LSD could be approved for treating anxiety in the US as soon as 2027. This expectation comes after a landmark trial showed that a single dose of the psychedelic drug eased the mental health condition without severe or lasting side effects. The trial was made up of people with moderate or severe anxiety who had tried a range of standard therapies.
An approval will therefore probably apply to these groups, says Cooper. But people with milder anxiety would probably be able to access it at their doctor’s discretion, he says. It is important that people don’t self-administer LSD for anxiety, says Cooper.
This affects almost 3 per cent of adults each year in the US and involves worrying excessively about a broad range of things, such as work and relationships. The team tapered the participants off any anxiety medications before randomly assigning them to either take tablets adding up to a 100-microgram dose of LSD or placebo pills. A third group took 50 micrograms of LSD, a dose that has mind-altering effects, such as hallucinations, but didn’t substantially reduce anxiety in a prior trial.
This was to overcome a common problem in psychedelic research, where participants can usually gauge whether they have taken a drug, impacting the placebo effect. Three months after the dosing day, those on the higher dose had experienced a 9.8-point reduction in their anxiety levels, on average, out of 56 on a commonly used anxiety scale. In comparison, the placebo group’s score dropped by 4.7 points, on average, according to results announced by the company.
A reduction of 9.8 would noticeably improve someone’s quality of life, says Cooper. None of the participants experienced severe or lasting side effects. Unlike most trials into psychedelics for mental health conditions, the participants in the Definium ones weren’t offered psychotherapy in the weeks following the dosing day.
Instead, they received limited psychological support on the day itself, although those already on psychotherapy were allowed to continue having it. How do we deal with anxiety generated by ever-accelerating change? Sam Conniff and Katherine Templar-Lewis’s The Uncertainty Toolkit sets out to empower us, but it’s a flawed read Adding regular psychotherapy would probably make the intervention more effective, says Evans.
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