In new research, the psychedelic drug psilocybin helped relieve depression symptoms as much as the SSRI antidepressant escitalopram (Lexapro and Cipralex), with an added bonus: People taking the experimental therapy also came to believe their life had more meaning, felt more connected to others, and experienced a boost in their sex drive.
Psilocybin, the active component in “magic mushrooms,” also maintained improvements in sadness and negative emotions six months after the initial treatment.
“This is the first study to compare the long-term effects of these two drugs in areas like life meaning and overall well-being, and not just freedom from depression, and we found that psilocybin outperformed the SSRI,” says Tommaso Barba, a PhD candidate at the Center for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College in London. These are important factors that shouldn’t be overlooked, he says.
Psilocybin May Help Improve Well-Being and Purpose in Ways That Aren’t Typically Measured in Drug Studies
The 30 people in the psilocybin group received two 25 milligram oral doses of psilocybin therapy, and the remaining people in the escitalopram group received 10 to 20 milligrams of daily escitalopram plus two placebo tablets.
Both groups received psychological support. Based on scales used to measure depression, the initial study results suggested that not only did psilocybin work just as well as the SSRI in treating depression, but it was better in improving factors like well-being, the ability to experience pleasure in life, social functioning, and sexual functioning, with fewer side effects.
The new six-month follow-up study used monthly questionnaires and no additional study treatment or psychiatric treatment restrictions.
Again, both groups had similar improvements in reducing depression symptoms, but the people treated with psilocybin showed greater improvements in general functioning, connectedness, and meaning in life.
Researchers also found that psilocybin improved sex drive, whereas SSRIs tend to lower libido, says Barba.
The New Research Looked at Nontraditional Measures of Well-Being
“To measure the efficacy, researchers used standard depression scales that are used to evaluate and approve antidepressants, but they also looked at nontraditional measures like psychological connectedness and existential meaning,” he says.
Researchers looked at these variables because they believe that the psychedelic drugs may improve them in a way that the standard antidepressants don’t.
“We’re still going to want to see the psychedelics have efficacy as measured by the standard scales, but you could consider these additional factors as an extra bonus,” says Rothchild.
Psilocybin has a totally different mechanism of action — and it’s a totally different experience to take a psychedelic as opposed to the antidepressants that are currently used, he says.
Psilocybin Shows Long-Term Benefits
This follow up study also suggests that the benefits of a psilocybin treatment could last up to six months or more, according to the authors.
These findings suggest that psilocybin could improve symptoms of depression for several months, which is a positive, says Rothchild, “because the treatment might not be very practical if you had to do it every month, and so this provides additional useful information on that score.”
He points out that although the original trial was a double-blind, randomized trial, this follow-up was observational, and so from a scientific rigor standpoint, it’s not as strong.
Psilocybin Is Being Researched for Eating Disorders, Alzheimer’s, and More
Also known as “magic mushrooms,” psilocybin comes from certain types of Psilocybe mushrooms and can also be made synthetically in a lab. It belongs to a class of compounds known as tryptamines, similar to lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and mescaline.
Could Psilocybin Win FDA Approval to Treat Depression?
Could the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve it for treating depression in the next few years?
It’s possible, but there are still issues, such as blinding the studies. People usually know if they are getting psilocybin or a sugar pill (placebo), says Rothchild.
“At the end of the day, it all boils down to: Is the drug efficacious? Is the drug safe? And do the benefits outweigh the risks? If the answers from these studies are positive for those kinds of questions, then I don’t see why the FDA wouldn’t approve it,” he says.
But at this point, psilocybin is still experimental and has the potential to harm, experts warn.
