NZ researchers exploring treating mental illness with psychedelic drugs
Dr Suresh Muthukumaraswamy was quite prepared for his proposed trial of LSD microdosing to show … nothing much.
At the time, five years ago, there was plenty of cultural chatter about the potential benefits of “subperceptual” doses of LSD and other psychedelic drugs. Some Silicon Valley start-ups even ordained “microdosing Fridays” to boost their employees’ creativity and intellectual vigour. But there was no robust evidence the effect was real. “It could,” he mused back then, “just be homeopathy.”
The microdosing trial at the University of Auckland School of Pharmacy, where Muthukumaraswamy is an associate professor, has now published its first academic article (there are seven more to come) in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
So, was it homeopathy? “We can certainly say that microdosing LSD is not homeopathy,” he says. “We can be sure of that now.”
He adds, “To some extent, the science has borne out the anecdotal wisdom.” The journal article reports the trial showed “improved ratings of creativity, connectedness, energy, happiness, irritability and wellness on dose days” for the LSD group. The effects were sufficient to “suggest the potential for microdosing to counteract anhedonic states in clinical populations by restoring enjoyment in creative and social activities”. That translates as there was evidence microdosing could help address a key symptom of clinical depression: the inability to enjoy life.
The finding could have important implications for the management and treatment of depression. The official wellbeing indicators show 11% of New Zealanders experienced “high or very high levels of psychological distress” in the 2021-22 year, nearly three times the number reported a decade ago. Increasingly, the default health intervention is to prescribe antidepressants, usually SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) such as fluoxetine. According to Pharmac, 673,155 people were prescribed some form of antidepressant in 2022, at a cost to the agency’s budget of $10.7 million.
On one level, it’s a good thing that people are seeking help – and not all of those prescriptions are actually for anxiety or depression. But SSRIs are not risk-free, and even those who find the side effects intolerable may experience real difficulty withdrawing from them.
The promise of psychedelic therapy is long-term benefits from only one or two doses. But the “therapy” part is expensive. In the US, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies is approaching approval for a protocol to treat post-traumatic stress patients with the controlled drug MDMA. More than 90% of the treatment cost is the time of human therapists. It could cost about $20,000 to deliver to one patient here – in which case, Pharmac’s 2022 bill for antidepressants for 670,000 people would fund 535 psychedelic therapy interventions.
Making microdosing work could help solve that problem. In the Auckland trial, half of a group of 80 healthy volunteers took 10 micrograms of LSD – about a 10th of the dose at which someone would experience appreciable psychedelic effects – and half took a placebo every three days for six weeks. After an initial microdose in the lab, the volunteers took their doses at home and went about their usual lives (though they weren’t allowed to drive cars).
In interview responses provided to the Listener, one participant reported feeling “renewed appreciation for more simple things like catching sunrises and sunsets”, and another felt “a bit more in tune with the kids and what was important for them”. In general, they liked doing the things they already liked, just more.