LSD Shows Promise For Reducing Anxiety In Drugmaker's Midstage Study 56
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: LSD reduced symptoms of anxiety in a midstage study published Thursday, paving the way for additional testing and possible medical approval of a psychedelic drug that has been banned in the U.S. for more than a half century. The results from drugmaker Mindmed tested several doses of LSD in patients with moderate-to-severe generalized anxiety disorder, with the benefits lasting as long as three months. The company plans to conduct follow-up studies to confirm the results and then apply for Food and Drug Administration approval. [...]
For the study, researchers measured anxiety symptoms in nearly 200 patients who randomly received one of four doses of LSD or a placebo. The main aim was to find the optimal dose of the drug, which can cause intense visual hallucinations and occasionally feelings of panic or paranoia. At four weeks, patients receiving the two highest doses had significantly lower anxiety scores than those who received placebo or lower doses. After 12 weeks, 65% of patients taking the most effective LSD dose -- 100 micrograms -- continued to show benefits and nearly 50% were deemed to be in remission. The most common side effects included hallucinations, nausea and headaches.
Patients who got dummy pills also improved -- a common phenomenon in psychedelic and psychiatric studies -- but their changes were less than half the size those getting the real drug. The research was not immune to problems seen in similar studies. Most patients were able to correctly guess whether they'd received LSD or a dummy pill, undercutting the "blinded" approach that's considered critical to objectively establishing the benefits of a new medicine. In addition, a significant portion of patients in both the placebo and treatment groups dropped out early, narrowing the final data set. It also wasn't clear how long patients might continue to benefit. If the two trials are successful, Mindmed will submit them for FDA approval.
"It's possible that some people may need retreatment," said Dr. Maurizio Fava of Mass General Brigham Hospital, the study's lead author and an adviser to Mindmed. "How many retreatments, we don't know yet, but the long-lasting effect is quite significant."
The study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
For the study, researchers measured anxiety symptoms in nearly 200 patients who randomly received one of four doses of LSD or a placebo. The main aim was to find the optimal dose of the drug, which can cause intense visual hallucinations and occasionally feelings of panic or paranoia. At four weeks, patients receiving the two highest doses had significantly lower anxiety scores than those who received placebo or lower doses. After 12 weeks, 65% of patients taking the most effective LSD dose -- 100 micrograms -- continued to show benefits and nearly 50% were deemed to be in remission. The most common side effects included hallucinations, nausea and headaches.
Patients who got dummy pills also improved -- a common phenomenon in psychedelic and psychiatric studies -- but their changes were less than half the size those getting the real drug. The research was not immune to problems seen in similar studies. Most patients were able to correctly guess whether they'd received LSD or a dummy pill, undercutting the "blinded" approach that's considered critical to objectively establishing the benefits of a new medicine. In addition, a significant portion of patients in both the placebo and treatment groups dropped out early, narrowing the final data set. It also wasn't clear how long patients might continue to benefit. If the two trials are successful, Mindmed will submit them for FDA approval.
"It's possible that some people may need retreatment," said Dr. Maurizio Fava of Mass General Brigham Hospital, the study's lead author and an adviser to Mindmed. "How many retreatments, we don't know yet, but the long-lasting effect is quite significant."
The study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Are you paying attention, rsilvergun? (Score:1)
The main aim was to find the optimal dose of the drug, which can cause intense visual hallucinations and occasionally feelings of panic or paranoia.
Your windowpane dose is just too high, you need to tone it down a bit.
I Am Legend (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway I am surprisingly boring. The strongest drug I to partake in is caffeine. I want to legalize drugs for humanitarian and political purposes. Criminalized drugs are mostly a thing Richard Nixon set up so the right wing could attack the left wing. That's not me pulling shit out of my ass that's just hard historical fact. Nixon's own people, the ones
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Eh... I did a fair bit of acid in the 90s, and I'm a little skeptical on this study. The thing with acid is its a huge amplifier of everything. What that does mean is that if your anxious, acid will make you turbo anxious, aka a 'bad trip'. (I *do not* recomend acid to folks with anxiety disorders, at least now without a babysitter with a bottle of valium to cancel the anxiety).
Then again everyone reacts a bit differently. Acids a great time, but its not without a risk of a terrible time.
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I am pretty sure you didn't use the same dosage TFA would suggest for medical use.
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100ug is definitely tripping.
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Ok well sh did acid in the 90s. Expert opinion!
I'm just kidding i've had both bad trips and ones that left me feeling great.
I suspect much like the therapeutic mushroom doses, they're relatively light doses, taken with supervision,i didn't see numbers like that when i skimmed the article so who knows.
Re: I Am Legend (Score:3)
Did you really? (Score:1)
That's why we have so many overdoses. The overdose crisis that became a big deal because white people suddenly got involved (yeah I went there) was primarily because illegal drugs are often cut with weird synthetics or just plain the wrong dose.
There are tons of drugs where they go from o
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I heard a similar story from NPR. (Score:3)
Re:I heard a similar story from NPR. (Score:4, Interesting)
Surprised to see it an actual LSD. Most of the research i'd heard about is on psilocybin (magic mushrooms).
An amusing anecdote in some podcast (some pragmatic dharma one where these kinds of researchers tend to show up sometimes ) was that psilocybin research is easier to do since the whole trip is 4-6 hours so it can fit into one shift for the people running studies whereas LSD tends to be 10-12 hours which requires multiple shifts and just overall is harder on the researchers.
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Drug policy written by real squares. If you work at the DEA you should have to actually do most of these drugs, at least once.
Elect me and I'll make that happen.
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Drug policy written by real squares. If you work at the DEA you should have to actually do most of these drugs, at least once.
Elect me and I'll make that happen.
At least once a day, or an hour, whatever it takes for it to wrap around and you start to think you are a DEA agent.
Re:I heard a similar story from NPR. (Score:4, Funny)
Fuck yea in my admin "Drug Enforcement" means "enforcing everyone is taking theirs"
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If you work at the DEA you should have to actually do most of these drugs, at least once.
The DEA won't hire people that did drugs while other federal law enforcement will. Well, it's not like it doesn't count against people that apply but there's waivers and such for getting in the FBI and other agencies even after a history of drug use.
When in the US Army there would be some of my fellow recruits that admitted to using marijuana in the past, they still got in. Some of that was because their recruiter had a case of temporary deafness when that question was asked and answered. When taking a d
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I was told comedy was legal again.
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Just because a drug shows real promise in a tightly-controlled setting, doesn't mean that it should be uncontrolled.
Side effects (Score:2)
The most common side effects included hallucinations, nausea and headaches.
Also laughing so much your face hurts.
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The dose involved in the research, doesn't trigger hallucinations.
Original use case (Score:2)
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Close,
Sandoz, Abortion;
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Jow many of the subjects experienced (Score:2)
What is the cause of most anxiety ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Living in a world where you dont fit in.
Living in a world where your basic needs are not met , leading to permanent fight or flight.
The answer of course should not be take drugs to function in a broken system.
The answer of course should be to accommodate, peoples needs and human rights.
Im sure LSD is fun though.
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Living in a world where you dont fit in.
Living in a world where your basic needs are not met , leading to permanent fight or flight.
Yes, but there is a lot to "fit in" and "basic needs". A better way to frame this - individuals in modern society lost institutions and psychotechnologies necessary to leading good lives. The cost of post-religious multiculturalism urban lifestyle is that one does not have a readily accessible community, identity, or set of values while competing with a much broader set of people. Some people succeed defining most of these for themselves, but a lot of people would have benefited from 'template' that would h
Re: What is the cause of most anxiety ? (Score:2)
... individuals in modern society lost institutions and psychotechnologies necessary to leading good lives. The cost of post-religious multiculturalism urban lifestyle is that ...
Lost?? Religious institutions are more present and available than ever, especially in urban areas. Church attendance is down, but churches aren't, they're everywhere, every kind of church. They aren't solving people's problems. Lost psychotechnologies... dude we've never been more medicated, there's literally a pill for everything. Students take pills to focus, workers take pills to stay awake, men take pills to be more manly, THC is practically legal, there's a supplement for everything. What are you talk
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We all live in a world where we don't fit in, we all live in a world where basic needs aren't met, unless you work to meet them yourself. These "problems" don't cause anxiety for most of us, just a few. So I don't think the correlation you are drawing, defines any kind of causation.
Unless you have a family member or friend who has struggled with true depression or anxiety, you would not be able to understand. These are true, severe, life-threatening illnesses. Medicine is certainly appropriate for these con
Re:What is the cause of most anxiety ? (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire premise of your thought process is that there is no chemical problems. You assumed that all the problems people experienced were external, none were internal. Then you concluded that drugs will not help, you need to fix the environment.
I am sure that there are a lot of people that fit your definition. People that have no real genetic issues but are simply in a poor environment. But you have not met everyone.
As someone who's sister is clearly obsessive compulsive and whose niece is obviously manic depressive, I can assure you that not all problems are external. Some do not depend on the environment.
Humans have decreased evolutionary deaths for thousands of years. We have had mutations and faults develop in our genetic code. These people may not be the fittest, but they deserve the right to live a normal life.
Some people have real, actual chemical problems that cannot be solved by fixing the environment. They need pharmeceuticals not to feel good, but just to stop feeling like there are still germs on their hands after washing them 3 times. Some people need chemicals to not go from being lottery winner happy to suicidal between two different college classes.
Just because you personally (and perhaps your friends and family) are not helped by drugs, does not mean that no one else will be.
I am not an expert. I do not know if LSD is actually medically helpful or just fun. But I trust the experts to have a better opinion than mine - or yours. They base their knowledge not on the average human but on the extremes that they have studied.
Your post reaks of Dunningâ"Kruger effect.
Re: What is the cause of most anxiety ? (Score:2)
Living in a world where you dont fit in.
Living in a world where your basic needs are not met , leading to permanent fight or flight.
Fitting in, what, seriously? ... like high school? The real world isn't high school. As an adult you'll learn that high school drama comes from being surrounded by immature people, and when you have a workplace like that, it's not you it's them. Anxiety from "fitting in" an immature, toxic workplace? You'll have adult tools to deal with that. Like fuck you I quit. Not saying that isn't a source of anxiety for some people but that's pretty specific dude.
Basic needs? That's a much deeper concern than generali
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The answer of course should be to accommodate, peoples needs and human rights.
LOL. Talk about fantasies... you have a better chance of the black hole at the center of the galaxy stopping by to say hello. No government anywhere has seriously considered taking care of its people. The people are just something that occurs. The only real thing is power. And governments everywhere exist only to exert more power, totally disconnected from the population.
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I dont disagree with your sentiment.
Well, yeah man ... (Score:2)
The greedy leading the retarded (Score:1)
People with clipboards who have no experience checking up on you as you hallucinate in dark room is a recipe for abuse
I'll wait here until someone says they were sexually abused while, hallucinating, in a dark room by somebody with a clipboard.
And clipboard holder says you can't believe her, that chick was tripping
Great headline (Score:2)
"LSD shows promise shows promise for reducing anxiety in drug makers."
That sounds like something Cosmo Fishhawk would write.
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Unfortunately for drug makers, LSD can't be patented, and it won't cost a fortune.
A similar drug, ketamine, has shown very high success rates of treating depression. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov] After three other medicines (one costing $2,500 a month) didn't work for my son, his doctor decided to try ketamine. The cost? $50 per month. The result? Pretty much a miracle. His recovery was immediate and dramatic.
I can testify (Score:2)
Yup, mellowed me out so much I turned into a hippie
Federal law is more like guidelines.... (Score:1)
Has federal law become something of a pirate code? More like guidelines than actual rules?
LSD is considered a prohibited substance in federal law as it has no recognized medical use. Just possessing it is considered a felony, unless you have a license from the DEA. I assume the DEA license is to allow for police officers to confiscate these drugs and not be considered felons themselves. Is this also a license (in more than one sense of the word) to give the drug to people to see what it could do to them
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Prosecutorial discretion is an administrative function, not a matter for legislature. When prosecutorial discretion is applied by some administrative/executive agent or office it has to be done on a case by case basis or it is considered some kind of circumvention of legislative authority.
There's certainly case of those elected to executive office and deciding that legislation doesn't apply to them. This is often in cases of some matter that has some controversy attached. This can be sheriffs that refuse
May be a blunt instrument (Score:3)
It seems pretty plausible that sub-recreational doses of psychedelics could reduce anxiety, but we have to be mindful that anxiety evolved in our species for a reason. Like inflammation, it’s a natural and critically important protective process that gets out of control in modern lifestyles. It’s unpleasant but pharmaceutically banishing it could leave patients vulnerable.
One of the biggest risks psychedelic therapy will expose patients to are the therapists overseeing their treatment. Psychedelic therapy has an appalling track record of abuse by therapists, including both sexual and economic exploitation. Advocates for psychedelic therapy claim it will “open you up” and I think they’re absolutely correct. But there are other ways to say “open you up” that mean the same thing but set off alarm bells: becoming more suggestible and compliant for example. If the therapist uses psychedelics himself he may have “opened himself up” to some bad ideas about therapist-patient boundaries.
Likewise people microdosing to enhance creativity should exercise caution. Psychedelics absolutely can in some instances unlock creativity by turning down excessive self criticism, but those criitical facilities play an essential role in the parts of the creative process that come after coming up with out of the box ideas. Self reports of microdosing effectiveness should be taken cautiously, due to their potential negative impact on metacognition. Those might be like the drunk who feels more confident driving after a few drinks.
No doubt these drugs have tremendous potential to treat extreme crippling anxiety. They probably even have nootropic potential. But their beneficial effect s come by suppressing natural mental processes that serve important purposes, and the promising results we have come from self reports or clinical reports from advocate researchers. I’ve been following this because I’ve been interested in experimenting with psychedelics for years, but what I have learned has convinced me to hold off until there is evidence and protocols for safe use that would persuade a skeptic.
Shrooms (Score:2)
Not into psyches but have done acid when I was younger and prefer to do 250mg of MDMA/MDA for fun but a few years back did some experimenting with shooms. I'd take about .5g and wait about 45min when I start to feel a tiny weed like buzz then take another .5g. You don't trip but get a weed like high with out the lethargic feel of weed and no munches. Next two days after where super relaxing and way less anxiety.
Only issue is you build up tolerance fast so I'd just stuck to Saturday nights for a nice relaxin
close but no cigar (Score:3)
I took a lot of psychedelics when I was younger -- LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT. Then none for a few decades. These days I microdose on psilocybin.
To me, psychedlics are like watching a travelogue about a beautiful tropical island. It's a lovely vision, but it doesn't take you there -- you still have to do the traveling yourself. But it does plant the idea that such a place exists, which can be a great comfort, and inspire further efforts to get thete on your own.
anxiety (Score:2)
Reduce anxiety by increasing insanity. Works.
\o/ (Score:1)
LSD reduces anxiety like decapitation reduces the incidence of bad-hair-day.
It's déjà vu all over again (Score:2)
Shoom Mondaays are now a thing :o (Score:2)
--
future assassin [slashdot.org]: “Not into psyches but have done acid when I was younger and prefer to do 250mg of MDMA/MDA for fun but a few years back did some experimenting with shooms. I'd take about