In the last couple of years, we have seen interest in psychedelic treatments increase significantly as more studies unearth the benefit of the substances, particularly for mental-health conditions. Randomized controlled trials have found that psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, and ayahuasca may offer considerable relief from symptoms of depression.
While trials have proven the drugs’ effectiveness in treating mental-health conditions, the mechanisms by which these substances work as well as their actual effectiveness remains unknown.
This is a significant concern in this field, especially since conducting successful blind clinical trials is rather difficult. Blinding is necessary in trials because it ensures that neither the researchers nor participants know who is receiving the placebo or active drug. The distinctive and potent effects of psychedelics make it easy for participants in trials to guess if they’re part of the control group or in the treatment group.
A recently conducted analysis has determined that the effectiveness of psychedelics may have been overestimated. The systematic review and meta-analysis were carried out by investigators in Taiwan, whose objective was to evaluate the acceptability and true comparative effectiveness of psychedelics in comparison to conventional antidepressants. For their analysis, the investigators centered on the effectiveness of psilocybin, MDMA and LSD as compared to escitalopram, a commonly prescribed antidepressant.
The researchers sifted through various databases, including the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Medline, to find relevant studies. Included in the analysis were studies that had randomized controlled trials with patients with depressive symptoms related to life-threatening conditions or clinically diagnosed depression. The studies also had to compare oral monotherapy treatments.
Once this was done, the researchers separated responses from antidepressant trials from those in placebo trials to offer an accurate estimate of the true effectiveness of these drugs.
They determined that only psilocybin administered in high doses demonstrated greater effectiveness in comparison to the placebo. This suggests that while psychedelics do hold promise, their effectiveness in comparison with standard antidepressants may have been overestimated in prior trials because of things such as unsuccessful blinding in trials.
The study had some limitations, including the focus on short-term effects of psychedelics. The analysis didn’t evaluate the long-term efficacy of psychedelics as compared to antidepressants. Understanding how these therapies work over the long-term is important because depression is a chronic illness.
Another limitation was the small number of studies included in the analysis. Future studies should center on bigger, longer-term studies that include strict blinding techniques to ensure that the true efficacy of psychedelics can be evaluated accurately.
The analysis’ findings were reported in the “BMJ.”
For companies that have multiple psychedelic drug-development programs underway, such as atai Life Sciences N.V. (NASDAQ: ATAI), it is increasingly crucial that accurate data on the efficacy of their formulations is collected so that regulators rely on that data to make decisions about different drug applications.
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