Years ago, I covered a head-to-head comparison of saffron versus Prozac for the treatment of depression and saffron seemed to work just as well as the drug. In the years since, five other studies have found that saffron beat out placebo or rivaled antidepressant medications. It may be the spice’s red pigment, crocin, since that alone beat out placebo as an adjunct treatment, significantly decreasing symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, and general psychological distress. Perhaps, its antioxidants played a role in “preventing free radical-induced damage in the brain.” The amount of crocin the researchers used was equivalent to about a half teaspoon of saffron a day. If the spice works as well as the drugs, one could argue that the spice wins, since it doesn’t cause sexual dysfunction in the majority of men and women like most prescribed antidepressants do. SSRI drugs like Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft cause “adverse sexual side effects” in around 70 percent of people taking …