Light therapy for depression . . . and other stories

Bright light for depressionBright light therapy can be helpful for adults with seasonal depression and with non-seasonal depression too. It’s an approach that is safe and non-invasive and would be well suited to adolescents with depression—except that it doesn’t seem to work in this age group. A trial in four centres in Germany randomised young people with moderate or severe major depressive disorder either to bright light therapy or to a placebo treatment using red light. Both groups improved over the four weeks of the trial, but bright light was no better than placebo (JAMA Psychiatry doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.0103).Long term effects of amblyopiaAmblyopia affects 1-3% of children and, despite early detection and intervention, it often leads to persisting monocular visual impairment. Data from 125 000 participants in the UK Biobank study who underwent an ocular examination show that the consequences go beyond the ophthalmic. People who suffered from amblyopia in childhood were…
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