The Power Of This One Spice For Mental Health And So Much More

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Yet another study, published in the journal Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry in 2007, discovered that 15 mg of saffron was just as effective as 10 mg of Prozac in treating mild to moderate depression. In fact, this study showed that a full 25 percent of subjects went into full remission.

Scientists agree that many additional studies need to be performed — studies involving thousands of people, not just a few hundred — but the initial outlook is very promising.

By the way, this review stated most subjects found that a 15 mg supplement consumed twice a day was sufficient to relive their depression.

There really must be something magical to this spice. Although it can be expensive (it takes about 150 flowers to make 1,000 mg of dry saffron threads), it has defied every man-made attempt to tame it. These flowers must still be harvested by hand, in the same way they have been harvested for thousands of years, and no matter how hard farmers have tried to make hybrids that will produce more flowers, they have not been successful.

The chemistry of saffron is super complex, with more than 150 volatile compounds that science still does not fully understand, even after all these years.

You might have even heard about saffron in the news lately for its weight loss possibilities as it does appear to have a suppressing effect on the appetite. Dr. Oz is certainly pushing it, but saffron has so much more to offer than being a mere weight loss supplement.

Saffron has been shown in numerous studies to modulate at least two biological pathways in the body: