.

Large scale studies would be very expensive, and, in the current healthcare spending climate, medical research spending for mental illnesses is extremely low compared to other medical conditions.

Estimates suggest that approximately three per cent of the UK population suffer from depression, representing nearly two million people. However, only 101 people are able to access ketamine at a treatment centre in the UK at Warneford hospital in Oxford, with 40 per cent showing sustained improvement as a result of taking it.

Michael Bloomfield, clinical lecturer in psychiatry at University College London, said: “We need more money so we can use the drug more widely in medical research as we believe it has potential to be transformational in providing urgent care. There is enormous interest and excitement in the field about the potential therapeutic effects of ketamine for severe depression. While the drug has been around for decades as an anaesthetic, the science of it as a treatment for severe depression has only really taken off in this century.”

Dr James Stone, clinical senior lecturer at King’s College London, added: “Although much more research is needed in this area, it is one of the most exciting aspects of ketamine’s unique antidepressant profile.”