Associations between lifetime classic psychedelic use and markers of physical health. Otto Simonsson, James D Sexton, Peter S Hendricks. Journal of Psychopharmacology, March 9, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881121996863
Abstract
Background: In recent years, there has been significant research on the mental health effects of classic psychedelic use, but there is very little evidence on how classic psychedelics might influence physical health.
Aims: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the associations between lifetime classic psychedelic use and markers of physical health.
Methods: Using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2015-2018) with 171,766 (unweighted) adults aged 18 or above in the United States, the current study examined the associations between lifetime classic psychedelic use and three markers of physical health (self-reported overall health, body mass index, and heart condition and/or cancer in the past 12 months) while controlling for a range of covariates.
Results: Respondents who reported having tried a classic psychedelic at least once in their lifetime had significantly higher odds of greater self-reported overall health and significantly lower odds of being overweight or obese versus having a normal weight. The association between lifetime classic psychedelic use and having a heart condition and/or cancer in the past 12 months approached conventional levels of significance, with lower odds of having a heart condition and/or cancer in the past 12 months for respondents who had tried a classic psychedelic at least once.
Conclusion: The results of the present study suggest that classic psychedelics may be beneficial to physical health. Future research should investigate the causal effects of classic psychedelics on physical health and evaluate possible mechanisms.
Keywords: Classic psychedelics, psilocybin, LSD, health, body mass index, cancer, heart disease
The present study investigated the association between lifetime classic psychedelic use and three markers of physical health (self-reported overall health, BMI, and heart condition and/or cancer in the past 12 months). Findings show that respondents who reported having ever used a classic psychedelic had significantly higher odds of greater self-reported overall health and significantly lower odds of being overweight or obese as compared to having a normal weight. The association between lifetime classic psychedelic use and having a heart condition and/or cancer in the past 12 months approached conventional levels of significance, with lower odds of having a heart condition and/or cancer in the past 12 months for respondents who had tried a classic psychedelic at least once. Taken together, these results suggest that classic psychedelics may have long-term beneficial effects beyond improved mental health.
While the acute transcendent experience occasioned by classic psychedelics may presumably induce long-term changes in health behaviour that contribute to better physical health, it is plausible that there are other key mechanisms through which classic psychedelics could influence physical health, including improvements on various indices of mental health beyond the simple absence of psychological distress (e.g. increased prosociality, trait mindfulness and purpose in life; Griffiths et al., 2018; Murphy-Beiner and Soar, 2020), many of which are well-known risk factors for physical maladies (Chaddha et al., 2016; Germann, 2020; Hernandez et al., 2018); immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects of relevance to physical health (Flanagan and Nichols, 2018; Frecska et al., 2013, 2016; Szabo, 2015, 2019; Szabo et al., 2014; Thompson and Szabo, 2020; Tourino et al., 2013; Winkelman and Sessa, 2019); and high affinity to receptor subtypes (e.g. serotonin 2A receptors) that are implicated in the pathophysiology of different physical disorders (Nichols, 2009; Thompson and Szabo, 2020). Future research is needed to better understand potential causal pathways of classic psychedelics on physical health.
There are several limitations with the present study that need serious consideration before the results are interpreted. First, the cross-sectional design of the study limits causal inference. The analyses controlled for multiple sources of potential confounding, but the associations might have been obscured by response bias or latent variables that were not controlled for (e.g. a common factor predisposing one to classic psychedelic use may also predispose one to healthy lifestyle behaviours including physical activity). Second, the dataset did not contain information on frequency of classic psychedelic use, dose used or context of use. The present study could therefore not evaluate frequency, dose or context-specific relationships between classic psychedelic use and physical health markers. Third, it is also not possible to rule out that classic psychedelic use might have caused harm on the individual level, even if it did not obfuscate the population-level associations. Fourth, given the potential importance of immunomodulatory and inflammatory factors in the current study, it would have been sensible to also control for regular anti-inflammatory drug (e.g. nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)) use, but assessment of this behaviour was not included in the NSDUH. Fifth, BMI has been widely used as a screening tool for overweight or obesity, but it does not account for details such as fat distribution, which limits its utility as a marker of physical health (Prentice and Jebb, 2001). Finally, it is noted that some associations of lifetime classic psychedelic use were somewhat modest in size (e.g. heart condition and/or cancer in the past year). However, even modest effects can have substantial impacts at the population level. For instance, considering approximately 1.2 million people die from heart disease or cancer every year in the United States alone (Heron, 2019), even a small decrease (e.g. 11%) in the prevalence of these illnesses could translate to thousands of lives saved annually.
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