Hands down, one of the drugs that has received the worst press in the decades marked by the War on Drugs has been LSD. All sorts of things have been said about this molecule: that it drives you crazy, or suicidal, that it remains stored in your body forever, that it irreparably damages the brain… Fortunately, we now have professionals investigating the matter, with a scientific perspective rather than a moralistic or prohibitionist one.
One of the latest findings on the subject seems to directly contradict one of the great myths about LSD: instead of leading to insanity, this compound could reduce anxiety. This is according to a study by Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc., a biopharmaceutical company that has been researching psychedelic compounds for mental health for many years. While the preliminary results were released in 2022, they were officially published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
This isn’t the first time MindMed has embarked on studying this topic: it had already achieved positive results with LSD for anxiety on another occasion. In fact, the FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to the company’s proprietary drug candidate, MM120, a pharmacologically optimized formulation of LSD.
LSD and Anxiety: What the MindMed Study Says
The company conducted a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2b study at 22 outpatient psychiatric research centers in the US. The effects of a single dose of MM120 (lysergide D-tartrate, LSD) were analyzed in 198 adults with moderate to severe generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Participants experienced sustained improvements in their condition over the 12-week observation period.
According to the company’s press release, this is the first randomized, placebo-controlled trial evaluating a single treatment at four dose levels (25, 50, 100, or 200 µg), without any psychotherapeutic intervention.
The optimal dose of MM120 was determined at 100 µg. This demonstrated a “clinically and statistically significant improvement vs. placebo, and a 65% clinical response rate and 48% clinical remission rate” at the end of the experiment.
Likewise, tolerance to the medication was positive, with the expected adverse effects of an LSD experience remaining mild to moderate and lasting only one day.
During the study, participants receiving medication for their condition had to discontinue such treatment under the supervision of the study professionals. Furthermore, on the day of dosing, they were offered “standardized music and eyeshades and could lie down, move freely around the room, read, write, or draw.” It should be noted that the study protocol explicitly prohibited participation in psychotherapy.
Dr. Maurizio Fava, one of the study’s authors, stated that “this study is a true turning point in the field of psychiatry… For the first time, LSD has been studied with modern scientific rigor, and the results are both clinically meaningful and potentially paradigm-shifting for the treatment of GAD. GAD affects 26 million adults in the U.S., yet no new medications have been approved since 2007—and first-line treatments fail 50% of patients.”
Thus, scientific innovation continues to advance against the willful ignorance of prohibitionists, working tirelessly to ensure patients have access to the relief that traditional therapies fail to provide.
This article was first published on El Planteo.
