Psilocybin's Antidepressant Effect is Better Than Anti-Depressants

Depression is a potentially life-threatening disorder affecting millions of people across the globe. It is a huge burden to both the individual and society, costing over 9 billion in 2000 alone: the World Health Organization (WHO) cited it as the third leading cause of global disability in 2004 (first in the developed world), and project it will be the leading cause by 2030. The serendipitous discovery of antidepressants has revolutionized both our understanding and management of depression: however, their efficacy in the treatment of depression has long been debated and recently been brought very much into the public limelight by a controversial publication by Kirsch, in which the role of placebo response in antidepressant efficacy trials is highlighted (meaning placebos work actually better than SSRIs in these studies!). While antidepressants offer benefits in the short term, for some people (about 20%-30% based on metanalyses results) important problems persist such as side effects, delayed therapeutic onset, limited efficacy in various types of depressive disorders, tolerance and the serotonin syndrome dangers of long term and ever increasing doses of the use of SSRIs and the lack of any long term use benefit proof has mental health treatment researchers looking for much more effective, shorter term, longer lasting, more broad spectrum application alternatives. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3736946/)

The following is the article on the findings of psilocybin research published on Medscape https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/968771?src=WNL_infocu4_221228_MSCPEDIT&uac=459534BK&impID=5039499&faf=1

The substantial antidepressant effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy may be durable up to at least 1 year in some patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), new research indicates.

Two doses of psilocybin provided in the context of supportive therapy produced "large and stable" antidepressant effects throughout a 12-month follow-up period, report researchers with the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.

Dr Natalie Gukasyan

"We have not yet collected formal data past 1 year in our sample (but) some participants in our study have stayed in touch and report continued improvements in mood," study investigator Natalie Gukasyan, MD, told Medscape Medical News.

"A previous study of psilocybin-assisted therapy in patients with cancer-related depression and anxiety symptoms found that improvements in mood and well-being may persist up to 4.5 years following treatment," Gukasyan noted.

The study was published online February 15 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Enduring Benefit

Preliminary data suggest that psilocybin-assisted treatment produces substantial and rapid antidepressant effects in patients with MDD but the durability of the effects are unclear.

Depression, as measured by GRID-HAMD, decreased substantially after treatment and remained low through 12 months posttreatment, the investigators report.

For most participants, GRID-HAMD scores decreased from 22.8 at baseline to 8.7 at 1 week, 8.9 at 4 weeks, 9.3 at 3 months, 7 at 6 months and 7.7 at 12 months after treatment.

Response and remission rates at 12 months on the QIDS were 79% and 67%, respectively, and 83% and 75%, respectively, on the BDI-II.

"Psilocybin not only produces significant and immediate effects, it also has a long duration, which suggests that it may be a uniquely useful new treatment for depression," study investigator Roland Griffiths, PhD, founding director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, says in a statement.

"Compared to standard antidepressants, which must be taken for long stretches of time, psilocybin has the potential to enduringly relieve the symptoms of depression with one or two treatments," Griffiths adds.