The rising effectiveness of treatments for advanced cancer has left a growing number of patients in terrible limbo. <\/p>\n
But psilocybin \u2014 the active compound derived from magic mushrooms \u2014 can help these patients find relief, a group of Texas-based scientists\u00a0wrote\u00a0in the\u00a0International Journal of Gynecological Cancer on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s part of a new openness in Texas \u2014 and the medical community as a whole \u2014 to ever-broader applications for the mind-expanding substances. <\/p>\n
Next year the signatories of Tuesday\u2019s letter \u2014 a group of researchers at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston \u2014 will begin a study investigating whether psilocybin can help restore the mental health of the increasing number of patients living with advanced cancers. <\/p>\n
That group of long-haulers is a cadre that largely didn\u2019t exist a decade ago, said Amit Moran, a cancer biologist at MD Anderson. <\/p>\n
\u201cTen years ago, you were cured, or you died,\u201d Moran told The Hill. <\/p>\n
But a rise of targeted cancer treatments has created a new group of patients living on the expanding frontiers of cancer treatment. <\/p>\n
\u201cMore and more patients survive longer with cancer \u2014 they can live two years, five years, even 10 years,\u201d Moran said. <\/p>\n
Many of these patients, Moran said, \u201cexperience anxiety, depression and existential crisis.\u201d <\/p>\n
In particular, women facing late-stage ovarian cancer face overwhelming anxiety and \u201cexistential distress\u201d as they stare down the prospect of a painful death and leaving their families behind, Moran and his coauthors\u00a0wrote. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese people know that one day they\u2019ll do scan and see progression [in their tumors],\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cAnd they don\u2019t know if that will be 6 months or 10 years.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Moran and his colleagues are looking into whether psilocybin could help, as this compound has been shown to offer considerable relief to those dying of terminal cancer \u2014 but has never been tested on those living with it. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to alleviate those symptoms to allow them to go back to functioning,\u201d Moran said. <\/p>\n
Both the journal letter and MD Anderson study are part of a new renaissance in the medical applications of \u201cpsychedelics\u201d \u2014 an umbrella category that lumps together such pharmacologically distant compounds as psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine. <\/p>\n
While these have very different structures and work on different parts of the brain, they share a common ability to help a patient radically \u2014 and often rapidly \u2014 reframe their relationship to previously intolerable life circumstances. <\/p>\n
A 2021 meta-analysis of terminally ill patients who had received psychedelics for existential distress found that\u00a0\u00a0both classical psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD and \u201catypical\u201d ones such as MDMA and ketamine left the dying with \u201cpositive effects on existential and spiritual well-being, quality of life, acceptance, and reduction of anxiety and depression.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another study of psilocybin specifically found that a single dose could leave even healthy individuals with\u00a0\u201clong-lasting increases in mindfulness.\u201d <\/p>\n
These findings have been persuasive enough to convince even Texas\u2019 highly conservative legislature \u2014 partly because of the state\u2019s disproportionate number of veterans of U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom returned emotionally and mentally scarred. <\/p>\n
In 2021, the Texas legislature\u00a0passed a bipartisan law\u00a0authorizing the state\u2019s Department of Health to begin studying the use of MDMA, ketamine and psilocybin for a wide range of physical and emotional ailments. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, this may be one of the most hopeful pieces of legislation that members of the Legislature have the opportunity to consider this session,\u201d former Gov. Rick Perry (R) told reporters in 2021. <\/p>\n
By November of 2021,\u00a0the first study\u00a0was underway: a joint state, federal and university effort to understand whether psilocybin could help alleviate post-traumatic stress disorders in veterans. <\/p>\n
The prevalence of psychological suffering has blunted the partisan nature around psychedelics, one researcher on that study suggested to Houston Public Media. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think many people are at the point of \u2018I will try anything,\u2019 whether they\u2019re conservative, anti-drug, whatever it is,\u201d said Lynette Averill of the Texas-based Baylor College of Medicine. <\/p>\n
Psychedelic research remains in its infancy, Moran noted. Of the more than 140,000 active clinical trials in the country, only 79 are looking into psychedelics. Of those, only a dozen are looking at cancer \u2014 and those are all focused on those who are dying.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
While cancer treatments can keep tumors in check for a long time, Moran hopes that psychedelic treatments can \u201cbring them back to the job market, get out of bed, regain their functionality,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is not just to give them life \u2014 but a life worth living,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Read this article:<\/p>\n
Living with long-term cancer is depressing. Texas doctors say psychedelics could help - The Hill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The rising effectiveness of treatments for advanced cancer has left a growing number of patients in terrible limbo. But psilocybin \u2014 the active compound derived from magic mushrooms \u2014 can help these patients find relief, a group of Texas-based scientists\u00a0wrote\u00a0in the\u00a0International Journal of Gynecological Cancer on Tuesday. Continue reading