The potential for psychedelics, which can provide unexpected health benefits, has been a promising research area in recent years. Researchers may now have a breakthrough in cardiovascular research.
Magic mushrooms have been deemed a breakthrough therapy' to treat depression. LSD has emerged in recent years as a potential new way to reduce pain perception. MDMA-assisted treatment could soon be legal to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, in the United States.
Although it's early days, the results are so promising that scientists have begun expanding the scope of their research.
A new hypothesis suggests that classic psychedelics like DMT, LSD, DMT, and ayahuasca could have a profound impact on your heart health. This effect is thought to be remarkably long-lasting.
An analysis of the United States National Survey on Drug Use and Health in early 2021 found that those who had taken a psychedelic at some point in their lives had higher self-reported health and lower chances of being overweight. These respondents were also less likely to have a heart condition such as high blood pressure in the last year.
Researchers were inspired to investigate further by the association. The authors used data from the same nationwide survey between 2005-2014 to find that those who tried psychedelics at minimum once in their lives had lower chances of developing heart disease or diabetes the previous year.
Researchers had to control for gender, age, marital status, race and level of education.
Although it's a fascinating correlation, there may be other factors that were not considered. We don't yet know if it is the psychedelic effects that are affecting positive heart health or the reverse.
PsyPost was told by Otto Simonsson, University of Oxford.
Future trials using double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled designs will be needed to determine if classic psychedelic usage may lower the risk of developing cardiometabolic disease and, if yes, through what mechanisms.
We still have many questions to answer. However, there are good reasons to believe that psychedelics may have an effect on both brain and heart health.
First, depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems are closely linked to cardiovascular health. This means that psychedelics may have an indirect effect on physical health by improving mental health.
It could also be happening simultaneously. These receptors, which psychedelics activate in the brain, are not only linked to mental health but also to cardiovascular health.
Other drugs that attach directly to these serotonin receptors show higher glucose tolerance in animal models of obesity or type 2 diabetes.
Ayahuasca, a classic psychedelic, has been linked to improved heart health.
We need to explore all of these potential mechanisms further before we can determine with any certainty if they are real or just a coincidence. It is not possible to draw any conclusions from the current analysis.
The authors state that although regression models were able to control for many potential confounders, associations might have been affected due to latent variables that weren't included in the data set (e.g., a common factor which predisposes respondents for classic psychedelic abuse might also predispose them for salubrious lifestyle habits associated with cardiometabolic disease).
Although the long-term effects of psychedelics in affecting cardiovascular health are still a mystery for now, it is a fascinating problem to solve.
Scientific Reports published the study.
