Hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin-containing magic mushrooms are closely linked in the public imagination with hippies and pleasure-seeking. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with pleasure-seeking (we’ll see about hippies), growing evidence suggests that, properly used, these drugs may be just as effective for healing minds as they are at blowing them. A recently published study reports that, among other uses, psilocybin is a very effective treatment for depression.
“In a randomized, placebo-controlled, 6-week trial in 104 adults, a 25-mg dose of psilocybin administered with psychological support was associated with a rapid and sustained antidepressant effect, measured as change in depressive symptom scores, compared with active placebo,” according to the authors, led by Dr. Charles L. Raison of Wisconsin’s Usona Institute, of “Single-Dose Psilocybin Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” published in August in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “No serious treatment-emergent adverse events occurred.”
The trial, conducted at different locations between December 2019 and June 2022, included participants between ages 21 and 65 who had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder of at least 60 days’ duration. Half of the participants were given a 25-mg dose of psilocybin and the other half were given niacin as a placebo, administered in identical capsules. The patients were assessed at eight days (the original end point of the study) and then at 43 days (the extended time frame).
Over the course of the study, “a single 25-mg dose of psilocybin administered with psychosocial support was associated with clinically and statistically significant reductions in depressive symptoms and improvement in measures of functional disability compared with a 100-mg dose of niacin placebo administered under an identical protocol.” The researchers also found a higher rate of sustained remission from depression symptoms among those who received psilocybin, “but the difference was not statistically significant.”
Adverse events potentially related to psilocybin consumption included one reported migraine, a headache, and one participant experiencing panic attack and paranoia. Nothing similar was found among the placebo group. As side effects go, that’s pretty mild and comparable to those linked to commonly used antidepressant drugs. Hence the finding that the study resulted in “no serious treatment-emergent adverse events.”
Hellbound and Down 