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Could psilocybin be the key to treating anorexia?

scientificamerican.com

71–76 of 76 posts

Re: Could psilocybin be the key to treating anorexia?

#71
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unfortunately, I think repeated psychedlic use has deterministic and predictable changes to peoples personalities. its not some "awakening", its a structural change in the brain. i watched many close friends fade away after too much use

when you say your friends faded away, do you mean like they stopped being your friends, or like they became zombies? Because those are two very different interpretations

just less relevant, less social, not as "bright", less with it, more out in space

Re: Could psilocybin be the key to treating anorexia?

#72
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think everyone who eats mushrooms and hallucinates ate the right mushrooms That's a tautology. But what you meant is not true. Some of the compounds are chosen because they are chemically similar and have psilocybin like effects. Even if you were to test this with a standard kit it would be classified as psilocybin. Your average consumer would be none the wiser. The reason these compounds exist is literally becaus…

I was under the impression that people ate dried mushrooms, not pure psilocybin extract? Are they sprinkling supermarket mushrooms with these other chemicals?

Depends, chocs and sweets laced with psilocybin are more discreet, taste sweeter and allows you to mass produce while controlling the amount of psychoactive that you sell so they are as popular as dried shrooms if not more.

Re: Could psilocybin be the key to treating anorexia?

#73
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when you say your friends faded away, do you mean like they stopped being your friends, or like they became zombies? Because those are two very different interpretations

just less relevant, less social, not as "bright", less with it, more out in space

Maybe it helped them realize the futility of existence. I'd say that's worse. We're not meant to think about that until we're nearly dead from old age.

Re: Could psilocybin be the key to treating anorexia?

#74
post #42
post #32

Anecdata, but an acquaintance of mine struggled with lifelong anorexia. Severe enough that he was hospitalized a few times. With great effort he could cling to the bottom of the "normal BMI" range, but his life was generally ruled by the eating disorder - he couldn't have meals with people, he had to do various exercise rituals. He was an early participant in one of these psychedelic studies a few years ago. After th…

Science generally works on IF Then statements when it comes to treatment, IF you take this drug your blood pressure will increase, IF you exercise more your life expectancy will increase, with mental health issues there very few IF then treatments, there are only if maybe treatments, this is for a slew of reasons such as how we don't really understand it, symptoms can be caused by many different underlying issues, an…

Just about all common psychological medication (by which I mean antidepressants, antipsychotics, ADHD meds, etc) have a pretty weakly measurable effect and effectiveness. If you take them, your symptoms might improve. In some casesthey'll get a lot worse. In many cases it will have no effect on your symptoms. There are lots of side effects.

What's the difference here?

Re: Could psilocybin be the key to treating anorexia?

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychedelics desolve the conceptual prison your mind is in, the government made them illegal because they build those prisons. Charitably, you could argue a functional society involves some amount of indoctrination into a set of shared beliefs and a large percentage of people losing that indoctrination would destroy society. Could the US function if everyone was a pacifist, anti-capitalist, hippie? I think that was a…

Psychedelics can dissolve more than the mind's conceptual prisons, perhaps much more of the mind than one would like. How did the hippie-era stereotype of the burned out acid head disappear so quickly from popular culture?

Why has the stereotype of the coked-out stock trader or ketamine addicted delusional billionaire not held the same place in popular culture? Vagely functional coke heads are very, very common in certain circles

Re: Could psilocybin be the key to treating anorexia?

#76
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I see "does {PSYCHEDELIC} cure {AILMENT}" studies, I fear a recreation of the opioid crisis. They need to be studied as a treatment, yes, but people, doctors, and pharmaceuticals will abuse them given the opportunity and lack of oversight.

Psychedelics aren't even remotely addictive. People who take them usually don't want to take any more of them for months.

While most won't give you withdrawal symptoms, they can cause psychological addiction.
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