The Reemerging Field of Psychedelic Research

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

It's more like an experience study versus a drug study. The drug is a catalyst for that experience. Then the experience just seems to change us when we recalibrate what we are.

Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. You know, I'm all about the benefits of healthy fats and I've had some patients find that a high-fat keto diet is the best way to support better cognition, lose some stubborn belly fat, and even reverse certain signs of aging. But I often hear them say that it can be really hard to stick to, especially if they have busy lives and they need food they can grab on the go. So when I found Perfect Keto, I was really excited. One of my favorite items from Perfect Keto is their nut butters. They're made with MCT oil, macadamia nuts, cashews, and coconut, and they're plenty of healthy fats in there to keep you fuller longer. Plus, they have amazing flavors like chocolate hazelnut, almond butter and jelly, snickerdoodle, and macadamia vanilla, all formulated to taste great. while keeping you in ketosis. My favorite is the chocolate hazelnut. I love that it comes in an easy resealable squeeze pack that's really handy for traveling. Their keto cookies are also a really tasty way to enjoy an occasional healthy treat. They went through more than 10 recipes combined with rigorous blood and ketone testing to make sure their cookies didn't spike blood sugar. Since turning my patients and friends onto perfect keto, I've had multiple people tell me they find it much easier to stick with their diet. I'm all about finding what diet works best for your unique body, but whatever it is, it's important to be prepared with different options so you don't get stuck in a food emergency. If you're trying keto, be sure to check out Perfect Keto snacks and keep some of them on hand to help you stay successful. Right now is a great time to stock up. They're offering Doctors Pharmacy listeners 20% off plus free shipping with the code Dr. Mark. Just go to perfectketo.com/DrMark that's D-R-M-A-R-K and use the code Dr. Mark to get 20% off plus free shipping and make sure you try their Nut Butters and Keto Cookies. Now let's get back to this week's episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

Hi, I'm Kaya Perowne, one of the producers of the Doctor's Pharmacy. There has been a resurgence in research on psychedelic medicine in the last several years, and the research points to some positive benefits. Dr. Hyman explored this reemerging field of study with FDA-approved clinical researcher Dr. Anthony.

Bossis, and together they discussed how this class of drugs could change the future of medicine. It's fascinating to look at the work you've done because you have been researching to start with how we can help people with the anxiety of death and the fear of death and the transition in palliative care. And you've done some remarkable studies on this. You're the co-principal investigator and co-author of this amazing study, which we'll talk about. And you showed significant emotional distress along with sort of an enhanced existential well-being in these patients who were dying of cancer, just with a single psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms, for those who don't know what that is, psilocybin generated mystical experience with cancer. Now, first of all, science and mysticism seem like they never should come together, but you are bringing them together in this fascinating way, which is disruptive in the scientific paradigm. It's not like, you know, going to a party or going to a Grateful Dead concert and taking some mushrooms. You're actually in a very specific therapeutic setting. And I'd love for you to share some stories and the experience of what people go through and how you set it up. You call it the set and the setting and why that's important and what people actually experience.

That's great. So it's really, and I'm glad you brought that up. It's important for the viewer to know that there's a certain way we do this.

Because a lot of people take these drugs and they don't have those experiences. They might be at a party or, you know, it's like they're not necessarily.

Having that No, they may have panic experiences. Panic is the most common adverse effect. So, importantly, we're so indebted to the prior researchers. The way we do the research now is the same as was done back in the 1960s. We have better research methods and statistical analyses, but the method builds upon these early pioneers. An important distinction, most medicines people take, blood pressure, anti-anxiety, pain medicines, whatever they're taking, they take every day to maintain the desired effect. The studies, this medicine is used once.

One dose.

One dose out of your short half-life, so out of your system by the end of the day, before the day is over actually. And the experience can generate changes, significant changes for a period of time going out. I mean, there were people from the 60s who have followed up decades later and they still report it as the single most meaningful or spiritually significant experience of my life. So it's more like an experience study versus a drug study. The drug is a catalyst for that experience. Then the experience just seems to change us when we recalibrate what we are, so sense of nature. In terms of the day, so we meet, let's say the cancer study, we meet them and we spend four weeks getting to know them, meeting once a week, preparing them for the session. And the most important preparation is to let them know that the most important position to take during the experience is to let go into the unfolding changes in consciousness.

Don't try to control it.

Don't try to control or avoid something. Sort of like if a positive meditation, mindfulness, we say with the unfolding changes, and no matter what comes up, even something frightening, These people are dying, some of them. So death itself, dark images, difficult memories, move into it. Stay with it. You'll be safe. Go into the experience. And I've never seen an experience where it didn't change to a teachable or transformational moment. So by staying with it, it changes to something more, you know, an insight, which in itself is remarkable. If they avoid it, it can create kind of panic or anxiety. So we spent four weeks getting Getting to know them, trust and rapport is the single most buffer against an adverse effect. So they feel safe in their room, they feel safe with us. Because you're with them in the room. We're right there, y'all describe that. We're in the living room. It's a gorgeous setting, nice rug and art and dim lighting. And so they're prepared for four weeks. Then the day of the session, they come in early. Again, the recommendation is trust yourself. Trust wisdom, trust consciousness, trust the medicine, trust the guides you're working with. So trust is really kind of cultivated. They take the capsule, which in this study were double-blind, meaning the researchers nor the patient knew was it placebo or psilocybin. And if it's psilocybin within an hour or so, it'll begin to have its effects. They spend the day lying on a a couch made into kind of a bed for the day, wearing headphones that play a gorgeous playlist of music, mostly classical.

Grateful Dead.

No Grateful Dead. It would be nice, but it's mostly classical and strings and kind of background instrumental music to serve as a trajectory for the experience in a way. And there were eye shades. And both are there to encourage you going within.

And they're not talking to you.

You're not talking. Now, if they like, they could take them off, of course, and sit up and talk if they need to. They have to go to the restroom often, so we take take them out for the bathroom. But on the ideal days, they're saying very little. And part of the prep was, don't feel a need to report to us what's happening. Go into the experience. We're here watching your body and you're safe. But go into the experience and we'll talk tonight and more so the next day. So if we can, we turn off the intellect for the day and have them go into the experience. If they need to, we're there for reassurance. We're right there the entire time providing assurance. That may mean holding a hand or in a rough stretch or to reassure them they're safe. The peak stretch of this is about three hours where a lot happens for them internally. You don't really see it from observing them.

They just got the eye shades and the headphones on.

So you may see tears, they may be laughing, it's because it's joyful in many parts of it. It's glorious, they would say. It's also difficult at times. They may speak and I write down what they're telling me so I can tell them later what they said and remind them what was that stretch about? It's moving, Mark, to see, to hear the stories.

So what happens after?

Then you meet with them and- Then.

Around four or five o'clock, they're coming out of that state of awareness, back into ordinary consciousness. They do some question and answer for us, of course, it's research. And they go home at five, six o'clock, back into ordinary consciousness. Then we have a series of meetings, it's called integration meetings, where we talk about the experience.

What do you hear?

Well, we hear remarkable stuff. So in the cancer study we hear, often you hear that consciousness may not stop at the body. So I'm not this body. So that's obviously a profoundly mitigating If.

This is all there is, then- Right.

It's kind of bleak.

However, some say that happens, it's fate, when I die, I die, but they accept it. We spoke earlier about love comes up a lot, which is striking to hear. So we're scientists. And throughout this research, the contemporary studies at Johns Hopkins, UCLA, NYU, going back to half a century ago, this notion of love being spoken about so frequently, It's remarkable. And we hear that that was part of the experience, they recalibrated their thoughts about death. And it's not just love for each other. So we hear three kinds of love, the way they try to categorize it. One is they have a kind of a pronounced loving kindness towards themselves. So they're dying. So forgiveness towards myself, towards others, a loving kindness to accept how they live their life. A loving kindness towards others in their life, including throughout their lifespan, even difficult relationships, revisiting those relationships, relationships, offering forgiveness internally. And then what I find remarkable is this greater love that you hear in religion or meditation research, that love is the ground of being. It's a substance of existence. I like to use the word Greek word agape, right?

Yeah.

And they use this over and from within that framework, there's a sense that I'm okay. no matter what happens, I'm fine. As dark as it gets.

They live in a bigger world than just this small S self. It's a big S connected.

I like to say it pulls a lens back on experience. So here we are in, you know, George Harrison's song, I Me, Mine, though, and everything's just around the ego. I could talk about it.

Well, the Beatles got it right. Love is all there is, right?

Beatles got it right. Love is all you need. And then it pulls it back where they see themselves in a much broader landscape. And people see solar systems, people see the universe unfolding, and they see themselves in a much larger kind of fabric. And it really recalibrates the sense of self in terms of what else we might be connected to. And also people have a lot of biographical experiences, autobiographical or psychodynamic in nature, revisiting past relationships that were conflictual or traumas, and those being resolved by moving into those. unfinished business. So there's just so many vignettes that come our way and it's remarkable. It's powerful.

So the people change the relationship of death to themselves, to their view of what matters.

What matters.

And it's a single dose that drives sort of long lasting change, which is pretty powerful. Often people, as a legacy of the 60s, have heard about the bad trip. Right.

Right.

The triggering psychosis, triggering anxiety, freaking out, having to go be talked down. I mean, in the context of the work you're doing, I mean, I understand that if you're at some, you know, the Woodstock and it's a zoo and you got, like, everybody's energy and lights and craziness, that you could have a bad trip. But what, what's the data show, really, about the reality of this fear that people have about losing their mind or having a bad trip or. becoming psychotic?

So it's a great question and it leads to the fear of these medicines, right? But I do want to be clear, you could have panic and people do have so-called bed trips. It's not a great term, I'll try to redefine it when they do it on their own, right? So it can be quite anxiety producing. But right, there was that folklore that if you took it, you would lose your mind, which may or may not.

Really have been true. I don't know how much evidence there was to that effect.

It was amplified and distorted somewhat. But we screen carefully. We screen for medical disorders and psychiatric histories.

So, there are voices in your head before you take the mushrooms.

You can't be in this category. So, people with schizophrenia or psychotic spectrum disorders or various psychiatric disorders would be screened out of the study because that might be there'll be a contraindication and might provide the ground for someone to have so-called a psychotic experience, right, or an anxiety provoking experience. But in our research, while there are anxiety provoking stretches in the session, again, anything can come up, autobiographical throughout your lifespan, recovered traumas, images of death, all types of archetypal and visionary experiences. Many could be challenging, but by moving into it in the safe setting, we see them, you know, become teachable moments. Psychedelics are also being researched for a.

Potential role in overcoming alcoholism and addiction and for treating post-traumatic stress syndrome. If you'd like to learn more about the history of psychedelic research or Dr. Anthony Bossis's work, I'd encourage you to check out his full-length interview with Dr. Hyman. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider leaving us a comment and sharing the episode. Thanks for tuning in.

Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make.

Changes, especially when it comes to your health. Don't forget, there's a way to listen completely ad free with Hyman plus on Apple podcasts. You can enjoy every episode without any breaks. Just open Apple podcasts and tap try free to start your seven day free trial.