{"id":673214,"date":"2026-09-05T02:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/673214\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T02:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:10:16","slug":"massive-analysis-finds-only-3-supplements-show-unrealistically-large-effects-on-depression-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/673214\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive Analysis Finds Only 3 Supplements Show ‘Unrealistically Large’ Effects on Depression : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve ever stood staring at a wall of supplements, wondering whether that bottle of fish oil, vitamin<\/a> D, or saffron might lift your mood, you’re not alone.<\/p>\n

Nutraceuticals and plant-based compounds are increasingly marketed as gentler, “natural” alternatives to antidepressants. And they may be less expensive and easier to obtain. <\/p>\n

But how much evidence is there that they actually work to alleviate depression<\/a> symptoms?<\/p>\n

A new network meta-analysis<\/a> offers a complicated answer: a few supplements may actually help with depression, but the evidence is nowhere near as solid as some of the research can make it seem.<\/p>\n

Researchers analyzed 163 randomized controlled trials involving 15,757 adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder<\/a>, covering 137 different nutrient-based supplements (nutraceuticals) or plant-based (phytoceutical) treatments.<\/p>\n

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The studies compared these compounds with either a placebo<\/a>, or standard antidepressant treatment. Then they measured changes in depressive symptoms, treatment response, and whether participants stopped taking the treatment.<\/p>\n

The researchers also did something a bit unusual \u2013 they went looking for reasons the results might be misleading.<\/p>\n

They found plenty.<\/p>\n

Across the studies, several treatments appeared to beat placebo, sometimes by a lot, but often the evidence was highly inconsistent. <\/p>\n

Once the researchers filtered out studies with higher risk of bias, outliers, and other potential problems, only a handful of compounds continued to show evidence of an effect.<\/p>\n

One of the most promising was eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA, an omega-3 fatty acid. Twenty trials involving 8,483 people contributed to the analysis, making it one of the better-studied compounds in the review.<\/p>\n

Vitamin D3 and a particular extract of St. John’s wort called ZE117 also appeared to reduce depressive symptoms compared with placebo. <\/p>\n

But the evidence for vitamin D3 came from just three trials involving 344 people, while the ZE117 result came from three trials involving 207 people.<\/p>\n

Those are small numbers. These compounds may or may not be effective, but more people would need to be studied to know either way, and those results replicated.<\/p>\n

And some of the effects were almost too impressive. When they looked more closely at study quality, they found a telling pattern: the larger the reported benefit of the supplement, the lower the quality of the study tended to be.<\/p>\n

The effect sizes for EPA, vitamin D3 and ZE117 in the researchers’ more carefully filtered analysis were larger than would typically be expected in a high-quality, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of a depression treatment. <\/p>\n

This drove some skepticism around the results, and they described them as “higher-than-expected” and ultimately considered them unrealistic.<\/p>\n

\"womanSupplements are easy to get, but how effective they are for treating depression is unclear. (Stel Antic\/corelens\/Getty Images<\/a>)<\/p>\n

That doesn’t mean the treatments don’t work. It means the way the study was designed makes it hard to trust the existing results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some other intriguing findings the analysis uncovered included other St. John’s wort extracts (ZE117 and WS5570) which were associated with higher depression-symptom remission rates than placebo. <\/p>\n

Saffron showed a larger effect and curcumin showed medium-sized reductions in anxiety symptoms associated with depression<\/a>. While these studies didn’t show many bias issues, these findings were also based on relatively small numbers of trials. <\/p>\n

Still, the researchers acknowledge that there are real, known mechanisms behind this possible positive result, writing, “Saffron may upregulate brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression and enhance synaptic plasticity, which is often impaired in depression and anxiety.”<\/p>\n

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There are also gaps in what the trials tell us about safety. <\/p>\n

The researchers found no nutraceutical or phytoceutical class that was significantly less tolerable than placebo, although citicoline (a supplement typically used to boost brain function) was associated with more dropouts. <\/p>\n

But many original studies did not provide enough information to assess safety comprehensively \u2013 particularly long-term safety or the risk of suicidality.<\/p>\n

After filtering the evidence, the authors conclude that only a few nutraceuticals and phytoceuticals show enough promise to warrant further, more rigorous trials. EPA, vitamin D3 and certain St. John’s wort extracts emerge as potential candidates for further investigation. <\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> Some Signs of Depression May Show Up in the Blood, Study Finds<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The key word is potential. The researchers want to see much more robust studies on these supplements, writing that their work is “underscoring that more high-quality studies are needed and that the results of this NMA should be interpreted with caution.”<\/p>\n

With the overall confidence in the evidence rated low to very low, there’s still a considerable gap between “this might work” and “we know this works.”<\/p>\n

The research has been published in Molecular Psychiatry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was fact-checked by Fiona MacDonald<\/a> and edited by Fiona MacDonald<\/a>. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’ve ever stood staring at a wall of supplements, wondering whether that bottle of fish oil, vitamin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[74],"tags":[18,19,17,808,82],"class_list":["post-673214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-msft-content","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117216008175894798","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}