Psilocybin - the active ingredient in 'magic' mushrooms - is a more effective treatment for symptoms of depression than controls, providing further support for its potential as an antidepressant, suggests a study published by The BMJ today.
May 1 2024BMJ Psilocybin - the active ingredient in "magic" mushrooms - is a more effective treatment for symptoms of depression than controls, providing further support for its potential as an antidepressant, suggests a study published by The BMJ today.
They included studies where psychotherapy was present in both the experimental and the control conditions, so that the effects of psilocybin could be distinguished from those of psychotherapy. Further analyses to account for trial differences indicated that having secondary depression rather than primary depression, being assessed with a self-reported scale rather than a clinician assessed scale, older age, and previous use of psychedelics, were correlated with greater improvements.
Furthermore, in clinical trials, patients receive psilocybin in a calm living room with soothing music, supervised by a psychotherapist, which is unlikely to be achievable in a healthcare system. For instance, they argue that it cannot provide evidence for psilocybin's effectiveness in depression until more information about potential effect modifiers is gathered, and that pragmatic clinical trials and real world data could help to deliver that.
Addiction Depression Disability Placebo Psychotherapy Research
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