Do Psychedelic Drugs Improve Health?

• People who said they had used a psychedelic drug such as LSD or psilocybin at least once in their life tended to rate higher on some markers of health compared to non-users.
• These individuals reported somewhat better self-rated health, on average, and were less likely to be classified as overweight or obese.
• It’s not yet known whether psychedelic drug use promotes physical health or if other factors, such as personality, explain the association.

Although once demonized, psychedelic drugs have begun receiving increasing scientific attention for their potentially beneficial effects. For example, surveys have found that lifetime use of psychedelic drugs was associated with reduced psychological distress and suicidality (Hendricks et al., 2015), lower odds of criminal behavior (Hendricks et al., 2017), and decreased risk of opioid abuse and dependence (Pisano et al., 2017). Additionally, research on drug harms has indicated that psychedelic drug use is associated with a low risk of harm to self and others (Nutt et al., 2010).

Most of this research has focused on mental but not physical health. Hence, a recent study (Simonsson et al., 2021) aimed to fill this gap by examining if lifetime classic psychedelic use is associated with certain markers of physical health in a large survey in the United States. The study did find beneficial associations between some markers of physical health and psychedelic drug use, although the reasons for this, and the direction of causality…