Depression negatively affects over 300 million people worldwide according to the WHO, and finding ways to reduce or eradicate symptoms of depression is a top priority. Recently, there have been many studies about Botox injections, and how they might offer a treatment that is not your typical antidepressant medication, which can have brutal side effects. In 2006, there was a trial with 10 people who all experienced depression, and they were given Botox injections on glabellar (forehead) frown lines. 2 months later, 9 participants said they had no depression symptoms, and the 10th reported an improved mood. Other smaller studies have confirmed similar results, and in 2020, a study by the University of California San Diego analyzed 40,000 people who have received Botox injections, and found that “Depression was reported 40 to 88 percent less often by Botox-treated patients for six of the eight conditions and injection sites.” Tigran Makunts, one of the study’s leaders said that
“This finding is exciting because it supports a new treatment to affect mood and fight depression, one of the common and dangerous mental illnesses — and it’s based on a very large body of statistical data, rather than limited-scale observations.”
However some scientists are still skeptical because there are still two large unknowns. Firstly, we don’t know exactly how long a Botox injection will lessen the symptoms of depression. Usually people get Botox every 4 months, but it is unclear if that is the proper duration for anti-depression Botox or not. If they need to be more frequent, it raises health concerns about the long term effects of having lots of botox, such as headaches, swelling, bruising, and circulation. Secondly, it is still unclear exactly why Botox is able to lessen depression symptoms. One leading hypothesis of the 2010s is that the injections “may disrupt a feedback loop between negative facial expressions in the glabellar region — behind the skin between the eyebrows and above the nose, where our "grief muscles" are — and negative emotions.” However the study from UCSD in 2020 seemed to indicate that “it doesn’t really matter where the Botox is injected” because similar results were found across different injection sites. One explanation for this is that Botox relaxes muscles, which is why it is used to treat muscle spasms, and muscle tension is a common symptom in depression. Therefore by relaxing muscles beyond the glabellar region, the botox is still able to alleviate depression.
There is lots of promise coming from this line of research. With a better understanding of exactly how Botox injections combat depression, and what types of dosages are required, it could become a widely distributed way to fight the mental illness, and it would be a valuable resource, especially for those who have severely adverse reactions to antidepressants. It will also change the way people think about Botox, going from a cosmetic, elective procedure to a medical, and hopefully insured practice. Usually it seems like the link between beautification procedures and mental health is negative, because cosmetic dermatology helps reinforce toxic beauty standards that harm people’s mental health, but this seems to be an intersection where it does the opposite.
I think this article is extremely interesting and I find it unfortunate that people are wanting to eliminate the root of a mental health issue. I can see why their is changes in their mood, however it doesn't get rid of the fact that at one point their was a insecurity rooted deep enough to cause consistent sad emotions. At some point, the need to "become happier" will arise again and the cycle will repeat. Nonetheless, this is a great post and brings up an extremely interesting point.
I have not heard about these studies or test before but that is very interesting to hear and exciting to hear that people have been reporting positive results to this. If there is an alternative to taking antidepressants for depression I would love to get behind it. I am not at all opposed to antidepressants but knowing the risk of taking them and how complicated the reactions to them can be it would be great to have a simpler way to help with depression without hopefully not so many possible harmful side effects. I am excited to see how this develops in the future.
This is so crazy, but honestly, I believe it. As someone who has got botox injections, it really did alter my mood. I do believe this has a lot to do with social media and our outer appearance. I understand that wanting to change your physical appearance makes oneself feel better about themselves so I do see this as the same thing. People tend to hyper fixate on things that are not the issue to distract themselves from the root of an issue. I do think that before making such claims, there needs to be extensive research on botox and the mental health effects because botox can easily ruins one face is someone gets addicted, and that would actually be…
This is a super interesting topic. I never would've thought that botox could reduce depressive symptoms, if anything I'd assume the opposite. I wonder about the reliability of the reports (do we know the reported depression rates are truthful?). If botox is truly positively influencing mental health, I'd assume it would be something neurological. It seems highly unlikely that image-obsession can possibly help improve mental health.