Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash
Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

Psilocybin could help with a wide range of mental health problems for cancer patients

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Peer-reviewed: This work was reviewed and scrutinised by relevant independent experts.

Randomised controlled trial: Subjects are randomly assigned to a test group, which receives the treatment, or a control group, which commonly receives a placebo. In 'blind' trials, participants do not know which group they are in; in ‘double blind’ trials, the experimenters do not know either. Blinding trials helps removes bias.

People: This is a study based on research using people.

Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy could help cancer patients reduce symptoms of a wide range of mental health problems they may face during their cancer battles, according to international researchers.  The team combined the results of two randomised controlled trials of the therapy, which combines psychotherapy with the use of psilocybin - the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms. The two studies involved a total of 79 patients, and the researchers say previous analysis of the results showed psilocybin was associated with improvements in depression and anxiety symptoms. Looking further at the data for other mental health symptoms, the researchers say psilocybin was also associated with fewer sensitivity issues with other people, less hostility, obsession-compulsion and less mental-health-related physical issues. They said there was no evidence of the psilocybin causing any mental health problems such as phobia, paranoia or psychosis.

Journal/conference: Nature Mental Health

Research: Paper

Organisation/s: New York University, USA

Funder: The parent trials included in this Analysis were supported by grants from the Heffter Research Institute (R.R.G. and S.R.), the RiverStyx Foundation (R.R.G. and S.R.), the Betsy Gordon Foundation (R.R.G.), the Fetzer Institute (R.R.G.) and the New York University–Health and Hospitals Corporation–Clinical and Translational Science Institute grant UL1 TR000038 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH) (S.R.). Additional funding for the parent trials was provided by Carey and Claudia Turnbull (S.R.), W. Linton (R.R.G. and S.R.), R. Barnhart (S.R.), A. Altschul (S.R.), K. Fitzsimmons (S.R.), the McCormick Family (R.R.G.), G. Goldsmith (R.R.G. and S.R) and E. Malievskaia (R.R.G. and S.R.). Funding for the pooled analysis was provided by the Usona Institute scholarship (P.D.P), the NIH T32DA007250 (G.A.-L.) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant number 202110MFE-472921- HTB-272687) (R.J.Z.).

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