Psychedelic Mushroom Dose Can Treat Stubborn Depression, Trial Suggests (msn.com) 54
The Washington Post reports:
Psilocybin, the active hallucinogen found in psychedelic mushrooms — also known as "magic mushrooms" — can effectively alleviate a severe bout of depression when administered in a single dose and combined with talk therapy, a new clinical study found.
Adults with depression who were administered a single 25-miligram dose of psilocybin were more likely to experience significant improvements in their mental health — both immediately and for up to three months — than others who were randomly assigned smaller doses of the same drug, said the peer-reviewed study, which was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine....
The trial's findings could be an encouraging sign for the 16 million Americans estimated each year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to have depression, many of whom struggle to find treatments that work for them. Its authors hope the study — which was relatively small, with just 79 participants receiving the 25 mg dose — will pave the way for eventual regulatory approval of psilocybin by the Food and Drug Administration for use as a drug against depression....
Notwithstanding the headaches, nausea and dizziness reported by many as adverse side effects, most of the adults enjoyed the experience.
The Post got an interesting reponse from James Rucker, a consultant psychiatrist at King's College London who worked on the trial. He said there's something about the psychedelic experience that leads to a rapid resolution of depression symptoms, adding "We don't really know what that is at the moment, but it's very different to standard antidepressants...."
"What people forget about psychedelics is that they were being used as medicines prior to 1971 when they essentially got caught up in the drugs war," Rucker added. "We're just picking up the baton of history."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Shmoodling for submitting the story.
Adults with depression who were administered a single 25-miligram dose of psilocybin were more likely to experience significant improvements in their mental health — both immediately and for up to three months — than others who were randomly assigned smaller doses of the same drug, said the peer-reviewed study, which was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine....
The trial's findings could be an encouraging sign for the 16 million Americans estimated each year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to have depression, many of whom struggle to find treatments that work for them. Its authors hope the study — which was relatively small, with just 79 participants receiving the 25 mg dose — will pave the way for eventual regulatory approval of psilocybin by the Food and Drug Administration for use as a drug against depression....
Notwithstanding the headaches, nausea and dizziness reported by many as adverse side effects, most of the adults enjoyed the experience.
The Post got an interesting reponse from James Rucker, a consultant psychiatrist at King's College London who worked on the trial. He said there's something about the psychedelic experience that leads to a rapid resolution of depression symptoms, adding "We don't really know what that is at the moment, but it's very different to standard antidepressants...."
"What people forget about psychedelics is that they were being used as medicines prior to 1971 when they essentially got caught up in the drugs war," Rucker added. "We're just picking up the baton of history."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Shmoodling for submitting the story.
You can't patent naturally occurring chemicals (Score:3, Insightful)
Especially anyone who might vote for a party that would disagree with criminalizing psilocybin use.
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Why are lefties so pro-drug?
Like both sides aren't elbow deep in big pharma's ass.
Re: You can't patent naturally occurring chemicals (Score:3)
But, I'll also say, mushrooms are NOT a recreational drug. Some people play with them, but I haven't met anyone who does that for long. They do help the individual learn about themselves on a deep level. The research shows whole brain activation and massive large scale connections forming. It's a stressful and rewarding
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Yeah, mushrooms aren't exactly recreational drug material. Mushrooms are certainly rewarding, but I'm not sure you'd find too many people who would call them 'fun'.
There's a reason that there isn't a mushroom equivalent of a junkie, alcoholic, or pothead. It's just not that kind of drug.
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depressing.
these mushrooms can not fix stupid
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What's weird about that? A drug used for the purpose of recreation is a recreational drug. Seems about as straight-forward as it gets. You want to define it differently?
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That is not implied by my post in any way.
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Re: You can't patent naturally occurring chemicals (Score:2)
Re: You can't patent naturally occurring chemical (Score:4, Informative)
Fortunately you can't get addicted to mushrooms since after consecutive days usage they stop doing anything until you've went a while before taking them again.
Re: You can't patent naturally occurring chemica (Score:1)
Re: You can't patent naturally occurring chemicals (Score:2)
Why are lefties so pro drug
Probably due to never having learned how to manage their own moods and mental state. "Aww, poor baby. Mommy will kiss it and make it better."
That said, there are depression cases that go beyond the ability of most people to self manage. Psilocybin would be useful to keep them marginally functional and prevent self harm. But it's like wearing a cast for a broken leg. It mitigates serious long term damage in exchange for short term reduced functionality. And it does nothing for people who become reliant on i
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Re:You can't patent naturally occurring chemicals (Score:4, Insightful)
So this is basically useless and we need to criminalize it and lock people up right away.
Especially anyone who might vote for a party that would disagree with criminalizing psilocybin use.
This is why it’s so important the democratic process be curtailed and a fascist dictator installed; if we left it up to the people to decide, they would just end the systems unfairly rigged to hurt the right inherently bad people and the GOP as a fear mongering party would end. Mitch and Trump agree that letting everyone vote means the GOP never holding power again, and if “the bad ones” take the helm then they will be the ones being dragged, innocent, by the neck from their vehicle by state power and publicly executed with no recourse. Thus they will fight to the death in the name of not being held to the same standard they hold others to. If it were possible for people to just realize life isn’t a zero sum game and no one needs to be needlessly murdered then this wouldn’t be the serious situation it is.
Re:You can't patent naturally occurring chemicals (Score:5, Insightful)
You keep the natural substance illegal while making a patented synthesized version legal. To quote only the first sentence of the paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
Re:You can't patent naturally occurring chemicals (Score:4, Insightful)
It's really simple actually, because it's been done before.
You keep the natural substance illegal while making a patented synthesized version legal.
By synthesizing a compound you get consistency. You know that a dose of such and such size is what is needed and everyone gets that same dose. The amount of chemicals are the same for each person. That dose can then be adjusted as needed.
Grabbing something from the wild negates that. One plant is different from the one next to it. There is no way to know what "dose" a person is getting, how strong/weak it was, the size, etc.
As I've said before, if someone came up a drug which could be had for twenty-five cents which produced the exact same effects as people claim marijuana does for their ills, people would bitch because they couldn't take the "real" thing.
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Re:You can't patent naturally occurring chemicals (Score:5, Informative)
However, I bet big pharma are lobbying like mad to ensure that only their "patentable" drugs will be considered for therapeutic use. The other thing is that it's only one part of the therapy, which is quite labour intensive & therefore expensive. A trip can last for several hours, for which time patients need to be supervised by qualified medical staff even when they're not receiving counselling therapy sessions. I suspect that this will more than likely be used as a therapy of last resort, after other therapies have failed, because of the relatively high costs & inconvenience to patients involved. Don't expect any "revolutions" in mental healthcare provision anytime soon.
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However, I bet big pharma are lobbying like mad to ensure that only their "patentable" drugs will be considered for therapeutic use.
Your argument is correct but is not connected with "big pharma". if you're a simple biotech engineer trying to launch this new idea you got into a drug, you better have a patent submitted, otherwise investors will not trust their money to you. You are asking 5-10 million from them to perform the endless tests required for the the full FDA / EMA regulatory approval, and when everybody is convinced that your idea works, some big pharma corp can show up and decide it's time to replicate your study and eat your
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Don't expect any "revolutions" in mental healthcare provision anytime soon.
It's coming. There's a big wave of healthcare providers supporting this, for better or worse.
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But morphine is a pretty cheap prescription to fill, isn't it?
looks like it [goodrx.com].
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You don't patent chemicals. You patent processes for making them, or applications of them. You can absolutely patent naturally occurring chemicals as pharmaceuticals.
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None of the 3 links in TFS mention patents. What was you intention in raising the issue? The company involved in this (apparently something called Compass Pathways) patented their synthesis method (UK patent GB2571696B, submitted 2017-10-09). On last day they could possibly delay (2019-04-17), they submitted data to try patent the application to the treatment of depression, but it was apparently refused and we only know because Taiwan issued a public disclosure (TW202103699A) (I imagine the company submitte
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Well, that will come as quite a surprise to a decent number of people who hold patents on natural substances used for various purposes. This one for instance: https://patents.google.com/pat... [google.com]. Or this one, if you're European: https://www.globenewswire.com/... [globenewswire.com]
Actually, you can flat out patent the chemicals as well. US patent law says you can't, but there's always been an exception if you purify the stuff. The US supreme court recently invalidated a patent related to using the BRCA gene to screen for breast
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It is a dangerous substance because you can easily go overboard on dosage and also fuck people up with it. 25 milligrams is basically a few drops of the stuff. You do not wanna be roofied with it.
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So wait, now you recognize how criminally corrupt the drug industry is? Where's this skepticism when it comes to the c19 shots?
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There are plenty of naturally occurring stuff being sold, so I am not sure of your point.
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Not sure what happened to my quotes
Can
May
Stop injecting facts into the discussion. It confuses people.
Pseudoscience backing up pseudoscience (Score:3, Interesting)
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Until psychology throws away the unreplicated nonsense, goes back to basics, and becomes a real science, your anecdotes about drugtaking are as good as their research results.
In my part of the world psychologists can't prescribe medication but it seems to vary somewhat over the world. In the US there are 5 states where clincal psychologist can prescribe medication. Normally (and I believe this to be a good idea) a psychiatrist would be the person prescribing drugs for depression.
Re: Pseudoscience backing up pseudoscience (Score:1)
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Every field has a replication problem.
The war (Score:5, Funny)
Puzzled (Score:2)
"Notwithstanding the headaches, nausea and dizziness reported by many as adverse side effects"
That's puzzling. Eating the mushrooms or a tea made from them will definitely cause nausea, but it seems like an extract of psilocybin would not need to include the substances that induce gastric distress or headaches. The psilocybin itself does not cause those symptoms as far as I know.
Side effects sound awful (Score:1)
Notwithstanding the headaches, nausea and dizziness reported by many as adverse side effects, most of the adults enjoyed the experience.
I wonder how long those negative side effects lasted, because any one of them alone would be awful but in combination they sound pretty horrible.
Anyone who has had serious dizziness issues would really question if they want to ever take something that may have that as a side effect...
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Modern plague (Score:4, Insightful)
Less bitching about the politics. (Score:3)
Everybody here seems so wrapped up in the politics of the story, and nobody's talking about the actual interesting bits.
This is not the first time I've heard that psychedelic mushrooms are a good treatment, even in micro-doses, for depression. I wonder what it does for the brain outside of chemical changes? Like, does it allow some extra stimulation to the imagination?
I tend towards being a creative person. I write stories, music, build things, do word-working, and have several other creative hobbies. I've noticed I have a tendency to get a lot sadder when I don't have a project going on and can't come up with one. Sometimes a little chemical dose of some kind shakes the cobwebs loose, I see a new project in my head, and get on with it. Once the project is going and I can keep the ideas flowing, I'm back to happy. If that's something that could be studied to the point where we know the exact chemical formula for "increased imagination, decreased doubt about that imagination," we'd probably have a cure-all for all sorts of mental issues that don't quite hit the target of "disorder," yet signify there may be something not quite ticking at 100% in our minds.
I wonder how many psychedelics were ingested in pre-modern times by the average hunter-gatherer? They may have just been a staple of the diet without intention that left all of us today needing a little something/something to even begin to feel normalized.
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Yes, and they went to unusual length to do it (FYI, this article is about Amanitas, not Psylociben
Amanita muscaria - aka the fly agaric mushroom - is poisonous to us but a favourite for reindeer in Eastern Europe. Long ago, Siberian reindeer herders discovered that the psychoactive component of the mushroom remains in the reindeer's urine while the toxic components are metabolised, making the urine 'safe' to drink. [independent.co.uk]