Research shows that “magic mushrooms” may provide significant relief to Parkinson's patients
As Parkinson's disease cases continue to rise, the therapy is fighting the effects of the disease – researchers have pointed to an unlikely source of relief.
According to a new study by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), psilocybin has been found to be a psychedelic compound found in certain mushrooms that improves emotional, cognitive and motor symptoms in Parkinson's patients.
The substance, commonly known as the “magic mushroom”, has been previously shown to relieve depression and anxiety, prompting researchers to explore the potential of Parkinson's.
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According to a UCSF press release, people with neuromotor disorders often suffer from “imbalanced emotions” and tend to respond less to traditional antidepressants.
psilocybin is a psychedelic compound found in certain mushrooms and has been found to improve mood, cognitive and motor symptoms in Parkinson's patients. (iStock)
“Many people don't realize this, but emotional symptoms of Parkinson's disease are associated with faster physical decline,” Ellen Bradley, the author of the study supervised.
“In fact, they have a stronger quality of life than Parkinson’s patients than their motor symptoms.”
The small study included 12 people with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease. Their age ranges from 40 to 75 years old. All are depression and/or anxiety.
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They all received a 10 mg dose of psilocybin and then received a 25 mg dose two weeks later. To measure the effectiveness, participants met with a licensed therapist before and after receiving the medication.
During a week and month follow-up, patients reported “significant clinical improvements” not only in terms of mood and cognitiveness, but also in motor function.
“Many people don’t realize this, but emotional symptoms of Parkinson’s are associated with faster physical decline.”
“These results are really encouraging,” Bradley told Fox News figures. “Depression and anxiety can debilitate many people with Parkinson's disease, which greatly improves — these improvements last at least three months after patients take the drug.”
Amir Inamdar, a UK-based pharmaceutical physician and chief medical officer at Cybin, pointed out that the improvement in motor symptoms was somewhat surprising.
“As the authors pointed out, this may be due to the regulation of dopamine's effect on several serotonin receptor types through psilocybin.” (Inamdar was not involved in the study.)
The most common side effects of psilocybin are anxiety, nausea, headaches and elevated blood pressure, but none of them are severe enough to require medical services, the researchers said.
People with neuromotor disorders often suffer from “imbalanced emotions” and have poor responses to traditional antidepressants. (iStock)
“Although some of the participants' challenging experiences were reported, psilocybin seems to be easily tolerated,” Inamdar noted. “Side effects are consistent with those seen in other studies without precipitation/intensification of psychiatric symptoms.”
The study, published in Neuropsychopharmacology, is a natural publication funded by anonymous donors.
Limitations and further research
This is the first study to measure the effect of psychedelic substances on patients with neurodegenerative diseases, according to USCF.
Although the study was an “important first step”, Bradley noted that researchers could not draw conclusions from it because it was a small pilot without a control group.
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“We have now begun a bigger trial to rigorously test whether psilocybin works in Parkison,” she told Fox News Digital.
“We also collected multimodal biological data to understand how psilocybin works. This is not only crucial for optimizing psilocybin treatment, but may be promising for guiding the development of next-generation psychedelic drugs now in the pipeline.”
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Bradley still advises Parkinson's patients to take “very cautious” with psilocybin and other psychedelic drugs.
“I don't recommend that my patients with Parkinson's disease start using psilocybin,” she clarified. “We were very, very early in this study, and we didn't think these drugs would be safe for everyone with the disease.”
This is the first study to measure the effect of psychedelic substances on patients with neurodegenerative diseases, according to USCF. (iStock)
“I hope people continue to advocate for research so that we can speed up the process of determining the right psychedelic treatment for the right patients at the right time.”
Inamadar agrees that despite the encouraging results, the study is based on a small and limited sample.
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He added: “This study is also open label, which gives itself a higher expectation effect, although improvements in mood and anxiety symptoms can still be seen at three months.”
“Comprehensive, [the] Encouraging results require further investigation, of course, an attempt to understand the mechanisms that improve motor symptoms. ”
