In various laboratories around the world, work is being done with derivatives of LSD or hallucinogenic mushrooms to create new drugs that, instead of “expanding consciousness”, help us to be healthier.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 1.9 billion adults over the age of 18 were overweight in 2016, including more than 650 million who were obese. In other words, 39% of the adults on the planet were overweight for that year and 13% were obese, in a world where most of the population lives in countries where this problem kills more people than diseases related to the low weight
Even more worrisome, and always according to the WHO, global obesity has almost tripled since 1975.
And there is more stunning data: 39 million children under the age of five – more or less the entire population of Canada or Poland – were overweight or obese in 2020, and more than 340 million children and adolescents between the ages of five and 19 lived with those problems in 2016.
According to national government estimates, Argentina is not far behind, with “more than 50% of the population” being overweight.
Obesity and overweight also have a high economic impact, as confirmed by the data from a country where everything goes through the sieve of statistics. The United States national health agency, known as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), points out that the annualized costs of health care in the US related to obesity marked around US$ 173 billion in 2019 alone.
“Annual productivity costs nationwide from obesity-related absenteeism range from $3.38 billion to $6.38 billion,” the CDC says.
Depression, for its part, is more difficult to lock into a diagnostic box, but it also enjoys its numbers and statistics. The WHO, once once more, warned back in 2015 that around 4.4% of the global population suffers from depression, 18% more than those who faced this mental problem in 2005.
“When it is long-lasting and of moderate or severe intensity, depression can become a serious health condition that leads, in the worst case, to suicide,” the United Nations agency report pointed out. The report recalled that, according to data at the time, “some 800,000 people commit suicide each year, a significant number of them young adults between the ages of 15 and 29.”
In Argentina, official data states that one in three inhabitants of the country “presents a mental health problem from the age of 20.” A Conicet report, cited by the Télam agency in mid-2022, indicated that “almost half of the Argentine population suffered from anxiety during the” covid-19 “pandemic” and 30% experienced significant levels of depression.
In a May 2021 article, Scientific American magazine said that “major depressive disorders have an enormous economic impact.” The impact of clinical depression, he added, “more than tripled” during the pandemic, although “trends were concerning long before” Covid-19 hit.
Scientific American put a dollar number on major depressive disorders. “Our latest estimates – the note reads – show that the incremental economic burden of adults” with clinical depression “was 326 billion (US dollars) in 2018” in the North American country, 38% more than in the 2010.
And that refers only to the “major” depressions, not the ones that millions of people experience every day around the world to stay more or less functional in their lives in general and in their jobs in particular.
battles. Sharp and uncomfortable, these two health problems have been battlefronts for the medical business and Big Pharma for decades. Perhaps the obesity battlefield is more muddled, with all the quacks swarming clinics, the media, and social media recommending near-magical diets and potions. On the other hand, the war in the terrain of the depression seems to be more sinister, because there it is fought without shame with chemical weapons, in combinations and formulas that change every few years. Ask the makers of Prozac if not.
An article in The Economist from October last year recalled that 35 years ago fluoxetine made its debut, the antidepressant of the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) class that became a true star of the moment.
Prozac and its relatives in the SSRI family “were praised by patients and doctors as miracle drugs,” recalled the British magazine. “They seemed to have no problem” managing situations of “divorce, bereavement, problems at work – a daily pill was there to help with that and anything else that made him sad.”
In Western countries today, the weekly pointed out, between one person in seven and one in ten consume these drugs, even “when the results of all the trials presented” to the drug regulatory bodies of the United States between 1979 and 2016 “were analyzed by independent scientists” and “antidepressants were found to have substantial benefit beyond the placebo effect in only 15% of patients.”
Fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, the antidepressant business seems to have no ceiling. According to an estimate by Fortune Business Insights, the global market for these drugs is expected to reach US$18.29 billion by 2027.
In the case of obesity, estimates by the consulting firm Vantage Market Research put the global market for treatments at US$10.18 billion in 2021 with a forecast of US$21.71 billion in 2028.
With these dazzling images of mountains of dollars, it is a little surprising that part of the scientific world is moving away from the “classics” and looking once more with a certain fondness at Lucy, the one in the sky with diamonds, to see if she can lend a hand. with obesity and depression.
(For those who are too young: “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” is a song by The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” whose acronym, LSD, caused quite a stir when the album came out in 1967. The musicians got tired of assuring that it was a total coincidence and that they were not singing praises to the psychedelic substance, but the story was too good and it stuck).
The return of psychedelics is so solid that, for example, the very prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in the US state of Maryland, opened its own Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research in 2019. Conciencia) with no less than US$17 million in financial support from private donors.
“Today’s scientists are entering a new era of study of a truly unique class of pharmacological compounds known as psychedelics,” the American university explained when announcing its plans for exploration in this field.
“Although research with these compounds first began in the 1950s and 1960s, it ended abruptly in the early 1970s in response to unfavorable media coverage, resulting in misperceptions of risk and highly regulated regulations. restrictive,” they added from Baltimore.
On the way to the resurrection of LSD –and the best known of cannabis– there were “several factors that led to a change in the perception” of these substances “from ‘bad drugs’ to possible therapeutic agents”, the professor explained to PROFILE. Yosi Tam of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
One of those key factors “was the increase in scientific research on the possible medical benefits of these substances,” he continued. This research demonstrated that both cannabis and LSD have unique pharmacological properties that may be useful in treating a variety of conditions, including chronic pain, anxiety, and depression.”
Tam, an associate professor of Pharmacology at the Israeli university’s Faculty of Medicine, worked from his Obesity and Metabolism Laboratory with biotech company Clearmind to study the effects of a “psychedelic” treatment for obesity with the drug MEAI, derived from hallucinogenic substances.
Earlier this year, the experimenters reported that, in a series of preclinical trials in laboratory mice, Clearmind’s drug candidate “significantly reduced body weight, ameliorated fatty liver disease, and normalized sensitivity to insulin”.
“We show for the first time that the effect of MEAI on obesity works by altering various metabolic processes in the body, such as energy expenditure, fat storage, and glucose utilization, to promote weight loss,” the researchers noted. .
In the laboratories where these projects are carried out, scientists analyze how psychedelics affect behaviour, mood, cognition and brain function, fundamental elements for understanding problems such as depression and obesity. Something like a new version of “mens sana in corpore sano”, although in this case with an appropriately stimulated “mens”.
The drugs with which these laboratories have been working are mainly LSD and psilocybin, the latter a substance derived from the famous American hallucinogenic mushrooms. Those in charge of the Johns Hockkins Research Center hope that studies can determine the effectiveness of these chemicals as a new therapy not only for depression or obesity, but also for opioid addiction, Alzheimer’s, anorexia, certain types of alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder, among others.
Critics. Although the results appear to be encouraging, there is no shortage of critical voices once morest this trend. For example, a December 2022 MIT Technology Review article claimed that the effect of “mind-altering” substances, billed as “wonder drugs,” is being “overstated.” Psychedelics are portrayed “as panaceas for mental health disorders,” but “the publicity bubble” around them “might be regarding to burst,” he prophesied.
In the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) publication, reporter Jessica Hamzelou complained that, “For the last five years, hardly a week has gone by without a study arriving in my (email) inbox. , a comment or a press release regarding the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs”.
Hamzelou acknowledged that “there is some evidence, albeit limited, that psychedelics might help some people with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder,” but noted that “we don’t yet have any good evidence to support the claim” that these drugs can help. to combat obesity.
Far from being offended, Tam admits that “more research is needed to fully understand the potential benefits and risks of these substances.” It is generally important, he added, to carry out rigorous studies to fully understand “the safety and efficacy of any potential therapeutic agent.”
But, “on the other hand,” he qualifies, “there is a growing body of research that suggests that certain substances that alter the mind, such as cannabis and LSD, have therapeutic potential” for certain health conditions.
From Baltimore or from Jerusalem, it is clear that this process of revival of LSD and hallucinogenic mushrooms is just beginning, especially, as the Israeli professor points out, because one must “consider that these mind-altering substances are not without risks and side effects, and therapeutic use should always be under controlled conditions.
So, at least for now, chubby and depressed people tired of pills and ready to try other paths will have to wait a few years before being able to make an appointment to be seen by Dr. Lucy.
*Former correspondent in Washington and Israel. She writes regarding US and Middle Eastern issues and trends.
You may also like
