A psychedelic—which comes from the venom of a toad—has been found to help people with treatment-resistant depression, a new study has found. An international team of researchers found that the short-lived psychedelic called 5-MeO-DMT, which is derived from the venom of the Colorado River toad, could alleviate symptoms among people with depression who had previously exhausted other treatment options. The psychedelic was administered to participants as mebufotenin benzoate nasal spray.
The study was published in the journal JAMA on October 26 and funded by Eli Lilly. An Eli Lilly spokesperson told Newsweek: "Many people living with treatment-resistant depression have tried multiple treatments without lasting relief. These Phase 2b results for investigational BPL-003 showed that a single dose significantly reduced depressive symptoms, with benefit seen through the end of the eight-week study.
We’re encouraged by these results and look forward to further evaluating BPL-003 in the Phase 3 program." Alex Kwan, a professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell University, who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek that "it is a very strong set of data to show that intranasal mebufotenin can be useful for treatment-resistant depression. The study is well executed and rigorous." The study builds on previous, smaller scale studies that also showed the potential of 5-MeO-DMT for treatment-resistant depression. Albert Garcia-Romeu, a professor of psychedelics and consciousness at Johns Hopkins University, who was also not involved in this study, told Newsweek the results are "compelling because the shorter-acting effects of 5-MeO-DMT (lasting less than 2 hours) could help increase scalability and access to these treatments relative to other longer-acting psychedelics like psilocybin, which can take about six hours to administer." Treatment-resistant depression is defined by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as constituting an inadequate response to a minimum of two antidepressants, despite adequacy of the treatment trial and adherence to treatment. Based on this definition, it has been previously estimated that at least 30 percent of those with depression have a treatment-resistant version of the condition. Treatment-resistant depression has been associated with greater risk of various physical diseases, as well as increased costs because of higher intensity treatments and more health care utilization.
"Treatment-resistant depression is debilitating because the patients do not respond to current medications. Having another treatment option that is effective can be a game-changer," Kwan said. The study included 193 people with treatment-resistant depression, who were given either active or inactive doses of 5-MeO-DMT via a nasal spray.
The trial was conducted in 38 sites across Australia, Germany, Poland, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. for eight weeks. The researchers said that most patients were able to be discharged within two hours of taking the drug. "The drug is short-lived, but induces very intense subjective experiences in humans," Kwan said, adding that "other psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD are more advanced in clinical trials, but there is skepticism on how to deliver the drugs because they cause a relatively long 'trip.'" Around a month after treatment, the researchers found that those who had taken the active version of the psychedelic saw marked improvements in their symptoms.
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