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Benefits felt from microdosing LSD might be placebo effect, study finds - The Guardian

Benefits felt from microdosing LSD might be placebo effect, study finds - The Guardian

Mar 02, 2021 1 min, 6 secs

Imperial College London researchers conducted largest placebo-controlled trial of psychedelics.

In the largest placebo-controlled trial into psychedelics to date, they found that small doses of LSD indeed boosted the psychology in all manner of ways.

When the researchers examined what trial volunteers took, they found placebos worked equally as well as the drug.

Launched in 2018, the Imperial trial recruited 191 members of the public who were already microdosing with LSD and able to participate online.

Typically, those on the trial reported feeling a psychological boost within a few hours of taking either LSD or placebo capsules.

The findings, published in eLife, suggest the expectation of taking a small dose of the drug was as good as taking the drug itself.

Since the participants sourced their own drugs, it is impossible to be sure what doses each ingested, and many of the participants were evidently familiar enough with the effects of the drug to guess whether they had taken a microdose of LSD or a placebo capsule.

James Rucker, a clinician scientist who runs the psychedelic trials group at King’s College London, and was not involved in the research, said: “This suggests that the perceived beneficial effects of microdosing psychedelics in this group are more likely to be a result of positive expectation than the capacity of the drug to induce a beneficial effect.”.

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