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Burning Incense: A New
Antidepressant May Be Right Under Your Nose
 Burning
incense has been believed for thousands of years by religious leaders to be good
for your soul. Now, recent studies have found it that may actually be good for
your brain also. An international group of researchers from Hebrew University
in Jerusalem and Johns Hopkins University have now described how burning
frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) may activate ion channels in the
brain to relieve depression or anxiety. It has been suggested that possibly a
new level of antidepressants may be right under your nose.
Raphael Mechoulam, one of
the research study's co-authors said "In spite of information stemming from
ancient texts, constituents of Boswellia had not been investigated for
psychoactivity. He went on to state that "We found that incensole acetate, a
Boswellia resin constituent, when tested in mice lowers anxiety and causes
antidepressant-like behavior. Apparently, most present-day worshipers assume
that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning."
To determine the
psychoactive effects of incense, researchers administered incensole acetate to
mice and found that it significantly affected parts of the brain believed to be
involved in emotions, in addition to nerve circuits that are affected by current
depression and anxiety drugs. Incensole acetate activated a protein called
TRPV3 which is in mammalian brains, and is believed to play a role in the
perception of warmth of the skin. When mice were bred without this protein and
were later exposed to incensole acetate, it had absolutely no effect on their
brains.
Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal stated: "Perhaps
Marx wasn't too wrong when he called religion the opium of the people: morphine
comes from poppies, cannabinoids from marijuana, and LSD from mushrooms; each of
these has been used in one or another religious ceremony." Weissmann concluded
"Studies of how those psychoactive drugs work have helped us understand modern
neurobiology. The discovery of how incensole acetate, purified from
frankincense, works on specific targets in the brain should also help us
understand diseases of the nervous system. This study also provides a biological
explanation for millennia-old spiritual practices that have persisted across
time, distance, culture, language, and religion--burning incense really does
make you feel warm and tingly all over!"
According to the National Institutes of Health, major depressive disorder is the
leading cause of disability in the United States for people ages 15--44,
affecting approximately 14.8 million American adults. A less severe form of
depression, dysthymic disorder, affects approximately 3.3 million American
adults. Anxiety disorders affect 40 million American adults, and frequently
co-occur with depressive disorders.
Journal reference:
Incensole acetate, an incense component, elicits psychoactivity by activating
TRPV3 channels in the brain. Arieh Moussaieff, Neta Rimmerman, Tatiana Bregman,
Alex Straiker, Christian C. Felder, Shai Shoham, Yoel Kashman, Susan M. Huang,
Hyosang Lee, Esther Shohami, Ken Mackie, Michael J. Caterina, J. Michael Walker,
Ester Fride, and Raphael Mechoulam. Published online before print May 20, 2008
as doi: 10.1096/fj.07-101865. [link]
Adapted from: Federation of
American Societies for Experimental Biology (2008, May 20). Burning Incense Is
Psychoactive: New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Our Noses.
ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 26,
2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/05/080520110415.htm
Additional Information and
webpage by
Paul Susic
MA Licensed
Psychologist Ph.D. Candidate
(Health and Geriatric Psychologist)
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