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I came of age in the freewheeling 1960s and early 70s when the counterculture revolution was in full swing and people were regularly experimenting with marijuana and psychedelic drugs aka hallucinogens.

As a veteran of that era, I am well acquainted with these drugs and can personally tell you that they are not for everyone. However, the pharmacological active ingredients of marijuana (tetrahydrocannabinol) and the naturally-occurring hallucinogens found in peyote (mescaline) and magic mushrooms (psilocybin) have long been known to possess inherent therapeutic value. Unfortunately, because these drugs are associated with a particularly tumultuous period in American history, research into their use as therapeutic agents has long been stymied by the federal agencies that fund basic research in the US. 

Despite these formidable obstacles, a small number of intrepid researchers have managed to demonstrate that these long-vilified and illegal drugs can be used in some cases to treat cancer patients suffering from difficult-to-treat depression and other forms of mental illness. To that end, there was a fascinating article in yesterday’s New York Times that described a Johns Hopkins clinical study that showed that psilocybin can be used to manage untreatable depression in a small number of cancer patients.

The results from the study suggest that psilocybin, when administered using rigorous protocols and safeguards, can help to alleviate many of the symptoms of severe depression experienced by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The researchers also contend that the use of hallucinogens can be transformative and may help to identify an endogenous neural pathway that may be responsible for so-called religious epiphanies.

Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in California for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades. Attendees are expected to discuss studies of psilocybin and other psychoactive hallucinogens to treat depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol.

Because reactions to hallucinogens can vary among individuals (primarily depending on the setting and external environment), researchers have developed stringent guidelines to set up a comfortable environment with expert monitors in the room to deal with adverse reactions. Also, they have established standard protocols so that the drugs’ effects can be assessed more accurately by scanning the brains of people who have taken hallucinogens. This is in marked contrast with the recreational use of hallucinogens which generally take place in a variety of sometimes difficult to control social settings; which may be responsible for some of the highly publicized “bad trips” experienced by hallucinogen users.

While there is no question that hallucinogens are very powerful psychoactive drugs—and their misuse can have serious cognitive and emotional consequences—it has never made sense to me why their use as potential therapeutic agents had been so discouraged. Ironically, marijuana and other illegal and so-called “dangerous illegal drugs” may actually be safer and more beneficial than some similar FDA-approved including certain antidepressants.

To be clear, I am not advocating the use of illegal drugs. However, in my experience, there is no obvious correlation between the legality of drugs and their potential therapeutic benefits. For example, both cigarettes and alcohol are legal drugs whereas marijuana (in many places) is not. A quick perusal of the number of people who are maimed or die each year from smoking pot as compared with those who die from lung cancer or are injured or killed by drunk drivers tends to emphasize this assertion. The bottom line: don’t throw any potential drug candidates on the pharmaceutical junk heap until they have been thoroughly researched and vetted as prospective therapeutic agents!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!! (Right on man)

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Over the past few years, I have heard rumors that artificial sweeteners like saccharine, aspartame and sucralose actually cause people to gain rather than lose weight. I summarily dismissed these stories because they did not make sense to me nor did I think that they had any scientific merit–until today!

Purdue University psychologists Drs. Susan Swithers and Terry Davidson fed rats yoghurt sweetened with glucose (15 calories per teaspoon) or yoghurt containing the artificial sweetener saccharin (0 calories per teaspoon). Rats that were fed the saccharin-sweeten yoghurt subsequently consumed more calories, gained more weight, put on more body fat and were unable to regulate dietary intake of calories as compared with rats that were fed glucose-sweetened yoghurt. The authors surmised that breaking the connection between a sweet sensation and high-calorie food, changes the body’s ability to regulate caloric intake. This could partly explain why obesity has risen with the increasing use of artificial sweeteners in drinks. The study’s findings are consistent with emerging evidence that people who drink more diet drinks are at higher risk for obesity and development of the metabolic syndrome that increases the risk for heart disease and diabetes.

So, how do the authors explain their seemingly paradoxical findings? Swithers and Davidson postulate that ingestion of sugar-rich (sweet) foods provides a ‘salient orosensory stimulus” that signals that the body is about ingest a lot of calories. This, in turn, induces the body to physiologically-prepare itself for ingestion of a high calorie meal. However, when the false sense of sweetness (provided by the artificial sweetener) is not followed by consumption of large amounts of calories, the system gets “confused”– causing people to eat more or expend less energy to account for the calorie imbalance. Nevertheless, the good news is that people who use artificial sweeteners can still count calories to regulate caloric intake and body weight. Unfortunately, as the authors suggest, counting calories requires a more conscious effort and a lot more work than routinely consuming low-calorie foods.

Although this study was conducted in rats, its findings are consistent with the observations that increased use of artificial sweeteners can contribute to human weight gain. Despite the study’s findings, similar experiments must be conducted in people to substantiate or refute the authors’ hypothesis.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (lay off the aspartame and splenda)!!!!!!

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