The Israelis who are looking for natural ways to overcome depression and anxiety

The leading drugs for the treatment of depression and anxiety haven't changed much since the 1990s, but the rate of people suffering from these symptoms has actually changed a lot.

Now, Israeli entrepreneurs are turning to unconventional directions to bring news to the field - from natural supplements to psychedelic substances

Maor Muigar

07/08/2022

Sunday, 07 August 2022, 08:00 Updated: 08:24

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The last few years will probably go down in the pages of global history as a challenging and complex period that affected many of the world's citizens in one way or another.

A study published in October 2021 in the scientific journal The Lancet showed, for example, that the rate of people suffering from anxiety and depression worldwide increased in 2020 by an unimaginable rate of almost 30 percent, compared to the years before the outbreak of the Corona epidemic.

Other and no less pessimistic data show that the known treatments for these common symptoms may not be as effective as previously thought.

A study published in April 2022 in the journal Plos One presented data collected over two years on one million people diagnosed with depression, nearly 60 percent of whom were treated with antidepressants.

The gloomy conclusions showed that prolonged taking of these drugs did not really lead to a clear and significant improvement in mental health and quality of life over time.

And quite amazingly, the improvement that was measured among those treated with the drugs was similar to that of those who did not take them at all.

And while depression and anxiety are, as mentioned, alarming global phenomena, it seems that here in Israel there are many more unique factors that may further increase the height of the flames.

The military service, the security situation, the cost of living, the political instability - all of these may make many of the citizens feel that they are living on a rickety ship that is uncertain if and when it will stabilize.

An example of this can be found in the story of Idan Segev, an officer in Magellan, who participated in a series of operations in the Second Lebanon War and felt how he and his subordinates continued to carry the mental burdens even many years after the end of the war.

"It's a difficult story, but not a special one," he says, "because when I started researching the field, I saw data from the Central Bureau of Statistics that say about 30 percent of Israelis consume medication for anxiety and depression."

About 30 percent of Israelis take medication for anxiety and depression.

Illustration of antidepressants (Photo: ShutterStock)

Segev was also treated for years with drugs, which he says caused significant damage to his quality of life and health.

"There were periods when I would gain a lot of weight, sometimes even 15 kilos in a short time. I also suffered from problems with sexual function. These are things that make it impossible to maintain a relationship and also reduce confidence. Apparently, these are not catastrophic phenomena, but it is very difficult to live with them and they are much more common than you think." .

"The discomfort decreases. Suddenly you feel that oxygen is really entering the lungs"

Many people try (and succeed) to hide dealing with depression and anxiety and try to lead a more or less routine life alongside them.

Segev also tried not to let himself sink, and pushed himself to develop a career as a businessman and advertising and marketing person.

In his work, he chose to focus on nutritional supplements to improve physical and mental health and according to him, he immediately fell in love with the field, perhaps out of an aspiration that these would help him feel better as well.

As part of his work, he was exposed to a supplement called NOVELLEXE developed in the psychobiological laboratory of the Open University at the Hadassah Ein-Kerem Medical Center, a supplement that later became for him much more than a means of improving health.

"From the first moment I was connected to the product. At first I took it because I wanted to see how it really affects me. Over time I felt that the anxiety decreased, the depression decreased and the distress decreased. Suddenly you feel that oxygen is really entering your lungs and you can function normally, as you were used to before."

"These are drugs that can be useful, but also cause complex side effects."

Illustration of antidepressants (Photo: ShutterStock)

Today Idan heads the NOVELSENSE company, which helps in the marketing and distribution of the supplement.

He is a friend of Dr. Ravid Doron, director of the psychobiology department at the Open University and who leads the academic work in the field.

"Most of the medications known for anxiety and depression are of the SSRI type - and their role is to gradually increase the level of serotonin in the brain," explains Dr. Doron, "most of these medications were developed in the 90s of the last century, and since then there have not been many innovations in the field. These are drugs that can be useful, but also cause complex side effects. We tried to look for an alternative that would not work in the same way, which made us squint at the world of plants, at first in disbelief, but later on with a lot of optimism."

In 2010, Dr. Doron and his colleagues examined various combinations of plants that are associated with Chinese medicine - and saw that a particular mixture of four plants may provide distinct effectiveness in the treatment of depression and anxiety. Later, they identified a dominant plant called hawthorn, which achieves the most powerful effect. Since then, many studies have been conducted at the Open University on mice and other animals - until finally permission was received to conduct research on humans as well.

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"After years of trial and error, we discovered that this particular plant helped significantly improve the symptoms of depression and anxiety, without producing side effects of weight gain or decreased sexual function. The most interesting finding was that people who were treated with a placebo reported these symptoms in some cases, but later, when we replaced the placebo With the herbal supplement, they reported an improvement in the symptoms. Throughout all the stages, we also of course performed blood tests and tested blood pressure, respiration and weight - and we saw that the herb did not cause any unusual changes, as they were recorded in the placebo group," said Dr. Duro.

Dietary Supplements and Psychedelic Drugs: Is This the Next Generation of Psychiatric Treatments?

Hawthorn, the plant examined in the studies in question, is a plant that is common in various regions of Asia and Europe, as well as here in Israel.

But just before you go looking for and pick the plant with the unusual name, we would like to emphasize that at the Open University we tested a unique strain of hawthorn, which was grown under controlled conditions and is in the process of registering a patent for the treatment of anxiety and depression.

NOVELLEXE, we emphasize, is currently marketed as a dietary supplement and not as a medicine, and naturally this fact already arouses natural and understandable suspicion among many people.

However, the researchers behind the project believe that this is "groundbreaking" research, and Segev even says that "there is no other natural supplement that has been studied in such a serious way to provide an alternative for the treatment of depression and anxiety."

"The clinical studies on the supplement are in-depth studies by a university and not by a private body that arranges the experiments as it sees fit. The experiments on humans are also done with the approval of the Ministry of Health and the Helsinki Committee and of course they are supervised by doctors and psychiatrists. We receive a lot of inquiries from doctors who ask us to come and guide their colleagues theirs on the supplement, because they understand that it is an ingredient that has gone through a strict examination process, just like a medicine."

"We must find new tools that will affect the brain."

hallucinogenic mushrooms (Photo: ShutterStock)

Today, the understanding is sharpening that precisely in the treatment of mental difficulties such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, mental stress and difficulties in emotional regulation, sometimes it is useful to "open your head" and look for less conventional ways to achieve relief.

This is the reason why we at the "high-tech nation" are working on many surprising developments to treat these phenomena.

Another example is the company PsyRx, which uses molecules from mushrooms and a plant called iboga to treat depression and addictions.

Another Israeli-American company called NeuroRx is developing a depression drug based on the psychedelic drug ketamine - and this, experts believe, is just the opening shot in this race.

"We live in a super-stressed country and must constantly find new ways to deal with the situation. I hear estimates that by 2030, anxiety will be one of the most significant threats to public health, because it affects us not only on a mental level, but on a physiological level on many systems in the body. Because We must find new tools that will affect the brain in ways we may not have been aware of before," concludes Segev.

• health

• psychology

Tags

• depression

• anxiety

• Antidepressants

• Medicines

• Supplements