One dose of LSD provides weeks of anxiety relief, study finds

The University of Cincinnati's Jeffrey Strawn was featured in a USA Today article commenting on a new study that found a pharmaceutical version of the psychedelic LSD might help alleviate anxiety symptoms for up to three months.

Study results were published Sept. 4 in the journal JAMA.  The Phase 2, randomized clinical trial evaluated MM120, a pharmaceutical version of LSD, or lysergide D-tartrate, in 198 adults who had generalized anxiety disorder. After 12 weeks, anxiety symptoms improved in 65% of adults who took a single, 100-mg dose of the drug compared to 30.8% who took a placebo.

The study reported a "remission" rate of 47.5% among adults 12 weeks after taking a single dose compared to 20% who took a placebo. More than nine in 10 people on the 100-mg dose experience hallucinations, with other common side effects including nausea and headaches.

Strawn was not involved in the study, but oversees a clinical trial site for one of MM120's current Phase 3 studies. He said the study is "really important," as anxiety treatments have "really not significantly changed in decades."

"This is a disorder where often we are frustrated as clinicians marching through multiple treatments that don't work or produce side effects," Strawn, MD, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience in UC’s College of Medicine and a UC Health child and adolescent psychiatrist, told USA Today. "Also, our patients are frustrated."

Read the USA Today article.

Featured photo at top of Dr. Strawn. Photo/Colleen Kelley/UC Marketing + Brand.