Largest Clinical Trial To Date Found That Magic Mushrooms Significantly Reduce Symptoms Of Treatment-Resistant Depression
Even though thirty-one antidepressants have been approved by the FDA and are currently on the market, these treatment options are, unfortunately, not always helpful in curbing feelings of depression.
Worldwide, about one hundred million people suffer from what’s known as treatment-resistant depression (TRD)– meaning that they did not respond to at least two different antidepressant treatments for major depressive disorder.
And studies have found that individuals with TRD end up facing a myriad of additional adverse outcomes– including worse quality of life, social and occupational disability, higher comorbidity, suicide-related behaviors, and worse therapeutic outcomes.
But, emerging treatment options– such as those that use psilocybin– may be offering TRD patients a new way to get back their mental health.
Psilocybin, sometimes referred to as magic mushrooms, is a hallucinogenic alkaloid that has prompted great medical interest over the last twenty years. Researchers are now investigating the compounds’ effects on various mental health disorders, including TRD.
And this past month, a collaborative study led by COMPASS Pathways has found that when administering just one twenty-five milligram dose of COMP360 psilocybin in conjunction with psychological support, TRD patients experienced a significant reduction of symptoms.
The research spanned twenty-two study sites in ten countries, including the United States, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The study also represents the largest clinical trial to date.
It included a total of two hundred and thirty-three participants who were diagnosed with TRD. The participants were randomly assigned to either receive a single psilocybin dose of twenty-five milligrams, ten milligrams, or one milligram. The participants who received a one-milligram dosage served as a control group. Finally, all participants were provided with psychological support alongside the drug administration.
Then, the researchers analyzed how participants’ depression severity changed from baseline via the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale for twelve weeks.
Jeremy Francis – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
The team ultimately found that the individuals who received a single twenty-five-milligram dose of COMP360 psilocybin experienced a significant reduction in depression scores only three weeks post-treatment.
There were still adverse side effects among the participants– including headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, and suicidal ideation.
However, according to Professor Guy Goodwin, the Chief Medical Officer of COMPASS Pathways, the clinical trial’s success in helping normally treatment-resistant patients far outweighed the negatives.
“We saw positive results in a particularly difficult-to-treat group of patients, and the highest dose of COMP360 psilocybin had the greatest impact on people’s depression. This suggests that COMP360 psilocybin has a true pharmacological effect, a finding that is critical for it to be recognized as a new treatment option in the future,” Goodwin said.
So now, the team is eager to continue testing the efficacy of psilocybin among patients with TDR.
“Our task now is to investigate psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression in larger clinical trials with more participants, comparing it both to placebo and to established treatments,” explained Dr. James Rucker, one of the study’s researchers.
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, visit the link here.
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