Are magic mushrooms really that great for treating depression?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-07-31 01:00

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Past studies have shown that psilocybin - the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms - has quite positive results for treating depression, but new Scandinavian research suggests that the control groups in those trials were possibly not managed as well as those in similar trials for other antidepressants, and therefore potentially skewing the results for the mushrooms. The team compared the outcomes for the control groups - those who were not given the trial drug - of trials on psilocybin, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), or esketamine. They found that the participants from the control group in the psilocybin group had significantly less improvement in their depression ratings than the control groups of the other trials. The authors suggest that this might mean that psilocybin’s antidepressant efficacy has been overestimated compared with those of SSRIs and esketamine.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Funder: No funding information listed, but the authors listed the following COI disclosures:Dr Hieronymus reported receiving speaker fees from H. Lundbeck and Janssen Pharmaceuticals and consultant fees from Flow Neuroscience outside the submitted work. Dr Lundberg reported receiving grants from the Swedish Research Council, Swedish Cancer Society, and Osmond Labs to fund a randomized clinical trial on psilocybin in major depressive disorder and personal fees from Janssen-Cilag AB for serving as an educational speaker outside the submitted work.

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