Imperial College London is to trial magic mushrooms as a method to treat addictions that include gambling. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Mushrooms to treat mental illness

Once the mysterious preserve of Viking berserkers, shamans, seekers of enlightenment, and festival goers, magic mushrooms are increasingly gaining credibility in science and medicine as a breakthrough treatment for mental illness. 

Following the encouraging results of an Imperial College London study on the effects the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, has on mental illness, the public research university will trial the drug as a treatment for gambling addiction. 

Imperial College’s Psychiatrist Professor David Nutt called the results the:

most promising development innovation in the treatment of mental illness and some neurological illnesses for 50 years.”

According to the UK media, researchers at Imperial College last month compared the antidepressant escitalopram with two doses of psilocybin. The results led the institute to state “psilocybin could cure depression within three years.”

Colleagues at Nutt’s Department of Brain Sciences at the college will soon join the UK’s leading expert in psychedelic research in conducting trials to explore if psilocybin can successfully treat gambling and opioid addictions.

Transformational effects

According to the Sun, Nutt has seen “lives transformed” by magic mushrooms. Small studies in the emerging field of science have all, meanwhile, reported the positive impact of psilocybin on addictions, eating disorders, anxiety, OCD, and PTSD.

Gamblers know they shouldn’t gamble, but they can’t stop.”

Nutt describes the above disorders as people getting “locked into ways of thinking that they can’t escape from.” For example, Nutt stated: “Gamblers know they shouldn’t gamble, but they can’t stop.

Likewise with depression, where the victims “know that they’re not worthless and guilty” but can’t get the thoughts out their minds. Nutt stated that for most people taking part in the college’s studies, their lives are in turmoil and they are anxious or depressed.

Nutt, however, believes psychedelics can break such “ruminations in the brain.”

The professor added that after taking the magic mushrooms, patients can see they are not worthless; “they can forgive themselves and that is a great release.”

The benefits of magic mushrooms is fast spreading among the scientific community, with many experts now calling for psilocybin to join cannabis as a listed medical drug. 

Make it mainstream

Psilocybin is currently an illegal Class A drug in the UK, which raises cost issues for research centers studying it. It’s also widely perceived as a recreational drug synonymous with music festivals.

Sam Lawes of the Centre for Evidence Based Drug Policy told Sun Health that magic mushrooms should, rather, be treated “like a medicine.” Lawes said if the medical uses are not effective, further studies will find that out. 

But so far, studies are showing great promise.”

Prof Nutt concurs, saying MRI brain imaging has been “remarkable.” The college’s scans published in the journal Nature Medicine reveal psilocybin “boosts connectivity in brain regions that have become rigid in those with depression.”

Magic mushrooms fire up unused networks of the brain in a way antidepressants can’t. With the media reporting that every year 25% of the British population will experience a mental health problem, Lawes sees a real need for a breakthrough. “You can see we’ve got a burning need for an alternative solution,” he said.