Three Things To Read This Week
1. Department of Veterans Affairs Funding New Research On Psychedelic Treatment For Vets.
For the first time in six decades, the department will fund research to “gather definitive scientific evidence on the potential efficacy and safety of MDMA and psilocybin when used in conjunction with psychotherapy to treat Veterans with PTSD and depression.”
How The Policy Shift Happened: In late 2023 “more than 75 VA and other federal clinicians, scientists and policy makers gathered to assess the state of existing scientific evidence regarding psychedelic-assisted therapies [and] provided advice to VA leadership [to] begin funding studies into these compounds… based on previously published studies that have found [that] psilocybin therapy, given with supportive therapy, can ease symptoms of depression for up to 12 months[,] but included few or no veterans…”
What Lawmakers Are Saying:
Michigan Republican Representative Jack Bergman, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general: “If psychedelic-assisted therapy can help treat a servicemember or Veteran’s PTSD, or prevent them from taking their own life, then we owe it to them to take an active role in researching these potentially life-saving therapies.”
California Democratic Representative Lou Correa: “These therapies promise to be one of the largest breakthroughs in mental health treatment in nearly half a century, and shows a possibility to cure our veterans of their invisible wounds—and be the first step toward tackling our national mental health crisis head-on.”
Iowa Republican Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a physician and retired Army lieutenant colonel: “As a physician and veteran, I know the importance of medical research and I have seen firsthand the struggles that many service members and veterans face in light of their service. This important step gives our veterans opportunities to access breakthrough therapies and provides additional options for patient care.”
2. “Potent Psychedelic Drug Banishes PTSD, Small Study Finds.”
That’s the headline from an article published in Nature last week about a new clinical trial for military veterans which found that a psychedelic medicine called ibogaine reduced “traumatic brain injury symptoms such as PTSD and depression by more than 80%, on average.”
The study, led by Stanford University neuroscientist Nolan Williams, followed 30 male American combat veterans “with TBI and repeated exposure to explosions or combat” and tracked their mental health conditions following treatment. One month post-treatment, “on average, participants [with] mild-to-moderate disability before treatment [had] no disability one month after treatment, as assessed by a survey about their cognition, mobility and other functions.”
Specifically, these veterans had average symptom reductions of:
88% in PTSD symptoms;
87% in depression symptoms;
81% in anxiety symptoms.
Why does ibogaine work so effectively? Neuroscientists posit that “Ibogaine might temporarily re-open a ‘critical period’, the name given to windows of time normally seen during early development in which the nervous system is particularly malleable.”
3. People Who Suffer From Chronic Pain Report That Psychedelics Ease Their Suffering.
The Survey: Researchers from The Netherlands, England, and Canada teamed-up to explore whether psychedelics like psilocybin could offer more effective pain relief than traditional medications while reducing the negative side effects of status quo pharmacological treatment.
The Bottom-Line: In a survey of 170 adults who both suffer from chronic pain and have had experiences with psychedelics, chronic pain sufferers with conditions including “fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraine, tension-type headache and sciatica” report that “psychedelics led to better pain relief compared to conventional medication in all examined conditions … except for sciatica.”
For Context: Chronic pain “affects about 20% of the population, impacts psychological well-being while decreasing social functioning and productivity[,] and is associated with the onset or exacerbation of psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety and substance use problems.” Doctors usually prescribe some combination of “nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, opioids, anticonvulsants and antidepressants” to treat chronic pain. However, “a significant portion of patients do not benefit from them [and] opioids in particular cause several unwanted effects, and can be highly addictive.” Meanwhile, psychiatric medications tend to carry fewer side effects, but also only modest pain improvement.
Related: The authors also cite to a “recent randomized controlled trial with healthy volunteers [which] showed that a non hallucinogenic dose of LSD can improve pain tolerance and ratings of unpleasantness to an extent comparable to oxycodone or morphine.” This study used exposure tolerance to very cold water as the metric for pain tolerance and unpleasantness, but there are no published studies with comparably rigorous research designs that assess the effects of psychedelic medications on people who suffer chronic pain from specific conditions such as fibromyalgia or even a migraine headache. This survey is a good first step, but more rigorous research is needed to evaluate the promise that psychedelic medicine holds for alleviating chronic pain.
