Anyone who has used DMT (N, N-dimethyltryptamine) knows that it is a powerful hallucinogen that can induce immersive hallucinations in only a few minutes. The drug’s effects are similar to those of other psychedelics, including psilocybin mushrooms and LSD. Now that psychedelics are seeing a resurgence in popularity, researchers have been interested in how these drugs can impact mental health.
According to a new study published in the “Nature” journal, DMT may have the potential to treat depression. The researchers’ objective was to see whether administering DMT would have any effect on patients with depressive symptoms. Researchers discovered that patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder who underwent DMT treatment had significantly reduced depressive symptoms. Furthermore, they found the drug to be “mostly safe and well-tolerated.”
For their study, the researchers gave each participant two intravenous doses of the psychedelic then measured their depression levels on the HAMD-17 rating scale. This scale consists of 17 questions, with a rating of 17 and above constituting severe depression.
The first dose was weaker, consisting of 0.1 mg of DMT for every kilogram of weight. Although this initial dose did result in a reduction in depression levels, the drop wasn’t big enough to be considered statistically relevant.
The second dose, which was administered 48 hours after the first, was upped to 0.3 mg of DMT per kilogram of body weight. It resulted in a significant drop of 4.5 points on the HAMD-17 scale. Given that these results were taken just a day after administering the second dose, this meant that DMT had the potential to alleviate depressive symptoms in only a few hours.
The researchers also determined that while DMT increased participants’ heart rates and blood pressure during the treatment sessions, these symptoms faded after 20–30 minutes. In their report, the researchers note that one patient with a history of “asymptomatic low heart rate and blood pressure” who had failed to inform the researchers of that fact before receiving the DMT dose did not experience any long-term effects from the treatment.
Although these results are quite encouraging, it is important to note that that this was a tiny phase 1 study with only ten participants, seven of whom were suffering from treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. The remaining number were healthy controls.
Furthermore, the study did not involve a placebo and only measured its findings once—one day after the DMT treatment. Even so, it still proves that DMT can be effective at treating depressive symptoms, at least in the short term.
Many other companies, including Silo Pharma Inc. (OTCQB: SILO), are also undertaking their own R&D in order to develop mental-health treatments from a variety of psychedelic compounds; it looks like the future is bright for these once-ostracized compounds.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Silo Pharma Inc. (OTCQB: SILO) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/SILO
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