To me, this study has a few "smells" that makes it dubious:
> We collected cross-sectional data between November 2019 and July 2020 from
self-selected respondents recruited via media related to psychedelic use such as podcasts and online psychedelic
research conference presentations.
This is already a significant bias in participants.
> Mental health was assessed with the questions “Do you currently have any psychological, mental health or
addiction concerns?” Participants who endorsed concerns identified specific mental health and substance use
categories from a drop down menu, and were allowed to select more than one category
So mental health is not actually accessed medically and simply self-reported.
To be clear I lack an informed opinion on microdosing psychedelics, but any study that picks its participant from a community engaging in X to study X but then uses the same community to sample their control group (for lack of a better expression) is questionable.
EDIT: Page 6 has a table that compare microdosers/non-microdosers and the latter was actually less likely to self-report *any* mental health or substance use problem by 5%. It's only when using the DASS-21 subscales that they can draw the conclusion that non-microdosers are more anxious, depressed or stressed. Their microdosers/non-microdosers ratio is also almost 1:1.
> "Our results indicate health and wellness motives and perceived mental health benefits among microdosers, and highlight the need for further research into the mental health consequences of microdosing including studies with rigorous longitudinal designs."
It's not an unusual approach: 'We have some preliminary indications that X results in Y, but to confirm or reject this hypothesis we'll need more rigorous studies.'
It's basically going to be the centerpiece of a grant proposal to do that work.
What would be really interesting is to set up a double-blind placebo study comparing the results of using antidepressants (SSRIs etc.) with the results of using psilocybin at similar levels.
It would also be interesting to compare the results of a 'normal' psychedelic dose (full effect) taken once a month vs. the effects of daily microdosing or daily antidepressant use, again with a double-blind + placebo approach.
Yes! Everyone is trying to reduce risk, and once way scientists[0] reduce risk is to get preliminary results like this before spending a ton of money on a huge study. Absolutely not the final word, it's good to keep in mind the limitations when discussing it.
[0] Translate "scientists" into "the current scientific system between academic researchers and grant agencies"
> What would be really interesting is to set up a double-blind placebo study comparing the results of using antidepressants (SSRIs etc.) with the results of using psilocybin at similar levels.
>two separate doses of 25 mg of psilocybin 3 weeks apart plus 6 weeks of daily placebo (psilocybin group) or two separate doses of 1 mg of psilocybin 3 weeks apart
I don't know how this compares to similar studies (if there are any similar studies) but microdosing is almost never done 3 weeks apart. That's usually the time frame done for macro dosing (but with multiple grams not mg).
Even the study at the top mentions that
>Reported microdoses identifed in observational research typically range from 5 to 20 μg of LSD and from 0.1 to 0.3 g of dried psilocybin mushrooms. Microdoses are most commonly used several times a week with various patterns of alternating days.
Placebo can be incredibly strong when taking low dose psychedelics, especially for inexperienced users. You begin to focus on normal parts of reality as if they aren't part of your usual experience.
At the microdose level the obvious hallucinatory effects of psychedelics are not present, so I'd imagine those without prior experience with psychedelics wouldn't immediately realize they had taken an SSRI or a psychedelic.
The above comment study is pretty interesting, points to equivalent effectiveness.
Yeah, it was interesting that they phrased the conclusion negatively:
> On the basis of the change in depression scores on the QIDS-SR-16 at week 6, this trial did not show a significant difference in antidepressant effects between psilocybin and escitalopram in a selected group of patients. Secondary outcomes generally favored psilocybin over escitalopram, but the analyses of these outcomes lacked correction for multiple comparisons. Larger and longer trials are required to compare psilocybin with established antidepressants.
For no significant difference in outcome, I'd much rather have two psilocybin sessions versus daily SSRI use.
If it's correctly microdosed the acutely noticed affects should be very close to placebo.
For lsd this is generally under 15~20ug, though 5ug/10ug is generally what people dose at.
These dosages aren't well established with "proper studies" but I can say that people documenting there experiences seem to establish this pretty well. The psychonauts wiki is a good place for this type of information
Can anyone explain to me why a journal like Nature would accept such a half-assed paper with weak conclusions that is transparently serving as a grant proposal for the experiment that would actually be interesting?
Nature XXXX (where XXXX is Neuroscience, Genetics, Methods, Metabolism…) makes up specialized second tier;
Nature Communications is a second or third tier non-specialized series journal (but still high impact)
Scientific Reports is nominal third or fourth tier.
But take this with a large dose of skepticism. The text, code, data, and metadata, are the true metrics if quality and generality of results.
And from my own work: if a study involves rodent models check if the authors studied just one type of mouse or rat. If so then consider most biological claims as provisional n=1 efforts. Unfortunately the reductionist mindset has won the day and last five decades. This is almost always true in neuroscience and genomics, fields in which well over 90% of science relies on the C57BL/6 mouse or the SD rat. As a result, claims may be exceedingly fragile—like doing all human studies with a single clone of one specific human.
Where can I find more info on experimental issues with mice or rats? Like the ones you mention but also how cages are positioned and so on? Aas that seems to have been a factor in other studies.
> > We collected cross-sectional data between November 2019 and July 2020 from self-selected respondents recruited via media related to psychedelic use such as podcasts and online psychedelic research conference presentations.
> This is already a significant bias in participants.
In my experience, these pro-psychedelic conferences and associated discussion venues have already concluded that microdosing is a positive, to the point that they’re actively hostile to any information to the contrary.
Psychedelic forums and even threads on HN and Reddit can be extremely hostile to anyone arriving with negative anecdotes about their personal microdosing experiences. When people report negative effects there’s a rush to blame them for dosing too high or too low, or for having counterfeit substances, or any other number of easy outs to dismiss the negative anecdotes. There’s almost no room for discussion of people who aren’t convinced that microdosing is a positive.
What's interesting to me about this study is it was done with people who already actively microdose. So they have prior experience of what non-placebo microdosing feels like to them. The placebo effect might be much stronger in that population than a population that has never microdosed. That could be great news in terms of long term benefits of microdosing by using a combo of placebo and actual psychedelics.
You might find those same results micro-dosing anything from a self-selected group. I bet you'd find a group of ice cream enthusiasts that would be onboard for this.
That said, I am supportive of more rigorous studies along these lines.
I certainly self-report higher levels of satisfaction, lower levels of depression and anxiety when I dose with ice cream. I don't really do the micro part though. Full dose only. Let me know if you want to do a double blind study. We might face some study problems since I can certainly tell if I'm in the placebo group. If you can come up with a viable ice cream placebo I'm all ears.
If a tiny sip of beer every couple of days had such marked benefits and few downsides, I feel like it would be legitimately considered as at least an option.
I feel like at this point it's pretty well established that having a few glasses of wine a week was actually associated with being upper class, which was why those studies correlated it with better health outcomes.
It's also a problem that not drinking at all is a leading indicator that you are already sick (i.e. you stop drinking because you can't tolerate it, but you can't tolerate it because something is wrong which is not yet diagnosed but will be in a later assessment).
Unfortunately, I don't see what this study adds to the microdosing literature. We already know from plenty of surveys that people will self-report a lot of benefits; and we also already know that adding in randomization, longitudinal tracking, or blinding makes most or all of the effects go away. The simplest explanation is that most or all of it is placebo/demand effect, and running yet another self-selected cross-sectional survey on unblinded participants doesn't help.
> We already know from plenty of surveys that people will self-report a lot of benefits; and we also already know that adding in randomization, longitudinal tracking, or blinding makes most or all of the effects go away.
Do we know this or do we "know" this?
Having another study, even a self reported one like this, doesn't degrade the scientific body of knowledge, it adds to it. The fact that there have been other studies doesn't make doing another worthless.
I also think a lot of people here are discounting the fact that this study would typically be very hard (or impossible) to administer at such a large scale, especially in such a short amount of time.
In my mind, the important questions here are:
Are the benefits of massive scale studies worth the trade-offs of self-reporting?
What can we do to reduce or eliminate those trade-offs?
Imagine the scientific value of having easily created, easily administered, massive studies be easily accessible to any research group. If the research data can be made even a little bit more reliable, that's hugely valuable.
>doesn't degrade the scientific body of knowledge, it adds to it.
Yes. The simple corollary to Bayes theorem: all observations, even biased ones, improve your knowledge of the world.
But it doesn't say anything about efficiency. A single photodiode mechanically scanned behind a pinhole can capture the same image as an image sensor behind a lens, but it takes millions of times longer. A self-reporting survey will say something, but it will be very noisy. How many self-report surveys would it take to match an actual double-blinded study with double digit participants? What if the answer is "hundreds"? Should we wait a century for all these surveys to be done before even attempting data analysis? (After all, surveying the same set of people over and over won't give you additional data. You need to wait for some of the survey respondents to die) What about all the people in the preceding 99 years who, perhaps reasonably, look at a stack of fifty self-reported surveys that all say the same thing, and come to an incorrect conclusion? Science is right eventually, not right right now.
You say that "millions" of participants should be useful, almost automatically. Why should that be the case? If you're off by an order of magnitude somewhere in your stack of assumptions, the data could be noisy enough that you need to be sample from a population of a hundred billion. If the data is bad enough or biased enough then even a large survey wouldn't be powered enough without a world population ten times bigger.
> You say that "millions" of participants should be useful, almost automatically.
I don't disagree that there are issues with self-reported data, but I do disagree with saying that a large set of self-reported data is worthless.
I also didn't say millions, I said massive. Which in the case of research like this could be the difference of 40k participants (through an app) and 100 participants (clinically). While the size of the data set isn't everything, it does matter. With 40k participants you could aggressively invalidate 30k of them and still have 100 times as many data points for statistical validity as that clinical study. The clinical study would also cost more and take much more time to implement.
> How many self-report surveys would it take to match an actual double-blinded study with double digit participants? What if the answer is "hundreds"?
I don't know, but how many more can be easily done now if technology is used like it was here?
What if doing 100s in the same amount of time is now feasible?
What if it takes far fewer than your arbitrary assumption of 100s of studies?
What if it only takes 1 study with 100x the participants?
No one here is advocating for stopping double-blinded studies. Why not both?
> If you're off by an order of magnitude somewhere in your stack of assumptions, the data could be noisy enough that you need to be sample from a population of a hundred billion.
Why would you assume that it would be off by an order of magnitude? That seems about as likely as the data being perfectly accurate (that is, very unlikely).
And why 100 billion? It seems like you're just throwing out arbitrarily large numbers here.
> Should we wait a century for all these surveys to be done before even attempting data analysis?
This study took less than a year, and because it was automated, could likely be run concurrently with others. Why would it take a century?
> surveying the same set of people over and over won't give you additional data. You need to wait for some of the survey respondents to die.
Why would they survey the same set of people for the same study? There's a lot of people in the world.
I know you've decided for some reason that it would take 100 billion people, and that 100s of studies would need to be done to compare to even one clinical study. I know that for some reason you think that would take a century instead of in parallel.
Consider for a second that if you're wrong on any of those magically large and arbitrary numbers, this might actually have some value to the world instead of dismissing it out of hand.
Again, no one is suggesting any fewer clinical, double blinded, etc. studies. Doing studies this way has some potentially very large upside, and it can be easily used in tandem with those other studies to speed up research and gain much larger data sets.
Yes it has trade-offs. We can be aware of those without throwing out the whole idea.
Yes, but it might make sense to do a very well structured case-control study using mouse or rat models.
There are well over 200 highly diverse lines of mice that could be split into isogenic cases and controls by sex, age, and any other instrumental variable (diet, enrichment).
We have many objective ways to quantify rodent health and behavior. Admittedly, there is no “happiness” metric that is translationally relevant to humans, but at least with rodents we can critically evaluate what goes on in the CNS at molecular and synaptic levels with and without drug X.
Mice and rats are in the same Supraprimate superoder (the euarchonta) with monkeys and apes. They are also fine for rigorous case-control studies of drug effects, IF and ONLY IF the study includes a high level of genetic variation among the rodents that will model hunan genetic and biochemical diversity. Unfortunately, typical rodent studies of just a single inbred type of mouse or rat are of modest translational relevance to humans.
> Having another study, even a self reported one like this, doesn't degrade the scientific body of knowledge, it adds to it.
I really don't see how it's valuable. I don't even believe my friends when they talk about how much micro-dosing benefits them (and this is coming from someone who is a huge supporter of psychedelics). People are really good at making themselves believe what they want to believe.
Yeah, self-reported data should be taken with a grain of salt. On a large enough scale though, that data says something though. It might not be the original insight you're looking for, but it's still data.
There are also plenty of tests and measurements that can be given over an app that don't rely solely on subjective self reporting too though. For instance: reflexive tapping tests, wearable health telemetry, memory tests, etc., etc.
I'm excited to see researchers taking advantage of tech to speed up studies and make research more feasible in general. More research means more insights and advancements in the long run for all of us.
It's in Nature Scientific Reports. Not the same journal as it's better known sibling, and it takes the megajournal approach of not judging notability, only rigour.
That said, the reputation of any journal is a poor predictor of the impact of papers published in it, so you shouldn't judge. In fact that's why megajournals like nature scientific reports, plos one and peerj have become so popular.
That's what I was wondering as well, this is obviously a study done on a very small budget with conclusions that could be called a stretch but maybe they knew that research in that area gets more attention?
This study has a solid methodology, and concluded that microdosing positive effects look significantly similar to placebo.
Given psychedelic agonistic activity on the 5ht2b receptors, chronic use is advised against because of the possibility of significant injury to the heart.
Fen-phen, notorious for causing heart failure, had the same mechanism of action. Phentermine and its analogs are still in use, but fenfluramine was found to be lethally dangerous, because of significant agonistic activity at 5ht2b receptors.
It remains to be seen if the dose makes the poison, but chronic stimulation of the receptors would seem to be inadvisable, given that the benefits of microdosing aren't distinguishable from placebo, according to a well designed study.
Full, heroic doses every 6 months have a proven positive effect, so treat yourself to a trip under the right conditions if you're wanting a boost to creativity and calming of the inner chatter.
The work of Dr. David Nutt is phenomenal. He is an advocate for science and for ending the absurd war on drugs.
Johns Hopkins is doing stellar work as well, using extremely rigorous and institutionally impeccable methodology to investigate psychedelics as treatment for some of the most pernicious conditions affecting the human mind.
I support the basis of this study, I myself have benefitted from the practice. However, something that most overlook or simply aren't aware of is that the prolonged use of psychedelics, specifically psilocin (active psych in mushrooms) carries a cardio-toxicity[0]. Put simply, for reasons that aren't yet known, psychedelics over time will slowly erode the lining of certain heart / circulatory muscles.
> So mental health is not actually accessed medically and simply self-reported.
Saddly from my experience self-reported is about as accurate as any medical professional. When I was actively seeing professional help it always started off filling out PHQ-9, adding up the numbers and seeing the sum in the range of depression.
I was never officially told I've been diagnosed with anything but it was enough to where I've gone through a plethora of psychiatric medication.
The question here is whether the paper supports the idea that it's worth looking into. Your parent comment suggests that it doesn't (or at least, doesn't strongly).
I replied something similar elsewhere, but I think the real story here is about using tech to administer large scale studies and what that could mean for future research.
A lot of people here are discounting the fact that this study would typically be very hard (or impossible) to administer at such a large scale, especially in such a short amount of time.
In my mind, the important questions here are:
Are the benefits of massive scale studies worth the trade-offs of self-reporting?
What can we do to reduce or eliminate those trade-offs?
Imagine the scientific value of having easily created, easily administered, massive studies be easily accessible to any research group. If the research data can be made even a little bit more reliable (direct mobile health-kit measurements for example), that's hugely valuable.
Hi, I'm one of the co-authors on the study, and also a co-founder of Quantified Citizen which developed the platform used in this study. I just left a reply further up this thread detailing some of the logic behind our approach, and you're asking some great questions here.
A simple way of thinking about this is that you're almost always making a trade off between quality and quantity when you collect data, with enough quantity you can hope to overcome some of the quality concerns. For instance our study also included a finger tapping test (analysis will be in an upcoming paper). This would have traditionally be administered in a lab by a technician by placing electrodes on a persons thumb and forefinger and asking them to tap them together. It is a validated practice for measuring Parkinson's symptoms or neuromuscular integrity. We can easily replicate something like this on a mobile app.
Obviously doing it this way might result in noisier or less reliable data because there isn't a technician standing next to them helping them to get it right. Over time we have improved this by adding better instructions, addressing training effects and providing better instructions. We also collect data like screen resolution and phone model with each response so we can account for people who switch devices between tests or device-specific issues. And having datasets measured in the thousands means that a lot of these confounders come out in the wash, which isn't the case with study populations measured in the tens.
We're picking up the pace on our technical development. Version 2 of the app will be out in the next week or two; we planned to get it out before this paper was published, but they surprised us with a very fast turn-around on the proofs. One of our goals is to make this type of research more agile, in a similar way that the software industry moved from waterfall project management to more rapid iterations. If the cost of designing and deploying a study is low enough, and data can get back fast enough, researchers can do more rapid pilot studies and iterations, and more quickly make adjustments to add new scales and assessments.
On the subject of direct HealthKit measurements that's also a trend that we're excited about. The new version of our app will read from HealthKit and Google Fit, and we will be adding more integrations to other wearables and passively collected data with a privacy-by-design approach. We'll also be moving towards a design where users can consolidate different feeds of data and assessments that they are interested in collecting for intrinsic reasons, and then choose to make these available to different research projects.
More anecdotal than anything else, my fiance suffered from crippling anxiety and moderate depression until mushrooms. Since then, she's come leaps and bounds, and she attributes quite a bit of this to her trip.
As for myself, it helped me get over a mountain of grief after a rough childhood. I feel like there's no way I'd be where I am or forgive as much as I have unless I had taken them.
No, they're not addictive.
No, you can't take them repeatedly within a short time span.
Yes, they're decriminalized/legalized in many areas.
That's all nice and dandy, but with severe mental issues you mention, you both were much more lucky than you clearly realize. Shrooms can do true magic, but can easily drag you to the deepest sewer your mind can come up with, and drown you there. In extreme cases, it can literally break you, sometimes forever. There are people who end up in psychiatric ward for the rest of their lives after single acid trip, sometimes after way too high dose, sometimes not.
There is no way to guarantee the outcome the first time, that's why medical expert supervision is important, especially for people with mental issues/baggage.
That is all being said by person who did shrooms few times, alone, laying with closed eyes and the journey inward and back, with dissolution and later recomposition of every sense and part of my being as a bonus. By far the strongest experience in my life. It was absolutely amazing and beyond positive. But I don't have any mental or childhood issues and am very balanced person who knows himself pretty well (also thanx to these experiences).
I'm sorry but your comment is fear mongering. The idea that psychedelics are dangerous unless you are 'mentally healthy' misses the point of these substances entirely. Yes they can sometimes do real harm but I would dare to say that those cases are extremely rare and often relate to people with mental ailments like schizophrenia, not issues like depression, anxiety, regret, remorse.
Our understanding of the effects of set and setting has come a long way, and a lot of bad experiences can be chalked up to not taking these into account. The understanding of severe psychological conditions that would serve as a contraindication for psychedelic medicine is also progressing.
On the subject of bad trips (or the better term "challenging experiences"), Roland Griffith's lab at Johns Hopkins has found that people who had "bad trips" on psilocybin often actually experienced better long term improvements. Sometimes the best way out is through, and these medicines appear to help people confront issues that they have a hard time facing through standard approaches.
>there are people that end up in psychiatric wards after one acid trip.
Really, where have you heard this. I have only heard myths about this. Do we have any collections of data for these cases?
Something that is interesting is one of the lead researchers in the area professes that the disclaimer about psychotic episodes due to psychedelics in research is not based on any study more of a fear of tainting the study outcomes.
This happened to me, but with a high dose of marijuana. It was maybe maybe 3rd time I ever tried it. There is a confirmed connection between marijuana use and psychosis in those genetically susceptible. Hang around any schizophrenia forum long enough and you'll see plenty of stories from people who obtained their mental health problems from drug use.
When we considered the permanent and irreversible dependency and damage that years of anti-depressants could have done, the choice seemed to favor mushrooms.
That said, we...
- took smaller doses
- went with a beginner friendly strain
- dosed in a calm, trusting setting
- had guides that ensured our safety
Don't take these things lightly, and they'll treat you well.
> There are people who end up in psychiatric ward for the rest of their lives after single acid trip, sometimes after way too high dose, sometimes not.
There are also people who end up in a psych ward for the rest of their lives without ever taking hallucinogens.
This is textbook fearmongering: handpicking bad outcomes to paint the wrong picture. I bet the risk of losing mind after shrooms is much lower than dying in a car accident.
Co-author here, the discussion section of the paper details many of the limitations raised by commenters here in greater depth. People seem to be debunking claims that aren't made in the paper. I'm biased but I don't think Nature Scientific Reports can be accused of publishing clickbait in this case.
Is it more likely that Nature suddenly lost it's integrity or that people on HN might be jumping to conclusions about what the study actually says and how it was run?
I don't see anything in the study that claims anything other than the truth? It's not like it's saying "Microdosing will make you happy".
The title is literally "Adults who microdose psychedelics report health related motivations and lower levels of anxiety and depression compared to non-microdosers"
It then tells you how the research was done, and what the statistics were. This isn't a random news website saying "Chocolate prevents cancers" or something.
I'd be careful though. Psychedelic are a powerful eye opener that can and do help with depression, but taking them regularly, even just a microdose can be a very reckless thing. They have the potential to completely drive you insane if you over do it and are best enjoyed with long intervals in between.
Where is your evidence that they drove people completely insane? I'm not doubting there are serious potential side effects, but the description "completely drive you insane" is a bit vague to me.
If people here are seriously asking for evidence-based proof that acid can destroy people, then they are not very old or have survived partying / rave scenes.
The term "acid casualty" exists for a reason. I've known a few people that over-indulged and became detached weirdos and never came back.
It's not a 'wives tale' as someone here said. Take acid by all means. Just know that you could become a despondent ghoul if you go too hard and frequently.
Have you ever hung out with someone who has taken recreational dose LSD several times per week for months?
I know two people who did this, and they both got very weird and ended up putting themselves in dangerous situations from their questionable judgement, years after they stopped even. One flipped his car while drunk and tripping and got seriously injured, but he made serious lifestyle changes. Months later he had a psychotic break and got arrested naked in the street. He is mostly better however he is still a shell of his former self. The other ended up getting addicted to heroin and overdosed several years later. Could just be selection bias and clustering of risky behaviors, but I believe the LSD played some role (possibly related to an interaction between LSD and SSRIs).
I think there are a lot of potential therapeutic benefits that should be studied, but clandestine microdosing is still risky as its practically impossible dose accurately and many people who think they are microdosing are taking doses that exceed the perceptual threshold because they don't think it's working if they don't feel it. Taking 5mcg LSD 3x week is probably mostly safe. Taking 40mcg once a quarter is also probably mostly safe. Taking an unknown 10-40 mcg 3x week seems like it could be entering the danger zone.
(Please learn about volumetric dosing if you're considering microdosing - it at least allows consistency. Fractions of blotter are inherently inconsistent because blotter concentration is not homogenous.)
In the US in the 80’s and 90’s many kids were taught that the psychosis seen in many Vietnam soldiers after they’re return was due to psychedelic drugs and not a failed war, with little support, and lack of effort by the federal government.
I'd like to ask people who were kids in the 80s and 90s if they are aware how many Vietnam soldiers were addicted to heroin upon returning, and what kind of effect that had.
Was he by any chance hanging out with a crowd of people "detached from reality and pure reasoning", or consuming media written or recorded by people detached from reality and pure reasoning? Psychedelic use is associated with reinforcing personality traits related to openness to new ideas and "absortion". So do naturally occurring religious experiences. It's a tale as old as humanity, it's not the altered brain chemistry alone, it's the setting.
You can definitely overdo psychedelics and fuck up your mind if you are careless with them. Maybe read up a bit on erowid, dmtnexus, shroomery, plenty of warnings from people who went to deep. Don't be stupid and naive.
Microdosing may seem harmless, but it also means taking psychedelics every day for long periods. I wouldn't do more than 2 weeks, you gotta have to function without the drug at some point, can't imagine dosing LSD for a year and then stopping will be pleasant. But your mileage might vary... I just have way to much respect for psychedelics to take them every day.
I always find phrases like "detached from reality" in discussions about psychedelics to be somewhat ironic. I mean, I know what meaning you intend, but the phrase itself is a bit suspect if interpreted literally.
We're talking about the impact of drug use on mental health. I'm saying: look at the homeless epidemic. 90% of those folks have substance abuse issues.
If you've done any psychedelics you would be foolish to not notice that they can drive a person insane under the right circumstances.
Would I be foolish, or do I just need to be convinced with better evidence? You seem to be using a gateway type drug analogy combined with anecdote mixed with all sorts of other factors.
And no I wasn't talking about "drugs" I was talking about psychedelics and their targeted use/dosage. I made the counter claim to provide evidence that psychedelics cause permanent psychosis. No one seems to be able to produce such evidence, and your point of casually linking homelessness to drug use may be all fine in a grand sense but with respect to the topic at hand it just looks like a red herring.
I think it's foolish to think that acid doesn't induce psychosis. But perhaps you need better evidence.
That's not to say that microdosing can't be useful. But I think it's possibly quite dangerous for some people. My evidence of that is knowing people who have done too much acid, and meeting plenty of street people in Haight-Ashbury who do acid.
Perhaps a more harmonious way of discussing this notion: what percentage of times does psychedelic usage lead to psychosis, and what evidence do we have that could suggest a plausibly accurate answer to that question?
This perfectly encapsulates my feeling. I see a lot of talk about the psychosis hypothesis but little in the way of evidence. Folks have some really rustled jimmies about being called out that evidence.
As a psychedelics enthusiast myself, who is particularly fascinated by the phenomenon whereby they demonstrate that the way we perceive reality in normal states of mind is obviously imperfect/filtered, reading people who are in normal states of mind talking about what psychedelics "are" or "do" (or, talkig about anything regarding reality, really) is....trippy.
It's basically a window into a malfunctioning brain. You bounce back when it wears off, but you can definitely change from tripping too much. Have you never met someone who has done too much acid?
More accurately: People who claim to be microdosing also claim to have lower levels of depression and anxiety, compared to people who claim they are not microdosing.
None of this tells me whether or not people who have the time and money to microdose are simply in a situation more conducive to mental wellbeing.
Why is it so hard to find fair criticism with in this comment section. Your comment is one of few that stays on topic to the study and skips the hyperbole. Thank you.
fwiw lsd is very cheap compared to other drugs/medicines. i can get enough for a year for $30. (ten tabs as $3 a tab, 150/250u == ten strips per tab, 100 microdoses spread over the year, about twice a week).
Anecdotal, but since I moved to Canada I enjoyed the legality of cannabis (thank you SQDC) and started to dose THC oil before bed and it solved most of my sleep issues (used to have insomnia).
Every morning I wake up relaxed, refreshed and it stays the same through the day.
Before that I used to do something similar with shrooms but in the morning. Always had that odd feeling I was borderline of starting to trip even with very low micro doses.
But my experience in both cases is pretty similar to what people usually say about micro dosing.
I've found that daily THC before bed impairs my ability to dream and taking a few nights off results in very vivid dreams. I'm in the same boat - it basically has cured or at least majorly blunted my insomnia.
It might be related to having better/deeper sleep. When you sleep deeper and don't have interruptions, you probably wouldn't remember your dreams. When you withdraw, your sleep quality decreases, leading to more interruptions/shallower sleep, creating more possibility to remember your dreams. Just my two cents, of course I'm no pro and just speculating.
I think it's important to understand that there are trade-offs, even if this is a very powerful treatment. I tend to vary between THC-assisted sleep anywhere from 25% to 100% of nights and the trade-off of reduced REM is totally worth it. I do find that extended periods of 100% assisted sleep tend to make my memory a little foggy and that taking a week off resets things.
Why not CBD instead? For me THC is very energetic in nature and would make my mind race violently. My biology must be very different to yours if you're able to take THC before sleep.
Same for me, THC is bringing my whole being to life, my senses are enhanced, motivation rises, ideas start popping and my mind becomes awakened. I can definitely not go to sleep after that and if I do I have an agitated shallow sleep. I consume something close to micro dosing, maybe a tiny bit more but not on a regular basis. CBD does have the relaxing effect needed for insomnias but since I don't really have that problem I rarely use CBD.
The strain does not make a huge difference to me, Indica does not much make of difference, I still get somewhat energized by it. It is quite unusual that I get the opposite effect from other people but I know I'm not the only one.
I don't really feel anything from store bought cbd edibles/oils either and I'm one of the most substance sensitive people I know. If you're still interested, I recommend buying some high cbd hemp online and smoking it. You will definitely notice that.
I always seem to dream more with CBD, I don't know if that translates into better sleep quality or it's just better dream recall, but it seems quite consistent.
My understanding is that the terms "indica" and "sativa" have sort of lost their meaning a little bit. I believe those terms technically refer to the height of the stem, and that it doesn't necessarily translate to the effects of the high the way we once thought it did.
For example, I always had the same understanding of indica as you described, and I would solely buy indica gummies. They would give me a pretty "heavy" high, full body but mostly in my head, and I would wake up lethargic and often with a headache. I switched to a "sativa" of the same brand, and got a very nice full body high, but much lighter, very relaxing, and would sleep very well and wake up feeling refreshed.
Anyway, all that to say, different strains have different effects, and often the description from the dispensary can give you a good idea of the effects they are intended to have.
Indica and sativa don’t mean anything, please stop spreading misinformation. Different strains have different effects due to the cannabanoid and terpene profile of a specific strain, sativa and indica don’t mean anything.
Yeah cause your high lol. Psychedelics and other drugs can provide a different perspective of looking at things. For some people this might help them. For a lot of people I still believe that we should be doing studies with meditation and breathing exercises first. As much as I think drugs like marijuana have helped me become very emotionally intelligent, drugs are still dangerous even if they can’t physically hurt you. I think headlines like this which are used only to drive clicks to nature.com are 100 percent inaccurate and misleading. It’s hard to be depressed when your high (yes it’s microcode but ur still high and you know it lol). Doing research on this is fine but for nature.com to take it and write this headline is cancer
Disclosure: Haven't read the paper yet, time constraints...
One think pointed out when I stumbled about similar papers before was:
The reduction of depression, anxiety, stress from micro-dosing are rediculus small compared to the effects of a more healthy live style and environment. Even just taking a walk in nature for 10min a day often had many times stronger positive effects.
Anecdotally I've seen these effects in someone I care about. They live a very healthy life and do all the other stuff well, but still no effect. They take one medium dose of psychedelics and are transformed for weeks. The effects do wear off. That effect by the way is the extremely esoteric "feeling openness". It is night and day for how they feel socially.
I also have not read this study yet judging from a few comments it's not really randomized or blinded or anything.so the takeaways are very minimal.
> They take one medium dose of psychedelics and are transformed for weeks
How much is this "medium dose"? In all likelihood it's not a microdose, which is what is under discussion. It's well known that higher doses can have lasting effects.
I don't think feeling openness is extremely esoteric. One of the five basic personality traits is Open-Mindedness. It allows us to accept data with less bias, prediction, and judgment. It allows us to refresh our browsers, clear our cache, and garbage collect our minds. Open-Mindedness is a wonderful trait that everyone should cultivate.
I walk at least two miles a day outside, every day, and have for years. I'm in the middle of a bout of depression, and I was having a very hard time focusing on work while at work. I've been microdosing for two weeks now, and I've noticed a huge increase in my productivity at work, as well as my general mood. I guess what I'm trying to say is that regular exercise/nature can only get me so far, and even a ridiculously small improvement from psilocybin has been a game changer to me. So, why not both?
Almost 100% of people who increase their consumption of cucumbers during common cold feel significantly better after two weeks. Maybe cucumbers work for depression too. You should check them out.
Posting low quality anecdata on drugs is disrespectful for the time of people who can validate the data quality, and outright dangerous for the people who can not.
What part of these two claims you find doubtful exactly?
Respect part is about wasting people's time (if knowingly).
The danger part is the same as with any other misleading information, which can lead people to consume damaging amounts of dangerous substances for now good reason (at least not better than just eating cucumbers instead).
Hi everyone, I'm a co-author on this paper and also the co-founder of Quantified Citizen (we built the mobile research platform used in this study). What a nice experience to see this on the front page this morning.
I'll address a few of the comments made here so far below, but feel free to reply with more questions (or reach out directly, email in bio) and I'll try to get back to them throughout the day.
There are a lot of comments re-iterating concerns already covered in the limitations section of the paper. It's clear that an observational approach like this cannot establish causality and that self-selected recruitment can introduce bias, and the paper acknowledges this. RCTs will happen on this subject, but there aren't many significant ones published yet, and other types of evidence also provide value.
The subject of microdosing is one where the community practice and experimentation is far ahead of where the science is, which is different from research into regulated medicines where drugs are either not on the market or prescribed by doctors. There are a lot of health-related topics like this that are understudied where practice within a community that is not served by mainstream medicine moves forward slowly through anecdotes and informal discovery processes. Think not just about stigmatized subjects like psychedelics, but also about chronic disease communities, biohackers, athletes, etc. Sometimes alternative therapies and bottom-up health practices like these end up being validated by the scientific community, and other times the relative lack of rigor leads to years of people taking harmful or fruitless approaches. Bringing a more scientific lens to what people are already doing and speeding up the feedback loop with the research community is a big part of what we're doing with our company.
For microdosing specifically, there is a lot to discover by gathering evidence on motivations, demographics, and methods of real-world usage. The paper linked to above brings new insights into these topics, and is the first published research looking at the practice of stacking. One advantage of a large (n=8703) observational approach like this is that it helps pull signals from the noise to help inform further study.
The patient-reported data on depression and anxiety comes form the standardized DASS-21 scale which is a widely used self-report tool in psychological research. In addition to this data, we also included various quantitative cognitive tasks in the app (data will be analyzed in upcoming papers, stay tuned). While this data isn't collected in a controlled environment our approach collects data from so many participants that we have power across various demographics and methods of use. We also encouraged non-microdosers to participate, and the relatively low burden of participating meant that many submitted data throughout the study period.
Surely this analysis is completely flawed unless they were able to introduce placebos unwittingly to the participants who thought they were microdosing?
Otherwise you've got a bunch of people who are the sorts of people who are going to try microdosing. Of course they're going to answer questionnaires in a way that scores them as less depressed. Firstly because they're less depressed people (can be bothered to work out how the hell to get hold of the stuff) and secondly because they're not stupid and know what sorts of answers will influence the score in what direction).
Totally did not read the paper. Someone tell me I'm wrong please!
Tread carefully when altering the processes that constitute your ability to reason. I know somebody who nearly broke their mind by dosing with this and that chemical to self heal their issues.
Were they microdosing, or repeatedly consuming full doses of psychedelics? Were "this and that chemical" psychedelics at all, or drugs of unknown type and providence? What is the connection to this discussion, which is about adults microdosing psychedelics?
Definitely true, but it feels like proponents have a heads i win tails you lose mindset to these anecdotes. When things go well, it's bc of the drugs, and when things go poorly, it's the underlying issues.
This article is about microdosing, which is very small doses of psychedelics, well under the threshold dose for a proper psychedelic "trip". For psilocybin, a microdose would be on the order of 200mg, which is 1/10th the minimum threshold dose for a full-on trip (2 grams).
Microdosing isn't going to alter your ability to reason.
Sam Harris states that, when it comes to self discovery, meditation is like a sail boat slowly heading towards mental clarity. In contrast, psychedelics are like strapping yourself to a rocket and hoping you see clarity and change your mind along the wild, dangerous ride.
Psilocybe cubensis - in particular, the "Golden Teacher" strain. It is native to the Americas, and cultivated in Vancouver. Received in full fruiting body form, ground in to powder for consistency of dosage. Initially, I started with .10g, up to .20g. Most of the dosing is between those values.
The schedule is 5 on, 2 off, and it's taken in conjunction with B3 (Niacin) and Lion's Mane (a non-psychoactive mushroom). All together, the mix promotes neurogenesis.
Combined with tools like meditation, exercise, and a supportive environment, it can do wonders to help re-construct toxic patterns built from long-term depressions and anxieties.
Might want to switch to a b complex. I heard a wives tale that b vitamins work in pairs and ramping up one can lead to a shortage in another. I don't even know how to research this for validity though.
Very skeptical. How can one possibly trust self reported "microdosing" for something like LSD where a normal dose is on the order of tens of micrograms? Not to mention that self reported users can't be relied upon to reliably determine the provenance or quality of what they're ingesting. There are similar issues involved with something like mushrooms where freshness, natural concentration, and mode of preparation are all major factors on the drug's effects.
Chris Rock had a good bit about this a couple of decades ago with alcohol and marijuana. To paraphrase, if you want to figure out which is worse, just ask the kids if they'd rather have daddy come home drunk or stoned. Drunk daddy yells and stumbles around and breaks stuff and throws up. Stoned daddy giggles at cartoons and orders pizza.
I've seen several anecdotes from stay at home parents who microdose psilocybin and say it helps them better connect and play with their children sincerely. I think it's plausible it could facilitate the development of deeper emotional bonds and empathy in some cases. Certainly worthy of study with some reasonable controls.
Outcomes of the study aside, it is great that despite the legality of these substances, we are seeing research beginning to bubble up into popular culture. I believe they can help a lot of people, and are so under researched!
All depression and anxiety scales are self-reported questionnaires AFAIK. I'm sure there's ways to get a more objective relative anxiety level via sweat/temperature/etc but I'm not aware of anyone using that to measure changes over time.
Would love to participate in a study just because I can't get regular access to mushrooms/cacti without growing it myself, and LSD is much harder to come across these days in my area.
Nootropics is a very vaguely defined categorization. There are certainly vitamins and amino acids that improve brain function (especially in cases of deficits) that are underexpressed in modern food because of our optimization for size, shelf stability and appearance.
However, the idea that there could be chemicals like psilocybin or modafinil or piracetam that used to be in our produce seems highly implausible.
If a cure for depression was ever found, you'd be fighting a lot of very rich and very powerful companies with a vested interest in keeping people on their products forever
I'm not a doctor or health professional of any kind.
But my friend showed me a study a while back of turmeric supplementation and how it can be comparable and in some cases more effective than prozac: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23832433/
I started taking 450-900mg daily and noticed an increase in optimistic perspective and seeing "the point" of doing things during rut of burnout after quitting my last job.
Just my story. This is not health advice.
Be careful, turmeric can sometimes be adulterated with lead chromate to give it a more vibrant orange color. Make sure you buy from reputable places that test it if supplementing.
There was a quite promising study treating depression with psychedelics. Study precipitants reported 3 months of relief from a single dose. I think it was paired with therapy. One study is hardly conclusive. I'd love to see more of those studies.
I know you're kidding. But with microdosing you shouldn't feel high. Similar with taking pharmaceutical pills, you'll feel something, but it won't impair your day
Are you making an honest attempt to be civil if you're also stating the "guy is full of shit"? I asked for evidence too, but civility and calling someone full of shit in the same thread?
Nah, what's full of shit is you up on your intellectual high-horse acting as if you're the god of all knowable and unknowable things.
You yourself - o great one and master of all logic and intelligence - should know that a conclusion can still be true even if there is no well-documented evidence simply because enough research hasn't been done yet.
But of course it's much easier to blow people off with a "cite your sources, bruh" and then act like you know everything with a zero-effort comment. Yea, pretty sure it's you that's full of shit.
Attacking another user like that will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong they are or you feel they are. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not post like this again, we'd be grateful.
Seen as how you aren't originally apart of the thread. This clearly struck a nerve. Are you okay?
By the way I didn't act like I know everything, I acted confident in the absence of knowledge about a thing and challenged someone on their bold claim to which to me requires good evidence.
What your comment misses completely is when I say I'd be delighted in a response that has some evidence I really do mean that.
Cant you have to agree it gets tiring reading statements that assert bold claims of which have such a low probability of credibility.
Not average as in someone that is doctor shopping to get high, but it is someone that self-selected themselves for it. How much of the effect is placebo? Skimming the paper it is not mentioned except in the title of one reference.
Well not being a restricted drug is a practical difference. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against microdosing or anything. I'm just skeptical. I've listened to one too many acid-head's long winded speeches about enlightenment to take what people are self reporting about it seriously.
I'm a big believer in medical use of psychedelics, but if the effect is strictly due to placebo, then there are cheaper and safer placebos we can give.
Placebos actually do work even if the patient knows they are placebos (source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...), but regardless, how do you keep the patients from finding out that the psychedelics are just placebos? Why not just use some other realistic-sounding placebo like a rare herb or something?
I ate two bananas before my motorcycle test for their placebo effects to calm nerves. Cool as a cucumber I passed without a jitter on the throttle. It's anect-data-l. I know.
I think you misunderstand placebo. The placebo is needed foremost to reduce falsely reporting positive and negative effects after the study. E.G. for most drugs not beating placebo is essentially the same as zero or even negative effect. The rare exceptions when giving sugar water actually improves something because person thought they got a cure are themselves very anecdotal.
Very few drugs doctors prescribe for depression, or anxiety, get you high.
After trying at least 7 antidepressants over the years; I sometimes wonder exactly how much over Placebo do they work.
My doctor finally came clean one day. Antidepressants at their best might give you a bit more energy.
I noticed he started prescribing bupenorpine off label for treatment resistant depression. I understand why. I think he got tired of seeing patients not responding to traditional antidepresssants.
Most psychiatrists will not deviate from the old standbys though, even the progressive doctors.
(I can offer this. With time you will start to feel better. Everyone's biology is different. My depression when it hits sometimes takes a few weeks/months to lighten up, but it always lightened up, and wasen't tied to situational circumstances.)
Your comment has an interesting perspective, but I disagree that anti-depressants would solely give you more energy as a treatment.
The vast majority of them these days are SSRI, which effectively raises the level of serotonin that your body (not just brain) functions under. If anything, they will tend to make you more tired and blunt mood swings.
Bupropion, on the other hand, is a wonder drug for me that seems to effectively remove the bottom of my depression without really causing any other side-effects (except maybe a subtle positive effect on ADHD symptoms).
First, even if your statement was correct, it would say nothing about the OP (or my) issues of selective sampling.
Second, people who receive medicine for their ailments are not 'drug seekers' by any stretch of the imagination. People do not 'seek' blood thinners arbitrarily, people seek drugs which provide some kind of physical or psychoactive experience i.e. cocaine, opiods, thc. Very few prescription drugs fit that category.
I sincerely disagree with your somewhat puritanical definition of drug seeking. If someone seeks marijuana to relieve their misery, it's "arbitrary drug seeking behaviour" but if it's blood thinners, then you're just... not looking for drugs to provide a cure? That makes no sense.
I certainly do seek out blood thinners, antidepressants, antibiotics, ect, if I am suffering from illnesses that they provide relief for. Nobody seeks out drugs "arbitrarily" whatsoever. You seem to think that people who use narcotics to address their pain aren't worthy of a medical definition that is reserved for people who obtain their medication from a pharma company.
It's 'cognitive dissonance' to contemplate those getting prescriptions for diabetes, cancer and chemo as 'drug seekers' who are in any way remotely similar to those buying illegal drugs, most of which are not purchased for therapeutic value.
> most of which are not purchased for therapeutic value
There's that puritanism again. Both classes of people are seeking relief, you can simply touch one class of illness but not the other. It's the human condition to seek relief, not some pharma company buzzword that segregates acceptable pharmaceutical use and unacceptable use.
Your classification of narcotics users as plain hedonists - in no way empathizing with that user's need to have some form of relief from whatever is plaguing them - is the dissonance.
It's important to have studies. How else can we justify our microdosing trends? Obviously we'd love an RCT, randomization to those who are willing, and placebo controls to help fool those who are motivated by the thought of taking a treatment.
It's relatively common to end an affirmative sentence with a question mark when your intent is to say something you consider to be clearly right, as opposed to the thing you're replying to, which you consider to be clearly wrong.
I happened to search what it could mean before you answered and got many conflicting answers like yours and [0]. I guess we can only know what the author meant here if he clarifies it himself.
What I said is a statement, not a question. The question mark is not a mistake. What else could it indicate if not a question? Perhaps it was marking my general sense of confusion in response to the original comment. Or it could also be adding a hint of sarcasm. What would you like me say? Do you not approve of my use of it?
Throwamon's explanation is good too. When someone asks a question with an obvious affirmative answer, a popular answer is an inquisitive "yes?". Only the thing being questioned in that case isn't the answer, its the doubt in the mind of the speaker who asked.
I suppose it may be possible to become dependent or relent on these substances, because not being depressed is better than being depressed. Assuming minimal other side effects... Probably best to skip the moral panic.
Will they do a next study lasting 10 years on addictive effects of microdosing and putting you on a path of wanting highly potent stuff gradually?? No they will not, smells like a study funded by someone to prove a point on their sales pitch...No doubt the researchers could have been under a NDA for limited disclosure of observations / the funding provider reviewing information first before anything is published. Just like antibiotic resistance develops, addiction too follows the same path...
Everyone watch out for "big mushroom". But seriously gatewayism is total bullshit, also consider these substances are not addictive and if you've ever tried micro dosing you'd notice how benign the whole experience really is.
we have 50 years of data that show psychedelics are not addictive - they stop working if done continuously and I for one have no clue why anyone would want to be in that state constantly.
> We collected cross-sectional data between November 2019 and July 2020 from self-selected respondents recruited via media related to psychedelic use such as podcasts and online psychedelic research conference presentations.
This is already a significant bias in participants.
> Mental health was assessed with the questions “Do you currently have any psychological, mental health or addiction concerns?” Participants who endorsed concerns identified specific mental health and substance use categories from a drop down menu, and were allowed to select more than one category
So mental health is not actually accessed medically and simply self-reported.
To be clear I lack an informed opinion on microdosing psychedelics, but any study that picks its participant from a community engaging in X to study X but then uses the same community to sample their control group (for lack of a better expression) is questionable.
EDIT: Page 6 has a table that compare microdosers/non-microdosers and the latter was actually less likely to self-report *any* mental health or substance use problem by 5%. It's only when using the DASS-21 subscales that they can draw the conclusion that non-microdosers are more anxious, depressed or stressed. Their microdosers/non-microdosers ratio is also almost 1:1.