A small dose of LSD – that psychedelic drug hippie grandmothers took in the 60s – could help ease anxiety, a new study has found.
LSD, also called acid, is a hallucinatory drug that makes us feel euphoric, giggly and overwhelmed.
But researchers have found that the illegal drug holds real promise in treating one of the most common mental health disorders in the UK.
A US trial explored the effect of MM120, a dissolvable LSD tablet, to treat generalised anxiety disorder (GAD).
People with the condition often worry to an almost paralysing degree about everyday things, even when there’s little or no reason to do so.
In any given week in England, six in 100 people are diagnosed with GAD, with treatment options including talking therapy or medication.
What is LSD?
Lysergic acid diethylamide is a drug squeezed from a type of fungus called ergot.
The drug is called a ‘serotonergic hallucinogen,’ because it tickles the receptors in our brains that produce serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays a vital role in many behaviours and emotions.
As this mind-altering drug gets to work, it can cause vivid perceptual changes and almost mystical experiences, called ‘trips’.
And they’re called trips for a reason – while LSD can kick in within 20 minutes, some trips can last for 12 hours.
The psychedelic company MindMed gave 198 patients aged 18 to 74 suffering from the condition MM120 instead.
Groups were either given single doses of 25 micrograms, 50 micrograms, 100 micrograms or 200 micrograms of the drug at research sites.
On ‘dosing day’, as the study, published today in the medical journal JAMA, put it, patients experienced mild hallucinations which lasted 12 hours.
Researchers scored each patient’s mood on the Hamilton Anxiety Scale after a week, two weeks, four weeks, eight weeks and 12 weeks.
The tool ranks the ways people can be anxious out of five, like how fearful they are about certain things or if they’re struggling with insomnia.
Yet for those who had taken 100 micrograms, they experienced ‘acute therapeutic benefits’ from taking LSD throughout the full 12 weeks.
This led to a ‘statistically significant change in GAD that exceeded the changes seen with lower MM120 doses or with placebo’.
Lead author Maurizio Fava said: ‘This study is a true turning point in the field of psychiatry.
‘For the first time, LSD has been studied with modern scientific rigour, and the results are both clinically meaningful and potentially paradigm-shifting for the treatment of GAD.’
MindMed is now conducting phase three trials using MM120 on patients with GAD, the last early trials needed before seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
After decades of anti-drug campaigns, it now feels like every Silicon Valley CEO and Hollywood celebrity are turning to psychedelic drugs to ease their mental health.
And scientists think they’re onto something, with an increasing number testing how successful psychedelic-assisted therapy is, which combines the illicit substances with counselling.
Dr Ashwin Sood, a psychiatrist treating patients in Washington DC and New York, told Metro that this is because a full dose of a psychedelic can help the brain develop new cellular connections, a process called neuroplasticity.
He said: ‘Say, you’re sitting on the train and you’re thinking about what your plans are for the day, the work you need to do and funny memories.
‘This is the kind of network that is actively involved while you’re just sitting down and kind of daydreaming – LSD binds to the receptors and disrupts this entire network, and so causes the brain to develop new connections pretty quickly.’
If used to treat anxiety, Dr Sood said, a patient undergoes a trip in a medical setting with a trained healthcare professional.
‘They talk about their anxieties and the therapist helps reframe those anxieties more healthily,’ he said. ‘You’re almost resetting networks in the brain with new connections that have long-lasting results.’
Dr Sood said some people may experience a ‘bad trip’, however, seeing frightening visions and ‘ego death’ as they lose their sense of self.
He said: ‘They can also have increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased body temperature, transient elevations, and stress.’
Given this, Dr Sood cautioned against people grabbing a few tabs of LSD and kicking back.
‘They need to be done in controlled environments with clinical supervision, sourced from places that are safely regulated,’ he said.
‘If we don’t, that’s how we get back into stigmatising this medication quickly.’
MindMed is one of three American companies carrying out phase three trials into psychedelics, with others testing MDMA and magic mushrooms.
All have received breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA, a stamp of quality approval from the agency.
MDMA, often known as Ecstasy or Molly, has been found to bring relief to those suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder as well as alcohol addiction.
While a study in 2021 found that the magic ingredient of, well, magic mushrooms, called psilocybin, can provide relief for depression.
He stressed, however, that many studies conducted so far have small sample sizes, so more research is needed.
Though, the lack of research is in part due to the ‘War on Drugs’ of the 1960s, which hampered research for decades.
‘We’re excited about it, but they still need to be approved through phase three clinical trials, which will hopefully then lead to FDA approval,’ Dr Sood added.
‘Hopefully, we will see this.’
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