'Magic' of psychedelics: Easing the trauma of terminal illness

This article in Medscape Oncology has a great contribution by PHP's own Dr Lauren Macdonald. The article begins: "Something was gnawing at Manish Agrawal, MD. Every day, the oncologist treated patients with standard cancer therapies, but his care could never touch their deepest pains: their despair about death.  "In 20 years, I've had close to 100,000 patient encounters," Agrawal says, "and the one thing I know we don't do well is dying."  Hospitalist Shoshana Ungerleider, MD, was also troubled by the care her dying patients received.  "We don't have the tools in medicine to adequately care for people who have that deep-seated existential distress and fear when they're diagnosed with a terminal illness," says Ungerleider, who founded the nonprofit End Well to improve end-of-life care. "The medicines we have really tend to blunt our senses and do not allow us to live fully until we die."  The question of how to die better unexpectedly led both physicians to an interest in psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in "magic" mushrooms. A growing body of evidence shows that psilocybin is safe and can relieve symptoms of depression and end-of-life demoralization in people with cancer and other life-threatening conditions.  In fact, Agrawal recently conducted a trial at the Aquilino Cancer Center in Maryland, where he is the clinical director. In the trial, 30 patients with advanced cancer received a single dose of psilocybin along with group therapy. Eight weeks later, 80% experienced a 50-plus percentage drop in their depression."

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