Researchers have discovered that the active compound in psychedelic mushrooms can extend lifespan and reduce cellular aging by 50% in human cells and 30% in elderly mice:
The team from Emory University are calling it the first ever long-term study evaluating the systemic effects of psilocybin in aged mice. The animals were the equivalent of 60 to 65 in biological human years, and exhibited hair loss and greying, as well as reduced physical activity.
The mice were dosed with psilocin, the active ingredient in psilocybin that appears once the latter is broken down during digestion. The mice received a low level at first, and eventually with a higher dose of 15 milligrams once a month for 10 months.
Within the first 3 months, the mice receiving psilocybin exhibited signs of youth, including fewer instances of greying and hair loss — including a reversal of these symptoms — and a general improvement in physical activity. By trial’s end, the mice that received psilocybin had a 30% increased lifespan on average than the control group.
To date, more than 150 clinical studies have been completed or are ongoing for examining psilocybin in the treatment of various clinical conditions, including anxiety, depression, addiction, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, chronic physical pain, and more.
The authors cite a study from 2020 which found that a single-dose of psilocybin can improve debilitating physical and psychological symptoms with improvements lasting up to and beyond 5 years post-dosage.
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The scientists also tested the effects of psilocin on human fibroblast cells from the lung in vitro, continually dosing them with the psychoactive compound or a placebo until they reached replicative senescence, or the point at which the cell has divided around 50 times and then stopped.
Psilocin treatment of 10 micrograms resulted in a 29% extension of cellular lifespan, characterized by delayed exhaustion of proliferative potential, increased cumulative population doublings, and decreased population doubling time. Strikingly, when increased to 100 micrograms, 29% lifespan extension became 57%.
The psilocin-dosed fibroblasts were also observed to have increased SIRT1 activity, and a preserved telomere length.
Did the mice live longer, or did were they just happier and confused? Or did the mice live as usual, and the researchers skim some shrooms and hallucinate the results.
If true, will psilocybin, or at least the magical mushrooms, be legalized, like pot Is it too late for octogenarians to get happy? Inquiring, and sober (yech) minds want to know.
My numerous typos merely represent lack of sufficient coffee, not enjoyment of shrooms.
Hallucinogens don’t necessarily hurt performance, oddly enough.
I want.