Yesterday we ran a story on using mushrooms to potentially build homes of the future. Today, they are potentially saving lives as a long term treatment option for depression. Five years after researchers initially began exploring the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms as antidepressants, the treatment appears to be having long-lasting positive effects.
Researchers from New York University gave 29 cancer patients a dose of psilocybin (the hallucinogenic compound of mushrooms) or a placebo, paired with psychotherapy sessions. Initial results were good and at six and a half months, three years, and four and a half years post dosage check-ups, patients were still reporting lower levels of depression, hopelessness, and anxiety about life and death.
71 to 100 percent of the participants even said that psilocybin-assisted therapy was one of the most meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives.
Lead researcher Gabby Agin-Liebes says more research is needed on the subject, and psilocybin should not be used in unmonitored settings, but these results show that mushrooms can be effective for changing people’s long term perspectives about life and happiness.
The next steps are to expand the test subjects and do further research into how exactly psilocybin works in the brain, but this is yet another beneficial example of the power of mushrooms!
