Hallucinogens repair the liver

[labmatt]

A potentially new (and rather amazing) medicinal use for psychedelic drugs has been discovered, and the findings were reported in a recent edition of Science. For those of you who don't know, the peer-reviewed Science publication is one of the two most prestigious journals in the world

Comments

[labmatt]

Ian:
No hard evidence that this works for toxin/substance abuse, but damaged liver cells are damaged liver cells...

No direct tie in with haemophilia. Good call remembering that platelets are what is responsible for blood clotting... it turns out that it was the serotonin they carry, not the cells themselves, responsible for the effect.

Yes Nature is the other top journal. Normally I would think this to be a very radical shift, but just earlier this month, the top notch medical journal The Lancet had an editorial calling for renewed research into psychedleics.

It's a really short article, so I'll include it below a lj-cut here for you to read. Psychedelic research could be a new trend/direction in scientific research.

[zur_the_weird]

Did you read the interview on New Scientist last week about the use of hallucinogens for psychiatric purposes?

[labmatt]

Psychiatric use has been the historical context of the medicinal investigation of psychedelic drugs -- from early trials in the 50s and 60s using LSD or psylociben to reform criminals and treat alcoholism to the modern Israel and USA(FDA) clinical trials using MDMA for post traumatic stress disorder. It seems logical that drugs which affect the mind can be used to treat diseases of the mind.

The potential for serotonergic psychedelic drugs to have physiological consequences such as liver regeneration is much more profound. As Sam has been suggesting in his other comments, these types of findings provide evidence for direct links between psychological and physiological disease states.

I see a potential medical niche being created that only psychedelics will be able to occupy. Sure psychedelics can be used for pyschiatry, but so can SSRI's, Anxiety drugs, Tranquilizers, etc. On the other hand, psychedelics might be the ONLY type of drug with the ability to explore the connection between mental and physical disease states.

[zur_the_weird]

The therapist in the interview claimed that it would only take several treatments to cure someone of a psychological illness. He commented that there would be little income for drug companies if this did in fact successfully treat the illness.