May 27, 2006

BOTOX AWAY THE BLUES?

From Newsweek:

Smooth the brow, brighten the eye ..." the pioneering psychologist William James wrote in 1890, describing a self-help technique for overcoming depression, "and your heart must be frigid indeed if it does not gradually thaw." In James's lifetime there was no easy way to follow this advice because Botox hadn't been invented. But today, smoothing the brow by paralyzing the corrugator supercilii muscles is the work of minutes—or so reasoned Eric Finzi, a dermatologist in Chevy Chase, Md. A few years ago Finzi got the idea of injecting botulinum toxin A—the compound marketed as Botox—into the foreheads of patients suffering major clinical depression. According to a paper published last week in the journal Dermatologic Surgery, it helped in nine out of 10 cases—nearly twice the success rate claimed for antidepressants.

READ THE REST: NEWSWEEK