Taking the widely available nutritional supplement S-Adenosyl Methionine, or SAMe, may help treat depression, according to the findings of a new study.

Reuters reports that researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, gave 1,600 milligrams of SAMe, along with their prescribed antidepressant treatment, to 39 people who had major depressive disorder that hadn’t gotten better with antidepressant therapy alone for a period of six weeks. A control group of 34 similar patients took a placebo pill on top of their antidepressants.

They found that the individuals who took the SAMe supplements responded to their treatment and got better, compared to those who took the placebo.

Researchers say the results are promising, as many traditional medications that are prescribed for people who have not seen improvement on antidepressants often have many dangerous side effects.

As many as 10 percent of people are expected to from major depressive disorder sometime during their lives.

Researchers involved in the study, which is published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, say long-term, larger studies are necessary to prove whether SAMe is an effective in supplement for treating depression, as their results indicate.