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Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

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Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#61

Post by ProllyInfamous »

LoganDark wrote: post #57

Psychedelics are one of my favorite classes of drug. I used to take LSD recreationally every few weeks or months, until one bad vomiting episode caused me upper-esophageal sphincter dysfunction somehow. Ever since then, I can't seem to take any without throwing up (and generally having a terrible time due to stomach contents backing up into my throat constantly). Nobody can seem to figure out why my throat stopped wo…

>upper-esophageal sphincter dysfunction

If you've never read a Pulitzer Prize Winner, Confederacy of Dunces would be a personally-relatable disaster (to start with; it's great).

>Psychedelics are one of my favorite classes of drug.

Your initial description of usage was probably a bit wreckless, but I do maintain that most people would probably benefit from a single (or few) psilocybin experiences (preferably an initial high-dosage with a well-trained sitter).

Microdosing is a fantastic long-term strategy, before starting more-prescribed methodologies towards happiness. Probably not useful without an initial high-dosage, first (or much cloudier/ineffective).

YMMV £¢¢£

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#62

Post by connicpu »

asveikau wrote: post #58
Pxtl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Not sure which particular stopped-clock struck right within the generally anti-science MAHA movement but I think everybody is happy to take the win.

Ironically enough, the psychedelic field sort of defies some scientific analysis, so could be construed as "anti-science". I've seen some commentary that it's difficult to test. As an example, you can't really do a double blind study with a placebo because it's obvious to everybody who got the drug.

The same could be said for a lot of drugs that have strong side effects, just one difference here is the main "side effects" are something some people consider fun. Though you could still do double-blind for comparing the effectiveness of different psychedelics, e.g comparing LSD to Psilocybin.

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#63

Post by pengaru »

boxed wrote: post #43
fred_is_fred wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but the author has appeared on Joe Rogan - that tells me all I need to know.

That's a silly statement. There's been plenty of people who went on there to try to talk sense into him.

Rogan is obviously pro psychedelics, and was even featured in the oval office during the recent Ibogaine approval signing. I think it's worth noting if this N=1 "study" has any association with such an obviously biased and influential individual.

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#64

Post by dnautics »

asveikau wrote: post #58
Pxtl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Not sure which particular stopped-clock struck right within the generally anti-science MAHA movement but I think everybody is happy to take the win.

Ironically enough, the psychedelic field sort of defies some scientific analysis, so could be construed as "anti-science". I've seen some commentary that it's difficult to test. As an example, you can't really do a double blind study with a placebo because it's obvious to everybody who got the drug.

just because it's not double blind doesn't mean it's not science though.

like idk, how do you do double blind studies of astronomical phenomena?

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#65

Post by ambicapter »

dnautics wrote: post #64
asveikau wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically enough, the psychedelic field sort of defies some scientific analysis, so could be construed as "anti-science". I've seen some commentary that it's difficult to test. As an example, you can't really do a double blind study with a placebo because it's obvious to everybody who got the drug.

just because it's not double blind doesn't mean it's not science though. like idk, how do you do double blind studies of astronomical phenomena?

> just because it's not double blind doesn't mean it's not science though.

Shhh, non-scientists don't know that.

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#66

Post by sowbug »

I was recently reading about a phenomenon called terminal lucidity, where a person suffering from mental decline such as Alzheimer's spontaneously improves, recognizing loved ones, retrieving memories, and being able to carry on conversations. It's called "terminal" because the person usually dies within hours or days.

If this is a real phenomenon, then it's amazing to think that at least some of the people who suffer from Alzheimer's still have their memories inside their minds, as opposed to the disease erasing the memories from existence, which means that an effective treatment might recover their identities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_lucidity

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#67

Post by LoganDark »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #61
LoganDark wrote: post #57

Psychedelics are one of my favorite classes of drug. I used to take LSD recreationally every few weeks or months, until one bad vomiting episode caused me upper-esophageal sphincter dysfunction somehow. Ever since then, I can't seem to take any without throwing up (and generally having a terrible time due to stomach contents backing up into my throat constantly). Nobody can seem to figure out why my throat stopped wo…

>upper-esophageal sphincter dysfunction If you've never read a Pulitzer Prize Winner, Confederacy of Dunces would be a personally-relatable disaster (to start with; it's great). >Psychedelics are one of my favorite classes of drug. Your initial description of usage was probably a bit wreckless , but I do maintain that most people would probably benefit from a single (or few) psilocybin experiences (preferably an init…

I certainly have been reckless with it, but it helped me a lot to cope with constant high stress without resorting to more immediately harmful things. It also gave me a lot of nice experiences, unique insight and other things like that. Before this dysfunction started, bad experiences were pretty rare rather than practically every time...

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#68

Post by LoganDark »

sowbug wrote: post #60
LoganDark wrote: post #57

Psychedelics are one of my favorite classes of drug. I used to take LSD recreationally every few weeks or months, until one bad vomiting episode caused me upper-esophageal sphincter dysfunction somehow. Ever since then, I can't seem to take any without throwing up (and generally having a terrible time due to stomach contents backing up into my throat constantly). Nobody can seem to figure out why my throat stopped wo…

It might be coincidence. Hiatal hernia affects more than 50% of the population over age 50, though not everyone shows symptoms.

Ever since that episode I've had difficulty swallowing; sometimes when clearing my throat the air will unexpectedly blow out my mouth instead of my nose; and I also have to be doing that constantly because my throat never actually feels clear now; it sucks.

I used to be able to swallow gummy bears whole for fun. Or any medication, even huge pills (1g magnesium glycinate, for example -- those pills are not small) -- I didn't even need water. Now, even with water it's hard to swallow any medication, and it's hard to even swallow food half the time. Something definitely went wrong and is now wrong, compared to before.

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#69

Post by whimsicalism »

sowbug wrote: post #66

I was recently reading about a phenomenon called terminal lucidity, where a person suffering from mental decline such as Alzheimer's spontaneously improves, recognizing loved ones, retrieving memories, and being able to carry on conversations. It's called "terminal" because the person usually dies within hours or days. If this is a real phenomenon, then it's amazing to think that at least some of the people who suffe…

i’m skeptical how much of a real thing this is vs particularly type of appealing story to the human psyche

Re: Improvement in advanced Alzheimer’s disease following high-dose psilocybin

#70

Post by ux266478 »

Aurornis wrote: post #31
rerx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In defense of the comment you replied to: Research into treatments with Psilocybin or LSD was in quite a hiatus for decades after the substances were banned in the 1960s or 70s.

I understand that, but a lot has changed since then and psilocybin is not the only substance that has been studied which interacts with those receptors. Our ability to synthesize new compounds has also exploded since then. Drug companies are looking for the next blockbuster drug. They don’t need to use psilocybin. We can now use powerful computers to come up with countless variations of drugs that activate the recept…

> There are hundreds of ligands that interact with the same receptors.

Except the ligands matter, binding site is massively important to drug design. As is the behavior of the molecule beyond that. A 5HT2A agonist that's also an irreversible and potent dopamine agonist is obviously a non-starter. Minor modifications of a molecule produce wildly different and very unpredictable effects. Pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics are the bottleneck of drug research, and they take quite a lot of work to understand.

> We can now use powerful computers to come up with countless variations of drugs that activate the receptors involve and study them rapidly.

"Research chemical" is common parlance, and it's synonymous with "dangerous gutter drug" because you end up with nasty little molecules like what's found in the 25-NB or FLY families, or something like MDMB-CHMNACA. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Our algorithmic and predictive power in pharmacology is one of the absolute worst out of all the sciences. The absolute state of this naive futurist mindset that we can move fast in drug research is absolutely horrifying to even suggest. That's not where the state of the art is, and I'd put big money on us not getting there for another 100k years or so.

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