Light Therapy Brightens Seasonal Blues
(HealthDayNews, 4/11/05)

Patients being treated with light therapy stay in front of a special high intensity light-box for a specified amount of time each day. Dr. Robert Golden of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and team, set about to end the longstanding controversy over whether this remedy is actually effective in combating mood disorders. First they considered 173 published studies on the subject and ending up discounting 88% of them as flawed. Then they analyzed the 20 remaining well-designed studies and concluded that, not only are daily light-box treatments effective against both seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and non-seasonal depression, but the success of this therapy is equivalent to that of antidepressant drug protocols.

(American Journal of Psychiatry, April 2005)