This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Here's a novel idea for countering the painful side effects of chemotherapy: Beforehand, take the hallucinogenic drug found in magic mushrooms. The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, involved tests on rats and certain human tissues as researchers looked at using psilocybin to fight a condition called peripheral neuropathy, which affects millions of people around the world.
It is a nerve ailment that affects about three-fourths of all people who undergo chemo and commonly causes numbness and tingling, Patrick Dougherty, a co-author of the study, said in a call with reporters. But a third of that group will develop nonstop, burning pain, said Dougherty, a pain treatment specialist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The symptoms can lead to trouble walking and other debilitating complications that can last after a person finishes chemotherapy and even remain with them for life.
And it is not just a quality-of-life issue. This complication also affects cancer patients' chances of survival because sometimes the side effects are so bad they force doctors to cut back on chemo or stop it altogether. The researchers found almost by accident that psilocybin can help cancer patients.
The team was initially studying how the disease manages to hijack nerve cells to grow. The researchers were surprised to see that the mushroom ingredient—it was being used to study a brain pathway regeneration concept called neuroplasticity—actually prevented the emergence of peripheral neuropathy. Later experiments highlighted psilocybin's role in protecting nerve cells and stimulating the transport of mitochondria inside them.
Mitochondria are often referred to as a cell's powerhouse. This is key because chemo destroys the microscopic railroads that allow mitochondria to send energy all the way to the tips of people's hands and feet, killing off nerve endings there. Psilocybin also seems to act on the brain, preserving electrical activity that chemotherapy thwarts.
In rodents, taking two doses of psilocybin before chemo was enough to prevent the appearance of painful hypersensitivity during as many as six rounds of treatment. And it did this without affecting the animals' immune systems or hindering the cancer-fighting action. "This is a highly promising finding," said Kristy Townsend, a professor of neurobiology at The Ohio State University who was not involved in the study.
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