Colloidal Gold’s Impressive Claims
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All That Glitters…
Today we’ll be examining colloidal gold supplementation.
This issue of 10almonds brought to you by the writer suddenly getting lots of advertisements for this supplement. It’s not a new thing though, and has been around in one form or another since pretty much forever.
Colloidal gold is…
- Gold, as in the yellow metal
- Colloidal, as in “very tiny insoluble particles dispersed though another substance (such as water)”
What are the claims made for it?
Honestly, just about everything is claimed for it. But to go with some popular claims:
- Reduces inflammation
- Supports skin health
- Boosts immune function
- Combats aging
- Improves cognitive function
So, what does the science say?
Does it do those things?
The short and oversimplified answer is: no
However, there is a little bit of tangential merit, so we’re going to talk about the science of it, and how the leap gets made between what the science says and what the advertisements say.
First… What makes gold so special, in general? Historically, three things:
- It’s quite rare
- It’s quite shiny
- It’s quite unreactive
- The first is about supply and demand, so that’s not very important to us in this article.
- The second is an aesthetic quality, which actually will have a little bit of relevance, but not much.
- The third has been important historically (because it meant that shiny gold stayed shiny, because it didn’t tarnish), and now also important industrially too, as gold can be used in many processes where we basically need for nothing to happen (i.e., a very inert component is needed)
That third quality—its unreactivity—has become important in medicine.
When scientists need a way to deliver something (without the delivering object getting eaten by the body’s “eat everything” tendencies), or otherwise not interact chemically with anything around, gold is an excellent choice.
Hence gold teeth, and gold fillings, by the way. They’re not just for the bling factor; they were developed because of their unreactivity and thus safety.
So, what about those health claims we mentioned above?
Here be science (creative interpretations not included)
The most-backed-by-science claim from that list is “reduces inflammation”.
Websites selling colloidal gold cite studies such as:
Gold nanoparticles reduce inflammation in cerebral microvessels of mice with sepsis
A promising title!The results of the study showed:
❝20 nm cit-AuNP treatment reduced leukocyte and platelet adhesion to cerebral blood vessels, prevented BBB failure, reduced TNF- concentration in brain, and ICAM-1 expression both in circulating polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocytes and cerebral blood vessels of mice with sepsis. Furthermore, 20 nm cit-AuNP did not interfere with the antibiotic effect on the survival rate of mice with sepsis.❞
That “20 nm cit-AuNP” means “20 nm citrate-covered gold nanoparticles”
So it is not so much the antioxidant powers of gold being tested here, as the antioxidant powers of citrate, a known antioxidant. The gold was the carrying agent, whose mass and unreactivity allowed it to get where it needed to be.
The paper does say the words “Gold nanoparticles have been demonstrated to own important anti-inflammatory properties“ in the abstract, but does not elaborate on that, reference it, or indicate how.
Websites selling colloidal gold also cite papers such as:
Anti-inflammatory effect of gold nanoparticles supported on metal oxides
Another promising title! However the abstract mentions:
❝The effect was dependent on the MOx NPs chemical nature
[…]
The effect of Au/TiO2 NPs was not related to Au NPs size❞
MOx NPs = mineral oxide nanoparticles. In this case, the gold was a little more than a carrying agent, though, because the gold is described and explained as being a catalytic agent (i.e., its presence helps the attached mineral oxides react more quickly).
We said that was the most-backed claim, and as you can see, it has some basis but is rather tenuous since the gold by itself won’t do anything; it just helps the mineral oxides.
Next best-backed claim builds from that, which is “supports skin health”.
Sometimes colloidal gold is sold as a facial tonic. By itself it’ll distribute (inert) gold nanoparticles across your skin, and may “give you a healthy glow”, because that’s what happens when you put shiny wet stuff on your face.
Healthwise, if the facial tonic also contains some of the minerals we mentioned above, then it may have an antioxidant effect. But again, no minerals, no effect.
The claim that it “combats aging” is really a tag-on to the “antioxidant” claim.
As for the “supports immune health” claim… Websites selling colloid gold cite studies such as:
To keep things brief: gold can fight infectious diseases in much the same way that forks can fight hunger. It’s an inert carrying agent.
As for “improves cognitive function”? The only paper we could find cited was that mouse sepsis study again, this time with the website saying “researchers found that rats treated with colloidal gold showed improved spatial memory and learning ability“ whereas the paper cited absolutely did not claim that, not remotely, not even anything close to that. It wasn’t even rats, it was mice, and they did not test their memory or learning.
Is it safe?
Colloidal gold supplementation is considered very safe, precisely because gold is one of the least chemically reactive substances you could possibly consume. It is special precisely because it so rarely does anything.
However, impurities could be introduced in the production process, and the production process often involves incredibly harsh reagents to get the gold ions, and if any of those reagents are left in the solution, well, gold is safe but sodium borohydride and chloroauric acid aren’t!
Where can I get some?
In the unlikely event that our research review has given you an urge to try it, here’s an example product on Amazon
Take care!
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The Sweet Truth About Glycine
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Make Your Collagen Work Better
This is Dr. James Nicolantonio. He’s a doctor of pharmacy, and a research scientist. He has a passion for evidence-based nutrition, and has written numerous books on the subject.
Controversy! Dr. DiNicolatonio’s work has included cardiovascular research, in which field he has made the case for increasing (rather than decreasing) the recommended amount of salt in our diet. This, of course, goes very much against the popular status quo.
We haven’t reviewed that research so we won’t comment on it here, but we thought it worth a mention as a point of interest. We’ll investigate his claims in that regard another time, though!
Today, however, we’ll be looking at his incisive, yet not controversial, work pertaining to collagen and glycine.
A quick recap on collagen
We’ve written about collagen before, and its importance for maintaining… Well, pretty much most of our body, really, buta deficiency in collagen can particularly weaken bones and joints.
On a more surface level, collagen’s also important for healthy elastic skin, and many people take it for that reason alone,
Since collagen is found only in animals, even collagen supplements are animal-based (often marine collagen or bovine collagen). However, if we don’t want to consume those, we can (like most animals) synthesize it ourselves from the relevant amino acids, which we can get from plants (and also laboratories, in some cases).
You can read our previous article about this, here:
We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
What does he want us to know about collagen?
We’ll save time and space here: first, he’d like us to know the same as what we said in our article above
However, there is also more:
Let’s assume that your body has collagen to process. You either consumed it, or your body has synthesized it. We’ll skip describing the many steps of collagen synthesis, fascinating as that is, and get to the point:
When our body weaves together collagen fibrils out of the (triple-helical) collagen molecules…
- the cross-linking of the collagen requires lysyl oxidase
- the lysyl oxidase (which we make inside us) deanimates some other amino acids yielding aldehydes that allow the stable cross-links important for the high tensile strength of collagen, but to do that, it requires copper
- in order to use the copper it needs to be in its reduced cuprous form and that requires vitamin C
- but moving it around the body requires vitamin A
So in other words: if you are taking (or synthesizing) collagen, you also need copper and vitamins A and C.
However! Just to make things harder, if you take copper and vitamin C together, it’ll reduce the copper too soon in the wrong place.
Dr. DiNicolantonio therefore advises taking vitamin C after copper, with a 75 minutes gap between them.
What does he want us to know about glycine?
Glycine is one of the amino acids that makes up collagen. Specifically, it makes up every third amino acid in collagen, and even more specifically, it’s also the rate-limiting factor in the formation of glutathione, which is a potent endogenous (i.e., we make it inside us) antioxidant that works hard to fight inflammation inside the body.
What this means: if your joints are prone to inflammation, being glycine-deficient means a double-whammy of woe.
As well as being one of the amino acids most key to collagen production, glycine has another collagen-related role:
First, the problem: as we age, glycated collagen accumulates in the skin and cartilage (that’s bad; there is supposed to be collagen there, but not glycated).
More on glycation and what it is and why it is so bad:
Are You Eating Advanced Glycation End-Products? The Trouble Of The AGEs
Now, the solution: glycine suppresses advanced glycation end products, including the glycation of collagen.
See for example:
With these three important functions of glycine in mind…
Dr. DiNicolantonio therefore advises getting glycine at a dose of 100mg/kg/day. So, if you’re the same size as this rather medium-sized writer, that means 7.2g/day.
Where can I get it?
Glycine is found in many foods, including gelatin for those who eat that, eggs for the vegetarians, and spinach for vegans.
However, if you’d like to simply take it as a supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon
(the above product is not clear whether it’s animal-derived or not, so if that’s important to you, shop around. This writer got some locally that is certified vegan, but is in Europe rather than N. America, which won’t help most of our subscribers)
Note: pure glycine is a white crystalline powder that has the same sweetness as glucose. Indeed, that is how it got its name, from the Greek “γλυκύς”, pronounced /ɡly.kýs/, meaning “sweet”. Yes, same etymology as glucose.
So don’t worry that you’ve been conned if you order it and think “this is sugar!”; it just looks and tastes the same.
That does mean you should buy from a reputable source though, as a con would be very easy!
this does also mean that if you like a little sugar/sweetener in your tea or coffee, glycine can be used as a healthy substitute.
If you don’t like sweet tastes, then, condolences. This writer pours two espresso coffees (love this decaffeinated coffee that actually tastes good), puts the glycine in the first, and then uses the second to get rid of the sweet taste of the first. So that’s one way to do it.
Enjoy (if you can!)
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What’s the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia?
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What’s the difference? is a new editorial product that explains the similarities and differences between commonly confused health and medical terms, and why they matter.
Changes in thinking and memory as we age can occur for a variety of reasons. These changes are not always cause for concern. But when they begin to disrupt daily life, it could indicate the first signs of dementia.
Another term that can crop up when we’re talking about dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, or Alzheimer’s for short.
So what’s the difference?
Lightspring/Shutterstock What is dementia?
Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a range of syndromes that result in changes in memory, thinking and/or behaviour due to degeneration in the brain.
To meet the criteria for dementia these changes must be sufficiently pronounced to interfere with usual activities and are present in at least two different aspects of thinking or memory.
For example, someone might have trouble remembering to pay bills and become lost in previously familiar areas.
It’s less-well known that dementia can also occur in children. This is due to progressive brain damage associated with more than 100 rare genetic disorders. This can result in similar cognitive changes as we see in adults.
So what’s Alzheimer’s then?
Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia, accounting for about 60-80% of cases.
So it’s not surprising many people use the terms dementia and Alzheimer’s interchangeably.
Changes in memory are the most common sign of Alzheimer’s and it’s what the public most often associates with it. For instance, someone with Alzheimer’s may have trouble recalling recent events or keeping track of what day or month it is.
People with dementia may have trouble keeping track of dates. Daisy Daisy/Shutterstock We still don’t know exactly what causes Alzheimer’s. However, we do know it is associated with a build-up in the brain of two types of protein called amyloid-β and tau.
While we all have some amyloid-β, when too much builds up in the brain it clumps together, forming plaques in the spaces between cells. These plaques cause damage (inflammation) to surrounding brain cells and leads to disruption in tau. Tau forms part of the structure of brain cells but in Alzheimer’s tau proteins become “tangled”. This is toxic to the cells, causing them to die. A feedback loop is then thought to occur, triggering production of more amyloid-β and more abnormal tau, perpetuating damage to brain cells.
Alzheimer’s can also occur with other forms of dementia, such as vascular dementia. This combination is the most common example of a mixed dementia.
Vascular dementia
The second most common type of dementia is vascular dementia. This results from disrupted blood flow to the brain.
Because the changes in blood flow can occur throughout the brain, signs of vascular dementia can be more varied than the memory changes typically seen in Alzheimer’s.
For example, vascular dementia may present as general confusion, slowed thinking, or difficulty organising thoughts and actions.
Your risk of vascular dementia is greater if you have heart disease or high blood pressure.
Frontotemporal dementia
Some people may not realise that dementia can also affect behaviour and/or language. We see this in different forms of frontotemporal dementia.
The behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia is the second most common form (after Alzheimer’s disease) of younger onset dementia (dementia in people under 65).
People living with this may have difficulties in interpreting and appropriately responding to social situations. For example, they may make uncharacteristically rude or offensive comments or invade people’s personal space.
Semantic dementia is also a type of frontotemporal dementia and results in difficulty with understanding the meaning of words and naming everyday objects.
Dementia with Lewy bodies
Dementia with Lewy bodies results from dysregulation of a different type of protein known as α-synuclein. We often see this in people with Parkinson’s disease.
So people with this type of dementia may have altered movement, such as a stooped posture, shuffling walk, and changes in handwriting. Other symptoms include changes in alertness, visual hallucinations and significant disruption to sleep.
Do I have dementia and if so, which type?
If you or someone close to you is concerned, the first thing to do is to speak to your GP. They will likely ask you some questions about your medical history and what changes you have noticed.
Sometimes it might not be clear if you have dementia when you first speak to your doctor. They may suggest you watch for changes or they may refer you to a specialist for further tests.
There is no single test to clearly show if you have dementia, or the type of dementia. A diagnosis comes after multiple tests, including brain scans, tests of memory and thinking, and consideration of how these changes impact your daily life.
Not knowing what is happening can be a challenging time so it is important to speak to someone about how you are feeling or to reach out to support services.
Dementia is diverse
As well as the different forms of dementia, everyone experiences dementia in different ways. For example, the speed dementia progresses varies a lot from person to person. Some people will continue to live well with dementia for some time while others may decline more quickly.
There is still significant stigma surrounding dementia. So by learning more about the various types of dementia and understanding differences in how dementia progresses we can all do our part to create a more dementia-friendly community.
The National Dementia Helpline (1800 100 500) provides information and support for people living with dementia and their carers. To learn more about dementia, you can take this free online course.
Nikki-Anne Wilson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), UNSW Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Turns out the viral ‘Sleepy Girl Mocktail’ is backed by science. Should you try it?
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Many of us wish we could get a better night’s sleep. Wouldn’t it be great if it was as easy as a mocktail before bed?
That’s what the latest viral trend might have us believe. The “Sleepy Girl Mocktail” is a mix of tart cherry juice, powdered magnesium supplement and soda water. TikTok videos featuring the concoction have garnered hundreds of thousands of views. But, what does the science say? Do these ingredients actually help us sleep?
Tart cherry juice
There is research to show including tart cherry juice in your diet improves overall sleep. Clinical trials show tart cherry juice increases sleep quality and quantity, as well as a lessening insomnia symptoms (compared to a placebo). This could be due to the presence of melatonin, a sleep-promoting hormone, in cherries.
Tart cherry varieties such as Jerte Valley or Montmorency have the highest concentration of melatonin (approximately 0.135 micrograms of melatonin per 100g of cherry juice). Over the counter melatonin supplements can range from 0.5 milligram to over 100 milligrams, with research suggesting those beginning to take melatonin start with a dose of 0.5–2 milligrams to see an improvement in sleep.
Melatonin naturally occurs in our bodies. Our body clock promotes the release of melatonin in the evening to help us sleep, specifically in the two hours before our natural bedtime.
If we want to increase our melatonin intake with external sources, such as cherries, then we should be timing our intake with our natural increase in melatonin. Supplementing melatonin too close to bed will mean we may not get the sleep-promoting benefits in time to get off to sleep easily. Taking melatonin too late may even harm our long-term sleep health by sending the message to our body clock to delay the release of melatonin until later in the evening.
Magnesium – but how much?
Magnesium also works to promote melatonin, and magnesium supplements have been shown to improve sleep outcomes.
However, results vary depending on the amount of magnesium people take. And we don’t yet have the answers on the best dose of magnesium for sleep benefits.
We do know magnesium plays a vital role in energy production and bone development, making it an important daily nutrient for our diets. Foods rich in magnesium include wheat cereal or bread, almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, spinach, artichokes, green beans, soy milk and dark chocolate.
Bubbly water
Soda water serves as the base of the drink, rather than a pathway to better sleep. And bubbly water may make the mix more palatable. It is important to keep in mind that drinking fluids close to bedtime can be disruptive to our sleep as it might lead to waking during the night to urinate.
Healthy sleep recommendations include avoiding water intake in the two hours before bed. Having carbonated beverages too close to bed can also trigger digestive symptoms such as bloating, gassiness and reflux during the night.
Bottoms up?
Overall, there is evidence to support trying out the Sleepy Girl Mocktail to see if it improves sleep, however there are some key things to remember:
timing: to get the benefits of this drink, avoid having it too close to bed. Aim to have it two hours before your usual bedtime and avoid fluids after this time
consistency: no drink is going to be an immediate cure for poor sleep. However, this recipe could help promote sleep if used strategically (at the right time) and consistently as part of a balanced diet. It may also introduce a calming evening routine that helps your brain relax and signals it’s time for bed
- maximum magnesium: be mindful of the amount of magnesium you are consuming. While there are many health benefits to magnesium, the recommended daily maximum amounts are 420mg for adult males and 320mg for adult females. Exceeding the maximum can lead to low blood pressure, respiratory distress, stomach problems, muscle weakness and mood problems
sugar: in some of the TikTok recipes sugar (as flavoured sodas, syrups or lollies) is added to the drink. While this may help hide the taste of the tart cherry juice, the consumption of sugar too close to bed may make it more difficult to get to sleep. And sugar in the evening raises blood sugar levels at a time when our body is not primed to be processing sugar. Long term, this can increase our risk of diabetes
sleep environment: follow good sleep hygiene practices including keeping a consistent bedtime and wake time, a wind-down routine before bed, avoiding electronic device use like phones or laptops in bed, and avoiding bright light in the evening. Bright light works to suppress our melatonin levels in the evening and make us more alert.
What about other drinks?
Other common evening beverages include herbal tisanes or teas, hot chocolate, or warm milk.
Milk can be especially beneficial for sleep, as it contains the amino acid tryptophan, which can promote melatonin production. Again, it is important to also consider the timing of these drinks and to avoid any caffeine in tea and too much chocolate too close to bedtime, as this can make us more alert rather than sleepy.
Getting enough sleep is crucial to our health and wellbeing. If you have tried multiple strategies to improve your sleep and things are not getting better, it may be time to seek professional advice, such as from a GP.
Charlotte Gupta, Postdoctoral research fellow, CQUniversity Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Taking A Trip Through The Evidence On Psychedelics
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In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your opinions on the medicinal use of psychedelics, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:
- 32% said “This is a good, evidence-based way to treat many brain disorders”
- 32% said “There are some benefits, but they don’t outweigh the risks”
- 20% said “This can help a select few people only; useless for the majority”
- 16% said “This is hippie hogwash and hearsay; wishful thinking at best”
Quite a spread of answers, so what does the science say?
This is hippie hogwash and hearsay; wishful thinking at best! True or False?
False! We’re tackling this one first, because it’s easiest to answer:
There are some moderately-well established [usually moderate] clinical benefits from some psychedelics for some people.
If that sounds like a very guarded statement, it is. Part of this is because “psychedelics” is an umbrella term; perhaps we should have conducted separate polls for psilocybin, MDMA, ayahuasca, LSD, ibogaine, etc, etc.
In fact: maybe we will do separate main features for some of these, as there is a lot to say about each of them separately.
Nevertheless, looking at the spread of research as it stands for psychedelics as a category, the answers are often similar across the board, even when the benefits/risks may differ from drug to drug.
To speak in broad terms, if we were to make a research summary for each drug it would look approximately like this in each case:
- there has been research into this, but not nearly enough, as “the war on drugs” may well have manifestly been lost (the winner of the war being: drugs; still around and more plentiful than ever), but it did really cramp science for a few decades.
- the studies are often small, heterogenous (often using moderately wealthy white student-age population samples), and with a low standard of evidence (i.e. the methodology often has some holes that leave room for reasonable doubt).
- the benefits recorded are often small and transient.
- in their favor, though, the risks are also generally recorded as being quite low, assuming proper safe administration*.
*Illustrative example:
Person A takes MDMA in a club, dances their cares away, has had only alcohol to drink, sweats buckets but they don’t care because they love everyone and they see how we’re all one really and it all makes sense to them and then they pass out from heat exhaustion and dehydration and suffer kidney damage (not to mention a head injury when falling) and are hospitalized and could die;
Person B takes MDMA in a lab, is overwhelmed with a sense of joy and the clarity of how their participation in the study is helping humanity; they want to hug the researcher and express their gratitude; the researcher reminds them to drink some water.
Which is not to say that a lab is the only safe manner of administration; there are many possible setups for supervised usage sites. But it does mean that the risks are often as much environmental as they are risks inherent to the drug itself.
Others are more inherent to the drug itself, such as adverse cardiac events for some drugs (ibogaine is one that definitely needs medical supervision, for example).
For those who’d like to see numbers and clinical examples of the bullet points we gave above, here you go; this is a great (and very readable) overview:
NIH | Evidence Brief: Psychedelic Medications for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders
Notwithstanding the word “brief” (intended in the sense of: briefing), this is not especially brief and is rather an entire book (available for free, right there!), but we do recommend reading it if you have time.
This can help a select few people only; useless for the majority: True or False?
True, technically, insofar as the evidence points to these drugs being useful for such things as depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, etc, and estimates of people who struggle with mental health issues in general is often cited as being 1 in 4, or 1 in 5. Of course, many people may just have moderate anxiety, or a transient period of depression, etc; many, meanwhile, have it worth.
In short: there is a very large minority of people who suffer from mental health issues that, for each issue, there may be one or more psychedelic that could help.
This is a good, evidence-based way to treat many brain disorders: True or False?
True if and only if we’re willing to accept the so far weak evidence that we discussed above. False otherwise, while the jury remains out.
One thing in its favor though is that while the evidence is weak, it’s not contradictory, insofar as the large preponderance of evidence says such therapies probably do work (there aren’t many studies that returned negative results); the evidence is just weak.
When a thousand scientists say “we’re not completely sure, but this looks like it helps; we need to do more research”, then it’s good to believe them on all counts—the positivity and the uncertainty.
This is a very different picture than we saw when looking at, say, ear candling or homeopathy (things that the evidence says simply do not work).
We haven’t been linking individual studies so far, because that book we linked above has many, and the number of studies we’d have to list would be:
n = number of kinds of psychedelic drugs x number of conditions to be treated
e.g. how does psilocybin fare for depression, eating disorders, anxiety, addiction, PTSD, this, that, the other; now how does ayahuasca fare for each of those, and so on for each drug and condition; at least 25 or 30 as a baseline number, and we don’t have that room.
But here are a few samples to finish up:
- Psilocybin as a New Approach to Treat Depression and Anxiety in the Context of Life-Threatening Diseases—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials
- Therapeutic Use of LSD in Psychiatry: A Systematic Review of Randomized-Controlled Clinical Trials
- Efficacy of Psychoactive Drugs for the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Systematic Review of MDMA, Ketamine, LSD and Psilocybin
- Changes in self-rumination and self-compassion mediate the effect of psychedelic experiences on decreases in depression, anxiety, and stress.
- Psychedelic Treatments for Psychiatric Disorders: A Systematic Review and Thematic Synthesis of Patient Experiences in Qualitative Studies
- Repeated lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) reverses stress-induced anxiety-like behavior, cortical synaptogenesis deficits and serotonergic neurotransmission decline
In closing…
The general scientific consensus is presently “many of those drugs may ameliorate many of those conditions, but we need a lot more research before we can say for sure”.
On a practical level, an important take-away from this is twofold:
- drugs, even those popularly considered recreational, aren’t ontologically evil, generally do have putative merits, and have been subject to a lot of dramatization/sensationalization, especially by the US government in its famous war on drugs.
- drugs, even those popularly considered beneficial and potentially lifechangingly good, are still capable of doing great harm if mismanaged, so if putting aside “don’t do drugs” as a propaganda of the past, then please do still hold onto “don’t do drugs alone”; trained professional supervision is a must for safety.
Take care!
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Ageless – by Dr. Andrew Steele
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So, yet another book with “The new science of…” in the title; does this one deliver new science?
Actually, yes, this time! The author was originally a physicist before deciding that aging was the number one problem that needed solving, and switched tracks to computational biology, and pioneered a lot of research, some of the fruits of which can be found in this book, in amongst a more general history of the (very young!) field of biogerontology.
Downside: most of this is not very practical for the lay reader; most of it is explanations of how things happen on a cellular and/or genetic level, and how we learned that. A lot also pertains to what we can learn from animals that either age very slowly, or are biologically immortal (in other words, they can still be killed, but they don’t age and won’t die of anything age-related), or are immune to cancer—and how we might borrow those genes for gene therapy.
However, there are also chapters on such things as “running repairs”, “reprogramming aging”, and “how to live long enough to live even longer”.
The style is conversational pop science; in the prose, he simply states things without reference, but at the back, there are 40 pages of bibliography, indexed in the order in which they occurred and prefaced with the statement that he’s referencing in each case. It’s an odd way to do citations, but it works comfortably enough.
Bottom line: if you’d like to understand aging on the cellular level, and how we know what we know and what the likely future possibilities are, then this is a great book; it’s also simply very enjoyable to read, assuming you have an interest in the topic (as this reviewer does).
Click here to check out Ageless, and understand the science of getting older without getting old!
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Psychoactive Drugs Are Having a Moment. The FDA Will Soon Weigh In.
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Lori Tipton is among the growing number of people who say that MDMA, also known as ecstasy, saved their lives.
Raised in New Orleans by a mother with untreated bipolar disorder who later killed herself and two others, Tipton said she endured layers of trauma that eventually forced her to seek treatment for crippling anxiety and hypervigilance. For 10 years nothing helped, and she began to wonder if she was “unfixable.”
Then she answered an ad for a clinical trial for MDMA-assisted therapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Tipton said the results were immediate, and she is convinced the drug could help a lot of people. But even as regulators weigh approval of the first MDMA-based treatment, she’s worried that it won’t reach those who need it most.
“The main thing that I’m always concerned about is just accessibility,” the 43-year-old nonprofit project manager said. “I don’t want to see this become just another expensive add-on therapy for people who can afford it when people are dying every day by their own hand because of PTSD.”
MDMA is part of a new wave of psychoactive drugs that show great potential for treating conditions such as severe depression and PTSD. Investors are piling into the nascent field, and a host of medications based on MDMA, LSD, psychedelic mushrooms, ketamine, the South American plant mixture ayahuasca, and the African plant ibogaine are now under development, and in some cases vying for approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
Proponents hope the efforts could yield the first major new therapies for mental illness since the introduction of modern antidepressants in the 1980s. But not all researchers are convinced that their benefits have been validated, or properly weighed against the risks. And they can be difficult to assess using traditional clinical trials.
The first MDMA-assisted assisted therapy appeared to be on track for FDA approval this August, but a recent report from an independent review committee challenged the integrity of the trial data from the drug’s maker, Lykos Therapeutics, a startup founded by a psychedelic research and advocacy group. The FDA will convene a panel of independent investigators on June 4 to determine whether to recommend the drug’s approval.
Proponents of the new therapies also worry that the FDA will impose treatment protocols, such as requiring multiple trained clinicians to monitor a patient for extended periods, that will render them far too expensive for most people.
Tipton’s MDMA-assisted therapy included three eight-hour medication sessions overseen by two therapists, each followed by an overnight stay at the facility and an integration session the following day.
“It does seem that some of these molecules can be administered safely,” said David Olson, director of the University of California-Davis Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics. “I think the question is can they be administered safely at the scale needed to really make major improvements in mental health care.”
Breakthrough Therapies?
Psychedelics and other psychoactive substances, among the medicines with the oldest recorded use, have long been recognized for their potential therapeutic benefits. Modern research on them started in the mid-20th century, but clinical trial results didn’t live up to the claims of advocates, and they eventually got a bad name both from their use as party drugs and from rogue CIA experiments that involved dosing unsuspecting individuals.
The 1970 Controlled Substances Act made most psychoactive drugs illegal before any treatments were brought to market, and MDMA was classified as a Schedule 1 substance in 1985, which effectively ended any research. It wasn’t until 2000 that scientists at Johns Hopkins University were granted regulatory approval to study psilocybin anew.
Ketamine was in a different category, having been approved as an anesthetic in 1970. In the early 2000s, researchers discovered its antidepressant effects, and a ketamine-based therapy, Spravato, received FDA approval in 2019. Doctors can also prescribe generic ketamine off-label, and hundreds of clinics have sprung up across the nation. A clinical trial is underway to evaluate ketamine’s effectiveness in treating suicidal depression when used with other psychiatric medications.
Ketamine’s apparent effectiveness sparked renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of other psychoactive substances.
They fall into distinct categories: MDMA is an entactogen, also known as an empathogen, which induces a sense of connectedness and emotional communion, while LSD, psylocibin, and ibogaine are psychedelics, which create altered perceptual states. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic, though it can produce hallucinations at the right dose.
Despite the drugs’ differences, Olson said they all create neuroplasticity and allow the brain to heal damaged neural circuits, which imaging shows can be shriveled up in patients with addiction, depression, and PTSD.
“All of these brain conditions are really disorders of neural circuits,” Olson said. “We’re basically looking for medicines that can regrow these neurons.”
Psychedelics are particularly good at doing this, he said, and hold promise for treating diseases including Alzheimer’s.
A number of psychoactive drugs have now received the FDA’s “breakthrough therapy” designation, which expedites development and review of drugs with the potential to treat serious conditions.
But standard clinical trials, in which one group of patients is given the drug and a control group is given a placebo, have proven problematic, for the simple reason that people have no trouble determining whether they’ve gotten the real thing.
The final clinical trial for Lykos’ MDMA treatment showed that 71% of participants no longer met the criteria for PTSD after 18 weeks of taking the drug versus 48% in the control group.
A March report by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, an independent research group, questioned the company’s clinical trial results and challenged the objectivity of MDMA advocates who participated in the study as both patients and therapists. The institute also questioned the drug’s cost-effectiveness, which insurers factor into coverage decisions.
Lykos, a public benefit company, was formed in 2014 as an offshoot of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit that has invested more than $150 million into psychedelic research and advocacy.
The company said its researchers developed their studies in partnership with the FDA and used independent raters to ensure the reliability and validity of the results.
“We stand behind the design and results of our clinical trials,” a Lykos spokesperson said in an email.
There are other hazards too. Psychoactive substances can put patients in vulnerable states, making them potential victims for financial exploitation or other types of abuse. In Lykos’ second clinical trial, two therapists were found to have spooned, cuddled, blindfolded, and pinned down a female patient who was in distress.
The substances can also cause shallow breathing, heart issues, and hyperthermia.
To mitigate risks, the FDA can put restrictions on how drugs are administered.
“These are incredibly potent molecules and having them available in vending machines is probably a bad idea,” said Hayim Raclaw of Negev Capital, a venture capital fund focused on psychedelic drug development.
But if the protocols are too stringent, access is likely to be limited.
Rachel del Dosso, a trauma therapist in the greater Los Angeles area who offers ketamine-assisted therapy, said she’s been following the research on drugs like MDMA and psilocybin and is excited for their therapeutic potential but has reservations about the practicalities of treatment.
“As a therapist in clinical practice, I’ve been thinking through how could I make that accessible,” she said. “Because it would cost a lot for [patients] to have me with them for the whole thing.”
Del Dosso said a group therapy model, which is sometimes used in ketamine therapy, could help scale the adoption of other psychoactive treatments, too.
Artificial Intelligence and Analogs
Researchers expect plenty of new discoveries in the field. One of the companies Negev has invested in, Mindstate Design Labs, uses artificial intelligence to analyze “trip reports,” or self-reported drug experiences, to identify potentially therapeutic molecules. Mindstate has asked the FDA to green-light a clinical trial of the first molecule identified through this method, 5-MeO-MiPT, also known as moxy.
AlphaFold, an AI program developed by Google’s DeepMind, has identified thousands of potential psychedelic molecules.
There’s also a lot of work going into so-called analog compounds, which have the therapeutic effects of hallucinogens but without the hallucinations. The maker of a psilocybin analog announced in March that the FDA had granted it breakthrough therapy status.
“If you can harness the neuroplasticity-promoting properties of LSD while also creating an antipsychotic version of it, then that can be pretty powerful,” Olson said.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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