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A study based on online Google searches suggests surging U.S. interest in microdosing psychedelics, such as psilocybin, as rules around the use of such drugs begin to relax. But the safety of these drugs isn’t entirely clear, said study lead author Dr. Kevin Yang. “As public interest in using psychedelics and cannabis for health grows, it’s crucial that the medical community conducts studies to establish a strong evidence base for their safety and efficacy,” said Yang, a psychiatry resident physician at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. ‘Magic mushrooms’ have long been used recreationally to get high, but in recent years numerous studies have suggested that the fungus’ active ingredient, the hallucinogen psilocybin, might have some therapeutic effects if used in smaller doses (“microdosing”) under controlled conditions. According to a UCSD news release, people who microdose take “‘sub-perceptual’ doses of psychedelics, often over prolonged periods, with users claiming it improves cognition, mood and overall health without causing the intense hallucinogenic effects of higher doses.” Already, eight U.S. states have had cities or counties decriminalize this type of psychedelic use, and two states, Colorado and Oregon, have legalized psychedelic-assisted therapy and decriminalized psychedelics statewide. Those moves come at the same time that another recreational drug, cannabis, has gained mainstream acceptance and has been legalized in 24 states. So what is the current… read on > read on >

People largely date and marry people in their own “league,” as far as beauty is concerned, a new review finds. Men and women are fairly accurate at rating their own physical attractiveness, and they tend to choose mates who have similar views of their own beauty, researchers report. For example, fellows who rated themselves as attractive tended to date ladies with similar self-ratings, researchers reported recently in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. These results come from more than two dozen studies involving nearly 1,300 opposite-sex couples dating as far back as 1972. In the studies, members of couples were asked to rate their own physical attractiveness. Their pictures were then shown to strangers, who provided an outside rating on their beauty. People’s own assessment of their attractiveness largely tended to align with the rating provided by a stranger, results show. “The fundamentals of what humans consider to be attractive across cultures and across time are pretty consistent,” said lead researcher Gregory Webster, a professor of psychology at the University of Florida. The review also allowed researchers to track how these self-ratings change at different points in long relationships. Some studies focused on young dating couples, while others involved long-married spouses. Among people who had been together longer, men were more accurate at judging their own attractiveness, researchers found. That might be due to the… read on > read on >

Specific types of gut bacteria appear to be linked to compulsive eating, a new study reports. Researchers found that one type of gut bacteria — the Proteobacteria family — is abundant in people and mice with an addiction to food. Other types of gut bacteria are decreased in food-addicted people and mice, including Blautia bacteria and bacteria belonging to the Actinobacteria family, researchers say. What’s more, food addiction decreased in mice when they were fed prebiotics that caused Blautia levels in the gut to rise, said researcher Elena Martin-Garcia, a professor of medicine and life sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. These results suggest the “potential protective effects of increasing the abundance of Actinobacterial and Bacillota against the development of food addiction,” Martin-Garcia said. Blautia belongs to the Bacillota family. For the study, researchers used a food addiction scale to diagnose the condition in mice and humans. The scale measures persistent food-seeking, motivation to obtain food and compulsive behavior. They found that mice with food addiction had higher levels of Proteobacteria and lower levels of Actinobacteria and Blautia. Those same trends were seen in 88 humans, researchers said. “The findings in both mice and humans suggested that specific microbiota could be protective in preventing food addiction,” Martin-Garcia said. “In particular, the strong similarities in the amount of Blautia underlined the potential beneficial effects… read on > read on >

As psilocybin mushrooms become the most popular psychedelic in the United States, some states have started to ease regulations on its recreational use. Now, a new report warns that the federal government will have to decide whether to follow suit. RAND, a nonprofit research group, stresses in the report that if efforts to expand the recreational supply of psychedelics don’t go well, the fallout could put a damper on potential medical uses. “Based on what happened with clinical research on psychedelics after the 1960s, this is not an idle concern,” lead author Beau Kilmer, a senior policy researcher, said in a RAND news release. Indigenous groups that consider psychedelics spiritual medicines could also be affected, study co-author Michelle Priest, an assistant policy researcher at RAND, warned. The popularity of psychdelic mushrooms now far outpaces that of other mind-altering drugs such as ecstasy (MDMA), the new report reveals. It includes results of a December 2023 survey of almost 3,800 U.S. adults who were asked about their use of various substances, including psychedelics. Twelve percent said they had used psilocybin at some point, and 3.1% had done so in the past year. The report estimated that 8 million U.S. adults used psilocybin last year. Still, use is typically infrequent, the survey found — 0.9% of respondents said they had used psilocybin in the past month, compared to… read on > read on >

Even though plant-based meat alternatives are ultra-processed, they still may be healthier for your heart than traditional meat is, a new review finds. Risk factors for heart disease, including total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and body weight, all improved when meats were replaced with a plant-based substitute, according to the analysis published Tuesday in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. In one clinical trial reviewed, people consuming plant-based alternatives saw a 13% reduction in total cholesterol, a 9% reduction in LDL cholesterol, a 53% reduction in triglycerides and an 11% rise in “good” HDL cholesterol. “Plant-based meat is a healthy alternative that is clearly associated with reduced cardiovascular risk factors,” senior study author Dr. Ehud Ur, a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, told NBC News. Still, the researchers did find a wide variation in the nutritional value of meat substitutes, such as in the amount of sodium and saturated fat they contained. For example, Ur’s team focused on two burger brands: an older one and a newer one that tasted more like beef. The older burger had 6% of the recommended daily allowance for saturated fat, compared to 30% in the newer burger. Meanwhile, the older brand had 0% cholesterol, compared with 27% in the newer brand. Most meat substitutes are highly processed, and such foods tend to be low in fiber and… read on > read on >

Anxiety could be an early warning sign of Parkinson’s disease, a new study finds. People with anxiety have at least double the risk of developing Parkinson’s compared to those without the mood disorder, results show. Further, specific Parkinson’s symptoms serve as warning signs of the disorder in people with anxiety, researchers found. “By understanding that anxiety and the mentioned [symptoms] are linked to a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease over the age of 50, we hope that we may be able to detect the condition earlier and help patients get the treatment they need,” said co-lead researcher Dr. Juan Bazo Avarez, a senior research fellow with University College London Epidemiology & Health. Parkinson’s disease causes problems with movement, including shaking, stiffness and problems with balance and coordination, according to the National Institute on Aging. The disease occurs due to the death of nerve cells in the brain that produce dopamine, a chemical that is important to motor control. Parkinson’s is the world’s fastest growing neurodegenerative disorder, researchers said. It currently affects nearly 10 million people around the world. For the new study, researchers analyzed British health records for nearly 110,000 people who developed anxiety after age 50 between 2008 and 2018. Their medical data was compared to more than 878,000 people without anxiety. Researchers specifically looked for Parkinson’s symptoms — such as sleep problems,… read on > read on >

Low-birth-weight newborns have a higher risk of health complications if they become obese as children, a new study has found. Obese children who were low-birth-weight babies have a higher risk of insulin resistance, fatty liver and other health problems, researchers found. The study “supports the theory that individuals who were born low birth weight, or who are genetically predisposed to low birth weight, may be more vulnerable to health hazards — such as excess visceral fat — throughout the course of life,” said lead researcher Sara Stinson, a postdoctoral research fellow with Oslo University Hospital in Norway. Previous studies already have tied high birth weight to an increased risk of overweight and obesity, and low birth weight to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. To understand these links more, researchers analyzed data on more than 4,000 children. The data included birth weight, BMI, medical records, blood samples and a genetic health risk score associated with birth weight. They found that a low-birth-weight child’s insulin sensitivity suffers if they put on excess pounds. “In children with obesity, we see near normal insulin sensitivity in children born with a high birth weight and drastically decreased insulin sensitivity in children with low birth weight,” researcher Dr. Pauline Kromann Reim, a doctoral student with the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen… read on > read on >

A new slow-release pill form of ketamine can quell hard-to-treat depression without producing psychedelic side effects normally associated with the drug, early research suggests. Patients on the strongest dose of ketamine tablets saw significant improvement in their depression compared to a placebo, researchers found. On a 30-point depression scale, people taking the ketamine pill improved by 14 points, while the placebo group had an average reduction of 8 points. The tablet could provide an improvement over ketamine injections and nasal sprays, which already are used to treat depression, said researcher Colleen Loo, a clinical psychiatrist with the University of New South Wales in Australia. A derivative of ketamine called esketamine (Spravato) is already approved in the United States for treatment-resistant depression in adults. It comes as a pill, nasal spray or injection, but these all work quickly and produce psychedelic effects. “This is a way of administering ketamine to treat depression that’s much easier to give,” Loo said in a university news release. “Rather than having to come to the clinic and have an injection and have medical monitoring for two hours, once or twice a week, this is much more convenient and allows patients to have their treatment at home, making it as convenient as other antidepressant medications.” Extended-release ketamine also doesn’t cause the hallucinations typically associated with the drug, Loo added. It had… read on > read on >

Losing weight can protect you against cancers related to obesity, a new study finds. Obesity has been linked to higher risk of at least 13 types of cancer, researchers said. This is largely due to excess levels of hormones like estrogen and insulin. But study results show that dropping pounds can improve a person’s odds against developing these cancers, including breast, kidney, ovary, liver and pancreatic cancers. “This study reinforces how crucial it is to treat obesity as a chronic disease,” said researcher Dr. Kenda Alkwatli, a clinical fellow at Cleveland Clinic. “We are hopeful that these results can help us better understand how we can use weight loss to address co-morbidities, including cancer in patients with obesity.” For the study, researchers evaluated the electronic health records of more than 100,000 obese patients at the Cleveland Clinic, of whom more than 5,300 developed cancer. Researchers tracked changes in BMI at three-, five- and 10-year intervals prior to a person’s cancer diagnosis and compared them against controls. They found that losing weight could reduce a person’s risk of developing most obesity-related cancers within a five-year span. For example, the risk of kidney cancer dropped within three years and endometrial cancer at three and five years. Multiple myeloma risk fell within 10 years. What’s more, losing weight also appeared to protect people against a range of 16… read on > read on >

The rate of self-reported mental distress and depression among American adults who identify as transgender or gender-diverse (TGD) has more than doubled between 2014 and 2022, an analysis of federal health data reveals. During that time, “a record number of enacted laws has threatened the rights and protections of TGD people, including restricting access to gender-affirming care and permitting discrimination in public accommodations,” noted a team of researchers led by health care policy investigator Michael Liu, of Harvard Medical School. The findings are published June 24 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Liu’s team tracked survey data from the federal government’s ongoing Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which follows the self-reported physical and mental health of U.S. adults over time. The analysis started in 2014, the first year in which gender identity was added to the survey, and tracked data through 2022. Liu’s team found that the “prevalence of frequent mental distress increased from 18.8% in 2014 to 38.9% in 2022” among transgender or gender-diverse people. In contrast, the rise in mental distress was less steep among cisgender people — from 11.2% to 15.5%. Depression rates among transgender and gender-diverse adults also rose sharply between 2014 and 2022 — more than doubling from 19.7% to 51.3%, Liu’s group found. Over the same time period, depression rates among cisgender adults rose only slightly, from 18.6% to… read on > read on >