Anxiety, in some form or the other, is the most widespread mental condition in the world, affecting millions. However, as with other diseases that affect a lot of people (AIDS, cancer, diabetes, etc.), there is no effective cure for it. There are only two classes of medication to be taken by anxiety patients, but both have drawbacks that make them largely ineffective. Now, experts at the Ludwig Maximilian University and Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, both in Munich, Germany, believe they may have found the most effective course of treatment for the condition.

For many years, Psychiatrist Rainer Rupprecht, who is associated with both research institutions, has been testing the substance called XBD173, an anti-anxiety compound that he believed would have a lot of success on the market. At the moment, he said, there was nothing even remotely similar to this chemical on the market. Existing drugs that fight depression are only benzodiazepines, like Valium, which can cause addiction, and Prozac-type antidepressants featuring serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The second class of medication has the major disadvantage that it takes weeks for it to take effect, which is a long time.

The neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid) has long since been associated with anxiety, and drugs like benzodiazepines boost its activity, depressing the central nervous symptoms and improving its condition. The newest human tests have concluded that the compound XBD173 has the same type of effects on GABA, only without the side-effects, such as drowsiness. They stimulated the neurotransmitter production using indirect methods, as in acting on steroids that play a part in regulating GABA, ScienceNow reports.

In clinical experiments on humans, 71 healthy young men were given either placebos (alprazolam) or the new substance for a week, and then they were injected with substance CCK-4, while still on the treatment. This chemical is able to inflict panic attacks in people, making them experience uncontrolled fear, sweating, nausea, and other such symptoms. When analyzing the results of their investigation, the researchers in Rupprecht's team learned that the effects XBD173 had were equally as effective as those of alprazolam, a common benzodiazepine. However, there were significantly less side-effects with the new chemical, and less withdrawal symptoms as well.