SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The BBC reports on a small trial (12 patients) that used psilocybin to treat "moderate-to-severe, unipolar, treatment-resistant" depression:
A hallucinogenic chemical in magic mushrooms shows promise for people with untreatable depression, a short study on just 12 people hints. Eight patients were no longer depressed after the "mystical and spiritual" experience induced by the drug. The findings, in the Lancet Psychiatry [open, DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(16)30065-7], showed five of the patients were still depression-free after three months.
Experts cautiously welcomed the findings as "promising, but not completely compelling". There have now been calls for the drug to be tested in larger trials.
From the study:
Psilocybin's acute psychedelic effects typically became detectable 30–60 min after dosing, peaked 2–3 h after dosing, and subsided to negligible levels at least 6 h after dosing. Mean self-rated intensity (on a 0–1 scale) was 0·51 (SD 0·36) for the low-dose session and 0·75 (SD 0·27) for the high-dose session. Psilocybin was well tolerated by all of the patients, and no serious or unexpected adverse events occurred. The adverse reactions we noted were transient anxiety during drug onset (all patients), transient confusion or thought disorder (nine patients), mild and transient nausea (four patients), and transient headache (four patients). Relative to baseline, depressive symptoms were markedly reduced 1 week (mean QIDS difference −11·8, 95% CI −9·15 to −14·35, p=0·002, Hedges' g=3·1) and 3 months (−9·2, 95% CI −5·69 to −12·71, p=0·003, Hedges' g=2) after high-dose treatment. Marked and sustained improvements in anxiety and anhedonia were also noted.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday May 18 2016, @06:42PM
One of the things about depression, at least as far as I have experienced, is that your view of things gets fixed on things you can't change, a death, a crappy job, unfairness of life, etc.. I know there is a lot more to it than just those but I have thankfully never been that far down.
Things like Psilocybin and LSD alter the way we perceive things, giving us a different view of the things in our lives. Its one of the reasons hallucinogens have been used in various religious rituals by radically different cultures throughout history. It might not help the really severe cases of depression but for milder cases it might be just what is needed.
I hope they can pursue this line of inquiry with a larger study group and get a better view of its potential. Sadly I expect that government and pharma to block this kind of research as hard as they can. Just like they do every time there is something that helps people but they can't control it or make a profit off from it.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."