Much of the benefit of microdosing could be placebo, experimental study suggests

The sometimes hyped the benefits of microdosing – using small amounts of psychedelic drugs like lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on a regular basis – could be overestimated, new research suggests this week. The study found that people who microdosed experienced psychological benefits, including a greater sense of well-being, but those benefits were not substantially different from what others felt when they took a placebo. the place. The results of the experimental study indicate that at least some of the benefits of microdosing can be attributed to the placebo effect, but the study has its own caveats.

Psychedelic therapy has emerged as a promising approach to improving people’s mental health in recent years. Some studies have suggested that drugs like LSD and psilocybin – the main ingredient in magic mushrooms – can help treat anxiety and depression, especially when combined with treatment. Further research found evidence positive changes in the brain cells of animals or people when exposed to psychedelics, further strengthening the case for real biological benefit. One method of using these drugs is by microdosing, which is when people take doses that are much lower than those used recreationally, on a regular schedule.

Much of the evidence for the benefits of microdosing has been based on real world observations or anecdotal experiences, which comes with its limitations. Symptoms that some people self-report when taking a medicine will improve, for example, even if the medicine did not. treated the underlying condition causing these symptoms. A clear way to overcome the limitations of anecdotal evidence is to conduct a placebo-controlled study, but these studies are generally expensive and require a lot of time and resources. This is especially true for microdosing studies, as these drugs are still illegal in many countries and scientists have to overcome obstacles to use them for research purposes.

The authors of this new study, published in eLife Tuesday, decided to take a unique approach to complete their placebo-controlled study. They enlisted the help of people already microdosed regularly, then helped them mainly to carry out the experiment on their own.

These citizen scientists were given instructions on how to do the placebo-controlled experiment, so they wouldn’t know if they were taking a placebo or the real medicine (mostly LSD, but some were also taking psilocybin) . This included putting the drug, which was in powder form, into opaque capsules, and then placing those capsules and placebo capsules into envelopes containing four doses a week. Some envelopes would contain nothing other than a placebo, others contained a mixture of placebo and drug.

All of the envelopes had a QR code attached that would allow researchers to know the contents of each envelope and the specific order of the pills taken that week, but not the volunteers. Some of the study subjects were randomly assigned to microdose two of the four weeks and received a placebo for the other two weeks, and some received the placebo all the time. During the study, all volunteers regularly completed surveys about their current psychological state.

A total of 191 people completed the experiment, making it the largest placebo-controlled study of its kind, according to the authors. The microdosing volunteers reported psychological improvements from their baseline, including reduced anxiety and a greater sense of well-being, but people taking a placebo did and overall , there were no significant differences between the three groups.

“The results suggest that the anecdotal benefits of microdosing may be explained by the placebo effect,” the authors wrote.

There are a few important caveats to these results. On the one hand, the study found a small but statistically significant difference in some results when comparing the placebo group to the microdose group; these included improvements in mood, energy and creativity. But researchers say there is a trivial explanation for this as well. About 72% of the time, better than chance, volunteers were able to accurately guess whether they were taking a placebo or a drug. So it’s possible that their expectations of feeling better may have increased when they correctly suspected that they had taken the drug rather than a placebo, meaning their blindness was not entirely foolproof.

The study also couldn’t control for variables like the purity or actual dosage of the microdose, as it relied on the typical drugs the volunteers were already using (on average, users reported taking 13 micrograms of LSD per dose, but the authors could not test how much of the active ingredient people were taking). And while they tried to make sure people followed the directions given to them, the very nature of the study meant they had less control over everything being followed correctly. Regarding the ethics of this research, the authors said they only contacted self-identified microdosers and did not collect any other personally identifiable information from them besides their email. (the study was approved by an external committee).

It’s also worth pointing out that psychedelic drugs are studied and taken for mental health in different ways and microdosing is just one approach. Some researchers have argued that it is the intensive experience of taking psychedelics (whether in relatively high microdoses or macrodoses), as well as guided therapy, that really offers people the most obvious benefits, for example. example. In 2019, the drug ketamine was adapted in an FDA-approved treatment for depression. This is taken in lower doses than when taken recreationally and under medical supervision, but it may also be a higher dose than people would take on their own during the microdosing. .

Importantly, the authors also note that the study volunteers were generally healthy, with just 7% having a current mental health diagnosis. They therefore do not rule out the possibility that microdosing may still be useful for people. mental illness.

Of course, no study should be taken as the last word on a subject, especially when it is based on an experimental approach. Nevertheless, the authors hope that their unique study design can be used in the future for other sensitive areas of research where it is difficult to include a placebo control. An immediate benefit could be the cost, since this study only required about 1% of the funding typically used to conduct a clinical trial. Other possible applications of this approach include the study of CBD, nootropics, and nutrition, they wrote.