The "magic mushroom" drug psilocybin can help cancer patients relax and feel less distressed about their disease, two teams of doctors reported Thursday. The drug eased anxiety and depression in 80 percent of the patients who took it in the studies, and many described their one-time sessions as ranking among the most meaningful experiences of their lives. While the drug is clearly not for everyone, it's worth testing under carefully controlled conditions in more patients, the researchers concluded. "We found that a single dose of psilocybin immediately reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety in patients that had advanced cancer and life-threatening forms of cancer," Dr. Stephen Ross, director of addiction psychiatry at New York University's Langone Medical Center, told NBC News. Gale Cowan was one of them. The 73-year-old New York adult literacy teacher has been dealing with breast cancer on and off since 2003. She knows it's likely to kill her. "It was sort of like this deep sense of dread, that this cancer was stalking me," she told NBC News. "And every time I think I beat it back, it would catch up with me again," Cowan added. "It was coming back every two or three years." It's a common feeling, Ross said."Forty to 50 percent of patients with cancer will have some diagnosable anxiety or depressive disorder," he said. Cowan had tried LSD in her 20s and so didn't feel many doubts about joining a clinical trial of psilocybin. The researchers delivered the drug - a synthetic version of the active ingredient of the mushrooms - in a carefully controlled setting, with therapists on hand, soothing music and plenty of objects for the volunteers to look at and touch. "It starts off more like the things that I was seeing were heightened," Cowan said. "Even like that lamp --all of a sudden you know the texture of the shade." Read more
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