alt Hacker NewsPsilocybin decreases depression and anxiety in cancer patients (2016)
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Anecdotal, but about a year ago my wife participated in a psilocybin trial at a university here who were looking at patients with severe anxiety. It was her last hope after trying therapy, various supplements, as well as dietary and lifestyle changes, etc
It has been life changing for her, but one thing she tells people now is that what also helped was that it was facilitated with a trained therapist there during the session for guidance to make sure she didn’t “get stuck in a loop.” There was also many sessions pre dosing day to optimize the result.
She would highly recommend the treatment and hopes it becomes mainstream soon.
Anecdotally, I didn’t get severe anxiety and panic attacks until immediately after trying mushrooms. I didn’t even have a bad trip, but the next day something was off and I never truly recovered from that.
I have a family member who participated in this trial and their life was utterly transformed, from top to bottom. And it resolved a lot of _other_ unrelated issues in a totally unexpected way.
They describe their participation as the most meaningful event of their lives, second to the birth of their children.
(Stage 4 metastatic lung cancer -- and still kicking nearly 10 years later ;)
The study design does try to mitigate blinding issues and expectancy effects, but with half of the participants reporting past use of hallucinogens, this is not going to be very effective blinding.
A majority of your low dose 1st group likely very much realizes that they're on the inactive dose.
Anecdotal, but I know someone who suffered major depression and was hospitalized multiple times. Their medication wasn't working and neither was therapy.
They discovered mindfulness meditation and in combination with becoming a more moral person, limiting music, eliminating social media and unwholesome entertainment, and practicing small acts of charity multiple times per week they were able to overcome their depression. It's been almost 15 years since they've had any symptoms.
Taking psychedelics allowed me to shed years of guilt and my own historic personality to become a more open and grateful person. I think some people have psychologies built on strong foundations that if shaken by psychedelics, cause more harm than good. The people who psychedelics help are those with more suggestible psyches that want change.
Welcome to year 30 of trying to prove psilocybin works for psychiatric illness. And still in the pilot stage.
Even taking the data at face value, the trial cannot disentangle the drug effect from expectancy, psychotherapy, and statistical noise. The enormous effect sizes are almost certainly inflated, multiple-comparison error is uncontrolled, and the participant pool is highly self-selected. Until a preregistered, parallel-group, active-placebo, adequately powered study with blinded independent raters replicates these findings, their practical value for routine cancer care remains minimal.
It’s so interesting to see how strong the drive to prove something works is, overriding everything. As a clinical psychologist, I would welcome this kind of therapy if it worked. But this is just sad. It’s just like listening to people claim that ivermectin can cure everything.
Show me one place where this therapy is conducted by people who haven’t "drunk the Kool-Aid," and I’ll be impressed. It’s so frustrating to work with actual patients and see how much these therapies really don’t work in reality. These kinds of biased studies pop up all the time without actually panning out. I’m starting to think that people promoting therapy, giving false hope, and spending money on research like this should be viewed as corrupt and evil.
Hello from cancer family.
It indeed decreases. When my spouse was diagnosed, they prescribed her anti-depressants. We replaced them with psilocybin. Never taken any anti-depressants.
We had a very serious case with multiple surgeries, chemos, radiations. Not one, not two, and not ten or even twenty. MORE than that.
The treatment still goes on, soon it is gonna be 5 years. With ZERO anti-depressants. And I've learnt how to grow them, not buying them.
So we don't need studies, we tested it the hard way, and it works :) I can talk about it for hours.
Does anyone know if any similar treatments are currently available or if there are any ongoing or pending such studies? Someone in my life is a cancer patient who could potentially benefit from this.
Anecdotally, I know several people who have tried mushrooms and/or ayahuasca for depression in recent years and their results are nothing like the glowing Internet reports.
The worst case is a friend who became disconnected from reality for a very long time. Went from atheistic to believing in mystical ideas. He thought he was able to see and sense things that we could not, like auras and secret messages. He was getting better last time we checked but he’s hard to get in contact with now. No prior hints of psychosis or family history, just a psychedelic induced mental illness.
The other anecdotes were not as dramatic, but also not as positive or free of side effects as studies like this one would make you think. Multiple stories of extended periods of derealization or anxiety attacks that started after the trip. There are similar comments here throughout this comment section.
There was a time when sharing these negative stories was met with disbelief and downvotes. I think as it’s becoming more common people are realizing that the interaction between psychedelics and depression isn’t as great as it seemed for a few years when they were virtually being promoted by podcasters and social media influencers as a novel cure for depression.
I used to Microdose psylocibin, ever 4. Day. Since I didn't hold a job but did some daily routine, I knew it would be a slow day. It actually worked really well.
One day I had a little too much. That day I was really productive and obsessed with folds in clothing.
Figure 3 is suspicious. Even the placebo arm has much better scores for depression and anxiety from baseline?
And it might slow aging: https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1943824432419811437
FWIW: Got me sober and I think: kept me sober. Psilocybin is some powerful stuff tho, do recommend if people want to try it for "issues" - you seek someone who knows what they are doing first.
To be fair, so did a lobotomy. I believe close attention should be paid to any unintended outcomes of a therapy that the patient themselves would no longer be able to identify due to the nature of the treatment itself.
> a high dose (22 or 30 mg/70 kg) of psilocybin
What is this compared to a recreational dose? Are these patients getting high as part of their treatment?
The study mentions they administered 30 milligrams of psilocybin for 70 kg of body weight. Does anybody know how many grams of dried mushrooms that is equivalent to, roughly?
Do you really need to be a doctor to realize that this type of drugs makes someone’s mood better?
Psychedelics put me in Heaven… and in Hell. Use wisely.
Another positive anecdote for me
I am more empathic for weeks after doses of psilocybin. Getting there doesn't rely on any hero trips, no fractals, just maybe to the point of seeing more vibrant lights for a few hours. They used to hurt my stomach which would throw off a trip while dealing with that, and I still avoid eating stems, but it looks like I have tolerance to that now.
Nothing supremely insightful, I mostly ignore my mind's attempts at epiphanies and the false feelings of clarity, I wait till music festivals to consume them and just enjoy the vibrant lights and echo-ing sounds. Just to the point where conversations and ambient noises from further away than expected are being amplified and spliced in to things happening much closer to me.
Recreationally, I like the people I attract when I'm feeling the effects of psilocybin. I'm far too analytical in default mode, not nearly as much as when I was a bit younger, but still a far cry from where I would prefer to be. Its like I "null route" all of that and am more present to how people feel or want to feel. Its kind of crazy and obvious when it wears off, I respond to stimuli differently, or ask about things I don't really want to ask about. Less "vibes" in the moment and more "analyze" like noticing incongruences in people's lives and asking about that as a form of smalltalk, when it would be better off ignored. People respond normally, but I can tell it doesn't give them a spark of warmth like the vibes version of me does. Wasn't a goal or something I was aiming to work on, just a side effect I noticed over time.
I also use other kinds of psychedelics but I didn't want to pollute this comment with more anecdotes.
this stuff cured a lot of problems I had been trying for years to get rid of, overnight. (literally) mind-blowing
bonus, it made my buddy quit drinking
variance, it made my other buddy delusional and stupid. hasn't really recovered
I did a medically supervised psilocybin treatment and it was a glorious adventure but had no lasting effect.
Ketamine was equally "experiential" but actually had lasting impact. It's a pity it's challenging to come by, as one can DIY the former.
full title
Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial... In patients about to die from cancer. This title is disingenuous.
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For me it did the opposite, made me suicidal when I'd never felt that way before. I didn't even have particularly bad trips or anything.
This is from 2016, a lot has happened since then:
- The FDA recognized psilocybin as a breakthrough therapy for treatment-resistant depression: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/compass-pathways-re...
- Some more studies, such as https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27909164/
- More widespread use in medical treatment, such as approval in Australia (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-66072427) and limited approval in Switzerland
Very much anecdotal but I can say that psychedelics helped me and several friends a lot with depression. They don't just magically make you feel better - at least not long-term - but they give you the neuroplasticity you need to adjust your internal filters and behaviour. As such, if the purpose is truly healing and recovery, they're best paired with professional therapy, preferably from somebody who's experienced with psychedelic-assisted therapy specifically.