Magic Mushrooms in treatments for depression and anxiety

Moderators - I have put this here in the cider press as it feels like it probably belongs here. If you disagree it could possibly go in fungi?

I have recently been enjoying an EXCELLENT podcast called "Science VS". Each episode does a deep dive in to the academic research on a topic. The last one I listened to fascinated me.

Science VS Magic Mushrooms: Trip through the science

It is exploring the potential for magic mushrooms to be a potent treatment for anxiety and depression in some individuals.  Here is an extract from the transcript:

WZ: The depression trial that you did recently can you tell me like – a typical patient in that trial, what are they like?

AD: So the typical types of folks they had been living with depression for a very very long time for decades, some of them two three decades. And had tried a lot of different things. So a lot of them had been through several trials of antidepressants. They had had several different types of psychiatrists or psychotherapists, and they never – for most them they never found a solution.


He set up a clinical trial with 24 people – to give them psilocybin. And before getting the pills – the patients do a bunch of therapy and talk a bit about their intentions. What they want to get out of their trip.  

He ran the numbers a month later... and yeah, in these 24 people, it looked pretty great. Not everyone in the trial had a huge transformation – but almost three quarters of the people felt a lot better, and more than half, so 13 people, said that their depression had gone[37]! And remember a lot of these people had tried other – traditional stuff – sometimes for DECADES and nothing else had worked.


AD So even if, even if our effect size was cut in half, we're still two times larger than the next best treatment.

WZ Oh wow.

AD However It’s not a magic bullet[38]  there are people who did not improve, or who only improved for a little while and then their depression came back, but our data is suggesting that it's an incredibly powerful treatment.

I personally do not have problems with depression and anxiety, but I do have close friends who are crippled by both, and for whom the standard approaches have failed. And their issues have generally got more severe over the past 18 months through covid.

What struck me that the studies are hinting at some kind of permanent cure - at least in some cases. I'll be really interested to see where this leads over the next decade or so. Does anyone here have any personal experience of using shrooms medically, rather than recreationally? Did your experiences align with the discussion in the podcast?

I don’t have experience but I have read and listened to lots of accounts over the past two years.

Tim Ferriss has pivoted from work-life couch to podcast host and psychedelics advocate. He is using his influence and connections to interview many leaders in the field of psychedelics as medicine. He also a co-founder backer for research at Imperial College, London and John Hopkins in the US. He has created a page on his website that includes some videos, useful links and the podcasts that relate to this field.

Tim Ferriss psychedelic page

I’m encouraged by the progress they’re making. It looks like it could have massive benefits for trauma victims. I think in the long run, it could be come a recognised medical practice especially in places like the UK where the state pays for healthcare. I’d like to think it would be available in the US but the pharma companies and medical system here makes way too much money from subscription tranquillisers. I’m sure the big pharma lobbyists will do their best to keep up the narrative of dangerous mind-altering drugs circa 1968.

Pretty sure I accidentally self medicated in high school ;)  
But for real, this was before we even talked much about depression. And in hindsight, I had it pretty bad. Whether coincidence or correlation, when I got into the fun fungi I distinctly remember my outlook on life changing.

So are they speaking only of a trial done with psilocybin pills? As in a lab-produced chemical extract? I would love to see some info on how this might be done in a more natural setting, i.e. super small doses of actual mushrooms or possibly a tincture. For those of us living in the farther reaches of the globe this is the type of thing that would be more accessible and of course sustainable. And anyways I am always suspicious of removing a single component and using it separately from the other elements that nature combined it with.

Thanks for sharing this article! Exciting information.

My husband has been on antidepressants for 20+ years. He's never been diagnosed with anything other than depression, but it seems like there's some other mild schizoaffect stuff going on if he forgets his pills for a couple days. The meds keep everything in the tolerable range, but they're not 100%. He's found that doing mushrooms once a year or so is a really effective additional treatment.

He was pretty excited about microdosing when he first heard of it. Once he had time to actually look into some studies, he said it looked like it wasn't any better than placebo, though. I never looked into it, and I don't know what he was reading.

Please disregard my earlier post...I never heard of microdosing until just now. Google answered my question. Now I understand the significance of this post and I shall maintain silence.