Psilocybin-assisted therapy has been proven to help reduce symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder. Acupuncture. Ketamine infusions. “Electroshock” or electroconvulsive therapy. The existing treatment options for those diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD), may sometimes feel daunting or expensive alternatives to medication. However, a groundbreaking study from Emory University demonstrates how psilocybin-assisted therapy could impact more than 5 million people in the U.S. pending approval from the FDA.
The findings highlight both the national need for therapies featuring psilocybin, the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms, as well as the considerations that elected officials, insurance companies and public health agencies would need to be aware of to successfully roll-out access to psilocybin-assisted therapy (PSIL-AT).
In the study, researchers used national data from the existing pool of people being treated for MDD and TRD, and applied exclusionary criteria based on comorbidities, such as mania, heart failure and diabetes, to rule out those who would be medically ineligible for the therapy. These findings indicate that anywhere from 56-62% of the individuals being treated for MDD and TRD — roughly 5.1-5.6 million people — would be eligible for PSIL-AT and could benefit from it.
“This information is significant because much of the current focus on psychedelic therapies is about its efficacy within clinical trials, and very few people are studying what would be the broader implications of implementing these novel therapeutics,” says Fayzan Rab, lead author of the study and MD candidate at Emory University’s School of Medicine. “Our study is one of the first to look at the bigger public health and economic consequences of a world where psilocybin therapy is made more available to Americans.”
According to Rab, psilocybin-assisted treatment currently has a breakthrough designation with the FDA, meaning that it will expedite a review of the Phase III clinical trial results because of its potential as a therapeutic for depression.
“What is really timely about this research is that it provides a data-driven number that is interpretable to the FDA,” says Rab. “This is how many Americans we think are at stake. I think that will be a meaningful estimate for the […]
More than 5 million Americans would be eligible for psychedelic therapy, study finds
