There's a revolutionary mental health claim in a hot new article - Therapeutic Efficacy of Cash in the Treatment of Anxiety and Depressive Disorders: Two Case Studies.

The first case report involves a man who was laid off and lost his pension; after treatment with various SSRIs and sedatives with numerous side effects, the patient came into the office free of depressive symptoms. He claimed to have won the lottery, which fMRI brain scans [shown here] confirmed with evidence of a complete remission. In the second case, a single mother of four found her anxiety and depression lifted after a substantial inheritance. The change was verified by examination of the patient's mood ring. The mechanism of large sums of cash in the treatment of depression is not clear. From the paper:

Psychiatric medications relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety by restoring chemical balance within the brain, but exactly how these drugs restore the brain's chemical balance while simultaneously wreaking havoc on every other organ in the body remains a mystery. Equally mysterious is the mechanism by which cash payments provide therapeutic benefit to depressed and anxious patients. The receipt of a large sum of money may somehow stimulate, increase, block, adjust or otherwise act upon the level, supply, transmission, inhibition, secretion or bodily excretion of dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, gamma-aminobutyric acid, dihydrogen monoxide, propylene glycol or some other chemical compound yet to be discovered.

... In a random survey, 3,964 Medicaid patients were asked whether they would prefer to receive various combinations of prescription drugs for the rest of their lives, or a single lump sum payment of $250,000. The vast majority (99.93%) chose the cash option.

With no follow-up of the two patients studied here it is difficult to predict the long-term outcomes of sudden infusion of cash, but should its effect wane over time an appropriate drug is newly approved: Havidol.

Read more of the satire.
Via Ben Goldacre's del.icio.us links.