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Psychedelics Promise a Paradigm Shift in Treating Mental Illness
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Newsweek
Posted: September 27th, 2015
http://www.newsweek.com/psychedelics-promise-paradigm-shift-...
In the 1950s through the early 70s, research began to show that psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, could be quite effective at treating mental health disorders like addiction. Then ... the so-called war on drugs began. For nearly a generation, science on these substances shut down. But thats changing. In the past 20 years or so, a small amount of research has once again begun to focus on these chemicals, showing that they have promise for treating a range of conditions, from addiction to depression and anxiety, says Evan Wood, a psychiatric researcher at the University of British Columbia. In 2006, researchers at the University of Arizona published a study showing obsessive-compulsive patients who ingested psilocybin had immediate and lasting reductions in problematic symptoms. The same year, Johns Hopkins University physician and researcher Roland Griffiths showed that in healthy volunteers, psilocybin produced lasting benefits like improved mood and peacefulness six months after ingestion. Similar work has shown psilocybin can help treat anxiety associated with cancer, at UCLA and New York University. And a study in late 2014 found that LSD permanently reduced anxiety in a small number of patients. Wood says hes most excited about research into using psychedelics to treat addiction. He published a review on September 8 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal covering recent work in this field.
Note: For more about the therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles from reliable sources.
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