Studies have shown that botox injections make people happier

Scientists from the United States made an unusual discovery – they found that botox injections used in cosmetology work as an antidepressant. No, there is no catch here – the mood improves not because of smoothed wrinkles, but as a result of the effect of the drug on the human body. It is particularly noted that the antidepressant effect of botox is not associated with the place where the injection is made.

The study, described on the pages of the scientific journal Scientific Reports, involved 45 thousand people from different places in the United States, whose data scientists collected and systematized. Before that, doctors suspected for many years that botulinum toxin drugs affect not only the appearance of patients, but also their psychological state. But we decided to deal with the issue closely only now.

Initially, it was assumed that botox works on the principle of feedback. Injected into the area of the forehead and eyebrows, the drug does not allow a person to frown and from this a person experiences less negative emotions. Botox, made on the basis of botulinum toxin, the strongest poison produced by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, disrupts the transmission of momentum from the muscles to the neurons, which causes the muscles to relax, and to put it simply, they are temporarily paralyzed.

But during the processing of data on side effects in thousands of patients, it suddenly became clear that the drug acts as an antidepressant regardless of where it was injected. The fact is that, in addition to cosmetology, botulinum toxin is also used in medicine. It helps to fight muscle spasms and cramps, as well as severe migraines. Therefore, injections can be made into any muscles of the body.

This is what botulinum toxin looks like under an electron microscope

The severity of side effects when using botox always depended on the place of its administration, but the effect on the psychological state was not tied to where the injection was made. Collecting data for a large-scale study would take scientists too much time, so they went the simple way by requesting information from the databases of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) AERS and FAERS.

Out of 13 million patients who were injected with botulism toxin, 45 thousand people were selected. All these people were given botox injections for different indications and in different parts of the body. The study of health parameters after such treatment showed that depression in those who received the drug was observed 40-80% less often than in patients from the control group who were not treated with botulinum toxin.

The researchers concluded that there can be no connection with facial expressions, and botox either directly affects the nervous system, or removes a painful condition that causes depression. One of the leaders of the scientific work, Dr. Tigran Makunts from the University of California at San Diego (USA), said the following about this:

At the same time, the scientist warned against hasty conclusions and said that final conclusions can be made only if it is known that the study participants did not take antidepressants during botox treatment and later. Doctors do not have such data, so it is not necessary to talk about 100% purity of the experiment yet. But work in this promising direction continues.

Despite the miraculous effect of botulinum toxin, do not forget that this drug still needs to be used with a sense of proportion, so that it does not turn out like these Hollywood stars.