The active chemical in magic mushrooms could prove to be a powerful antidepressant, a new review finds. Psilocybin outperformed a variety of “control” treatments in easing symptoms of depression, researchers reported May 1 in the BMJ. Those control groups received either placebo medications, the dietary supplement niacin (vitamin B), or microdoses of psychedelics. “This review’s findings on psilocybin’s efficacy in reducing symptoms of depression are encouraging for its use in clinical practice as a drug intervention for patients with primary or secondary depression, particularly when combined with psychological support and administered in a supervised clinical environment,” concluded the research team led by Athina-Marina Metaxa, a master’s student with the University of Oxford’s Department of Medicine in the U.K. Depression affects an estimated 300 million people worldwide, an increase of nearly 20% over the past decade, researchers said in background notes. Psilocybin has shown promise in reducing depression symptoms after one or two doses, with few side effects and no apparent risk of addiction, researchers said. To provide an overview of where research now stands, a U.K. team examined data from seven clinical trials involving 436 people with depression. Psilocybin provided a significantly greater change in depression scores than any of the control treatments, results show. The treatment effects of psilocybin were significantly more powerful among patients who had depression alongside another mental illness, and when…  read on >  read on >

Women approaching menopause appear to be at higher risk of depression, a new review indicates. Women in the transition period prior to menopause are 40% more likely to experience depression than premenopausal women, according to pooled data from seven studies involving more than 9,100 women around the world. The results show that women heading into menopause “are significantly more likely to experience depression than either before or after this stage,” said senior researcher Dr. Roopal Desai, a clinical fellow in psychology with University College London. “Our findings emphasize the importance of acknowledging that women in this life stage are more vulnerable to experiencing depression,” Desai added in a university news release. “It also underlines the need to provide support and screening for women to help address their mental health needs effectively.”  This transition period, called perimenopause, usually occurs three to five years before the onset of menopause, researchers said in background notes. During this transition, the ovaries begin producing fewer female hormones, and fluctuating hormone levels can cause mood changes along with irregular menstrual cycles and other symptoms, researchers said. This stage of menopause continues until a year after a woman’s last period, and can often last between four and eight years overall, researchers said. The analysis included studies involving women from the United States, Australia, China, the Netherlands and Switzerland, researchers said. Menopause symptoms…  read on >  read on >

At what age does loneliness strike adults the hardest? A new review maps it out, finding that people are more lonely as young adults, grow less lonely as they approach middle age, and then fall back into loneliness in old age, researchers reported April 30 in the journal Psychological Science. “What was striking was how consistent the uptick in loneliness is in older adulthood,” said researcher Eileen Graham, an associate professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “There’s a wealth of evidence that loneliness is related to poorer health, so we wanted to better understand who is lonely and why people are becoming lonelier as they age out of midlife, so we can hopefully start finding ways to mitigate it,” Graham said. Social isolation can increase the risk of premature death to levels comparable to daily smoking, according to the U.S. Surgeon General. For the review, researchers evaluated data from nine long-term studies conducted around the world. All of the studies showed a U-shaped loneliness curve, even though they tested different groups of people from the United States, the U.K., Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia and Israel, researchers said.   “Our study is unique because it harnessed the power of all these datasets to answer the same question — ‘How does loneliness change across the lifespan, and what factors…  read on >  read on >