Psychedelic Mushrooms Said to Alleviate Symptoms of OCD

A psychiatrist from the University of Arizona states that a preliminary study conducted on the active ingredient of the psychedelic mushrooms shows that the ingredient helps to relieve the symptoms of people who have severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

The first FDA-approved study of psilocybin was led by Dr. Francisco Moreno ever since it was banned in 1970. According to Moreno the aim of the study was merely to test the safety of administering psilocybin to patients and its helpfulness is presently in doubt till a larger controlled study is conducted.

In the nine subjects used in the study psilocybin entirely removed the disorder symptoms for a period from 4 to 24 hours and some subjects were free of symptoms for days, as per Moreno.

Moreno explained that they saw deeply was a severe reduction in the symptoms. The obsessions would in fact disappear or be drastically reduced for a certain time period.

The hallucinogenic fungus popularly known as magic mushrooms in the drug lingo continues to be a popular illegal drug. It has been banned since 1970 by the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, although research for medicinal uses is permitted.

As per Rogene Waite, DEA spokeswoman, the new research is not a sign of any changes in governmental policy.

Moreno says that presently there is no quicker treatment for the OCD symptoms as psilocybin. While the other drugs could take weeks to demonstrate any result, psilocybin was almost showed immediate effect.

According to Moreno, psilocybin is not the type of drug that can be administered daily and a lot of questions still continue regarding its use that includes concerns if it could be addictive or if people using it would develop a tolerance to it.

Moreno says that he looks forward to conducting an expanded study that would be shown more compelling proof of its effectiveness. He says that they are extremely careful about relying too much based on the initial results and to exemplify it as psychedelics is the best treatment. Though, it appears to be safe, the study was conducted in a medical setting and under the supervision by trained professionals. It is not possible to be used by the general public merely because it was tolerated by nine people it was tested upon.

Usually, the symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder develop in teenage and could make it very hard for the patients to lead day-to-day lives normally.

The nine people who were study participants had a variety of compulsion such as elaborate cleaning rituals, fear of being contaminated, mental rituals and touching or tapping rituals. One of the patients would touch the floor only with the soles of his shoes and nothing else. Some of the other subjects would put on pants repeatedly till they felt it was right or would shower for hours. They knew it was senseless and that it did not do anything for them. Yet, in not doing it, they felt very distressed and extremely uncomfortable and had a very tough time functioning concludes Moreno.