Medical Benefits of Magic Mushrooms
Researchers find psilocybin improved the anxiety and depression of terminal cancer patients for up to six months. The study is considered a first step in restoring the hallucinogen's respectability.
The psychedelic drug psilocybin, the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms," can improve mood and reduce anxiety and depression in terminal cancer patients, Los Angeles researchers reported Monday.
The research was a pilot study involving only 12 patients, but it is viewed as a first step in restoring the drug to respectability.
The new research "is just a pilot study and really needs to be considered preliminary, but it demonstrates that such research can be conducted safely and that doses have palliative effects," Griffiths said.
Ross and Griffiths have ongoing studies examining the use of psilocybin in cancer patients, but Dr. Charles Grob, a psychiatrist at Harbor- UCLA Medical Center and the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, is the first to report results.
Grob and his colleagues studied 12 patients, ages 36 to 58, with advanced-stage cancer and anxiety resulting from their diagnoses. Although the doses were blinded, about 80% of the time both patients and physicians could tell which drug patients were getting.
Subjects were given the drugs in a hospital research unit and were then closely monitored for six hours. The patients were given a relatively low dose of psilocybin, 0.2 milligram per kilogram of body weight. No adverse reactions were observed.
These types of patients normally do not respond well to psychological therapy, Grob said, but his study showed that the drug has "great promise for alleviating anxiety and other psychiatric symptoms."
Ross and Griffiths are using psilocybin doses 50% higher than in Grob's study and are obtaining similar results, they said in interviews. Now the problem is obtaining subjects, Griffiths said. Because the drug has "such a tarnished history … many oncologists are reluctant to refer volunteers," he said.
The drugs "are, in fact, dangerous and, under nonmedical conditions, people can have fearful reactions, panic reactions, engage in dangerous behavior and do great harm to themselves," Griffiths said.
For more information please read the full article here: www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-magic-mushrooms-20100907,0,4230087.story
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