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Talk about the mental health benefits of psychedelic drugs has been bubbling up into the mainstream in recent years. Food guru and author Michael Pollan wrote about long-time smokers using psilocybin - the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms– to quit nicotine, and his own ego-freeing experience with LSD in the book: How to Change Your Mind. The documentary film Fantastic Fungi, featuring noted mycologist Paul Stamets, posited that eating psilocybin mushrooms may have sparked early humans' capacity for abstract thinking, enabling them to develop language (🤯). For me, the most memorable story has been hearing from patients with terminal cancer that using psychedelics helped them accept and prepare for their own mortality.
Research has also shown that psilocybin can relieve depression in people, effects lasting a year or more from a single dose.
So, an overall sense of peace and long-lasting relief from depression– sounds great. But spending hours in an altered reality, in an open, vulnerable state is too steep a price for many. Now, scientists report in the journal Nature that they have created drugs based on LSD that seem to relieve anxiety and depression – in mice – without inducing the usual hallucinations. The discovery could lead to medications for depression and anxiety that work better and faster, have fewer side effects, and last longer.
How do you tell whether or not a mouse is tripping? Click this link, and all will become clear.
Plus: MDMA shows promise as a treatment for PTSD |
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Reader, open enrollment season is upon us. That means whether you get health insurance through your employer, on the marketplace, or from the government, you’ll soon need to choose a plan for 2023. And it's important to compare the options, especially if you’re expecting to have a major procedure, change medications, or to lose or gain access to insurance through a family member. And even if you’re not expecting any changes in your health needs, insurance companies make changes to their coverage from year to year.
Although we often think of our insurance company and our doctors as separate parts of the system, a trusted physician can help you anticipate your health care needs in the next year – and that can inform your insurance decisions. Want more tips? NPR’s Life Kit spoke with a doctor and two health care advocates, and put together guidelines to get you started on the right foot.
Also: Here’s 6 tips to help you get the most out of your health insurance plan |
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We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism on Shots and follow us on Twitter at @NPRHealth.
All our best,
Andrea Muraskin and your Shots editors |
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