A Study says that Magic Mushrooms may ease anxiety of Cancer
U.S. researchers said on Monday that, the hallucinogen psilocybin, is known by the street name magic mushrooms and this may help ease the anxiety that often accompanies late-stage cancer.
Cancer patients receive a moderate dose of psilocybin, a hallucinogen with effects similar to LSD.The patients were measurably less depressed six months, after a single dose compared with a placebo, and the patients seemed somewhat less anxious.
A pilot study of 12 cancer patients proved that hallucinogenic drugs could be studied safely as a way to relieve the distress of advanced cancer.This is not the first study of it’s kind.
Other studies were abandoned in the early 1970s when hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, and lysergic acid diethylamide, that became widely used on the streets, were declared illegal.
Dr. Charles Grob of Harbor-University of California Los Angeles Medical Center and the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute said:”Forty to 45 years ago, the culture was going through tremendous upheaval. These compounds were associated with a very politically active counterculture”, he added in a telephone interview “It was something of a public health crisis. Everything had to be shut down”
Grob said in a statement that the federal law prohibits the use of the magic mushroom compound for any purpose. If it proves effective among late-stage cancer patients, U.S. regulators would need to make special accommodation for its use, he study looked to see whether psilocybin colud help some of the anxiety of dying cancer patients.
The treatments were given in random order and neither the doctors nor the patients were told which compound was administered, and the all volunteers are tolered the treatment sessions well, and most patients shower a trend of improvement in their symptoms of anxiety, and at six months, was a statistically significant improvement on one depression scale.
Grob said the pilot study proved the drug could be studied safely in cancer patients. He added that two other academic research institutions in the United States, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and New York University, were doing similar studies using a slightly higher dose.He said: “Times have changed and it’s now possible to pick up this research model again”, he added “I think that is an indication that there has been a very strong shift within society to move away from the old cultural bias and politics of the process many years ago. I think there is a greater capacity to be open-minded and let science dictate our conclusion, not politics”
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