Single dose of LSD provides immediate and lasting relief from anxiety, study says

New results on efficacy at 12 weeks
A single dose of MM120 (lysergide d-tartrate) led to a 48 per cent rate of remission from generalized anxiety disorder at 12 weeks following the drug’s administration, according to MindMed.

The MM120 drug also significantly improved clinical signs of generalized anxiety disorder for 65 per cent of patients within three months, according to results of the phase 2b trial designed to test dosage levels, the company said.


https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/singl...ting-relief-from-anxiety-study-says-1.6799266

 

Talk about counter-intuitive. But then again, I'm a creature of the 60's.

 

It would be great if this was a reliable way to deal with anxiety.

Anxiety in this world now, with extraction, exploitation, pollution, culminating in climate catastrophe, pandemic and massacres seems to be affecting everyone to some extent or another. So we all need something.

But it seems a bit optimistic to think one tab would do it.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/27/health/lsd-overdoses-case-studies-wellness/index.html


The 49-year-old woman, known as CB, had contracted Lyme disease in her early 20s, which damaged her feet and ankles and left her in “significant pain.”

In September 2015, she took 55 milligrams of what she believed was cocaine but was actually “pure LSD in powder form.”

The authors defined a normal recreational dose as 100 micrograms – equal to 0.1 milligrams.

The woman blacked out and vomited frequently for the next 12 hours but reported feeling “pleasantly high” for the 12 hours after that – still vomiting, but less often.

According to her roommate, she sat mostly still in a chair, either with her eyes open or rolled back, occasionally speaking random words. Ten hours later, she was able to hold a conversation and “seemed coherent.”

Her foot pain was gone the next day and she stopped using morphine for five days. While the pain returned, she was able to control it with a lower dose of morphine and a microdose of LSD every three days. After more than two years, in January 2018, she stopped using both morphine and LSD and reported no withdrawal symptoms, although the case report said she did experience an increase in anxiety, depression and social withdrawal.

The case studies were compiled by Mark Haden, executive director of Canada’s Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and an adjunct professor at the University of British Colombia School of Population and Public Health, and Birgitta Woods, a psychiatrist in Vancouver.

They noted that in CB’s case “ingestion of 550 times the normal recreational dosage of LSD was not fatal and had positive effects on pain levels and subsequent morphine withdrawal.”

The authors note in the study that no lethal doses of LSD have been documented, although they said scientists have estimated that a lethal dose in humans would be 14,000 mcg.

First manufactured in Switzerland in 1938 as a potential treatment for bleeding disorders, LSD’s (scientific name Lysergic acid diethylamid) subsequent popularity as a recreational drug saw it criminalized in much of the world. In both the United States and United Kingdom, LSD is a schedule 1 drug, the most restrictive classification.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/07/health/lsd-anxiety-fda-breakthrough-therapy-wellness/index.html

No use of psychotherapy
Most research with MDMA and psilocybin has relied on the use of trained therapists who meet and establish a rapport with participants before the drug is administered. Those therapists are then on hand during the “trip” to help each person assimilate the experience, thus helping assure the lasting impact of any psychological insights.

The MM120 study, however, was accomplished without the use of psychotherapy during the session. Instead, monitors sat in the room to assure safety, but spent their time “mostly reading books,” Karlin said.

“While prior research has documented the benefits of combining LSD with psychotherapy to alleviate anxiety associated with life-threatening conditions, this groundbreaking study is the first to show that a single dose of LSD … can effectively treat generalized anxiety without the adjunct of psychotherapy,” said psychiatrist Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a professor and scientist at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal and Canada Research Chair in Therapeutics for Mental Health. She was not involved in the clinical trial.

 

Lyme. Geez. I seem to recall some advocating psilocybin as well. I find even the suggestion appalling. If it's a spirochete making people sick, and like its cousin it's in brains, suggesting psychodelics as theraputics potentially damages in more ways than one.

Oh, sorry @Mij , you've touched on this.

 

See also (in mice) —

Polystyrene microplastics induce anxiety via HRAS derived PERK-NF-κB pathway
Li; Liu; Sun; Huang; Kuang; Ou; Zhang; Zhang; Li; Tang; Feng; Gu; Yang; Peili; Wang

Exposure to environmentally hazardous substances is recognized as a significant risk factor for neurological associated disorders. Among these substances, polystyrene microplastics (PS-MPs), widely utilized in various consumer products, have been reported to exhibit neurotoxicity. However, the potential association of PS-MPs with abnormal anxiety behaviors, along with the underlying molecular mechanisms and key proteins involved, remains insufficiently explored.

Here, we delineated the potential mechanisms of PS-MPs-induced anxiety through proteomics and molecular investigations. We characterized the PS-MPs, observed their accumulation in the brain, leading to anxiety-like behavior in mice, which is correlated with microglia activation and pro-inflammatory response.

Consistent with these findings, our studies on BV2 microglia cells showed that PSMPs activated NF-κB-mediated inflammation resulting in the upregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNFα and IL-1β. Of particular significance, HRAS was identified as a key factor in the PS-MPs induced proinflammatory response through whole proteomics analysis, and knockdown of H-ras effectively inhibited PSMPs induced PERK-NF-κB activation and associated pro-inflammatory response in microglia cells.

Collectively, our findings highlight that PS-MPs induce anxiety of mice via the activation of the HRAS-derived PERK-NF-κB pathway in microlglia. Our results contribute valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms of PS-MPs induced anxiety, and may offer implications for addressing neurotoxicity and prevention the adverse effects of environmentally hazardous substances, including microplastics.

Link | PDF (Environment International)

 

Yes - I used to take it every month to celebrate the full moon (!), and experienced great reduction in anxiety and improved mood.

I did sometimes get back pain, possibly due to impurities or deterioration in quality.

I stopped taking it in the 1990s, I think. It was due to getting depressed on it, and crying quite uncontrollably.