It wasn’t long ago (April 15th to be exact) that we received the results of the first-ever controlled trial comparing psilocybin with traditional antidepressants (SSRI). The results were published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and the numbers bordered on revolutionary.
We now have the results of another study, this one published in the May 2021 issue of JAMA Psychiatry, and the findings are just as impressive.
New psilocybin study, similarly positive results
The study was a randomized and controlled trial conducted at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. There were 24 participants with an average age of 40 years, and, unfortunately, an average of 22 years of depression.
The main method was the GRID Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (GRID-HAMD), a chart that measures different aspects of depression such as depressed mood, anxiety, guilt, sleep and appetite disturbances, and suicidal tendencies.
The participants in the treatment group were given, in the words of the study, “two psilocybin sessions…. in the context of supportive psychotherapy (approximately 11 hours). During these psilocybin-assisted therapy sessions, participants were instructed to lie down and try to focus on their inner experiences. Sleep masks and music were used to facilitate inward reflection.”
Because the clinical trial process for most psychedelic medicine companies is still, at best, in Phase 2, it’s up to independent medical studies to fill the gap and help shift the scientific consensus. And this study adds more positive results in the mushroom column.
The results: The majority of patients in the psilocybin group reported a clinically significant response (a decrease of 50% or more in GRID-HAMD scores), specifically 71% one week after the psilocybin session, and the same 71%, four weeks after the psilocybin session. That’s almost three-quarters of patients reporting feeling significantly better a month after treatment.
As for remission of other depressive symptoms, over 50% reported significant improvement, and similar results were found for secondary outcomes (anxiety scores).
All of these measures showed significant differences between the psilocybin treatment and control groups. Some measures showed the psilocybin group with more than four times the positive effects of those on typical antidepressants. Impressive stuff.
So while we must take the results of any single study with a grain of salt (the sample size here was quite small), this is still great news and another data point in favor of psilocybin as a potential future treatment for depression.
It wasn’t long ago (April 15th to be exact) that we received the results of the first-ever controlled trial comparing psilocybin with traditional antidepressants (SSRI). The results were published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine and the numbers bordered on revolutionary.
We now have the results of another study, this one published in the May 2021 issue of JAMA Psychiatry, and the findings are just as impressive.
New psilocybin study, similarly positive results
The study was a randomized and controlled trial conducted at the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. There were 24 participants with an average age of 40 years, and, unfortunately, an average of 22 years of depression.
The main method was the GRID Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (GRID-HAMD), a chart that measures different aspects of depression such as depressed mood, anxiety, guilt, sleep and appetite disturbances, and suicidal tendencies.
The participants in the treatment group were given, in the words of the study, “two psilocybin sessions…. in the context of supportive psychotherapy (approximately 11 hours). During these psilocybin-assisted therapy sessions, participants were instructed to lie down and try to focus on their inner experiences. Sleep masks and music were used to facilitate inward reflection.”
Because the clinical trial process for most psychedelic medicine companies is still, at best, in Phase 2, it’s up to independent medical studies to fill the gap and help shift the scientific consensus. And this study adds more positive results in the mushroom column.
The results: The majority of patients in the psilocybin group reported a clinically significant response (a decrease of 50% or more in GRID-HAMD scores), specifically 71% one week after the psilocybin session, and the same 71%, four weeks after the psilocybin session. That’s almost three-quarters of patients reporting feeling significantly better a month after treatment.
As for remission of other depressive symptoms, over 50% reported significant improvement, and similar results were found for secondary outcomes (anxiety scores).
All of these measures showed significant differences between the psilocybin treatment and control groups. Some measures showed the psilocybin group with more than four times the positive effects of those on typical antidepressants. Impressive stuff.
So while we must take the results of any single study with a grain of salt (the sample size here was quite small), this is still great news and another data point in favor of psilocybin as a potential future treatment for depression.