- It matters who you choose.
That could skew the results of the study.
Today, I'm gonna be responding to a study
that was published a couple months ago
by researchers at Imperial College London.
This study (which has apparently been billed
as the largest placebo controlled study
on psychedelics to date)
has found that the results
in microdosing appear
to be explained by the placebo effect.
As you can imagine,
there is nothing that the media loves more
than a contrarian, sensationalist headline.
So I wanna just share with you some of these headlines.
A Microdosing High is Mostly a Placebo Effect.
Microdosing with 'shrooms or LSD no better than placebo.
And, lastly, my favorite:
New Study Suggests that Microdosing
May Be a Macro Placebo Effect.
If you've been with me for more than one video now,
you probably know where I stand
on this and you probably know what my bias is.
I don't believe that microdosing is just a placebo effect,
and actually, I kind of feel insulted by the suggestion
that microdosing psychedelics is no more effective
than a sugar pill.
I don't want to sort of rehash my mental health history,
but for those of you who've been with me for a while now,
You guys will know
for many of us,
we don't arrive at microdosing
as our first choice intervention.
Many of us, we go to our doctor, you know,
we interact with the mental health care system here
to say to somebody who has been failed
by conventional methods
that, "Well, microdosing is just
a placebo effect."
That is kind of insulting.
And I wanted to just say that to get it out there
because in the rest of this video,
I'm gonna suspend my bias
because we have plenty of facts to discuss.
I want to share with you the study.
I want to share with you limitations
that the authors have acknowledged.
And also, I want to share with you
the limitations of this study
that the authors haven't acknowledged,
but also, these are limitations
that I feel are relevant here.
I'm sure, you know,
many of us,
we read the headlines, read the articles.
Unfortunately, thanks to this new slew of media coverage,
Some of you might be running into people
in your day-to-day life who insist that microdosing
is just a placebo.
I hope that by the end of this video
you will have the information that you require
to simply say to them, "The jury is out."
because it's true, the jury is out
when it comes to actually showing
in the scientific literature the true drug effect
of microdosing psychedelics.
(gentle upbeat music)
- How do you conduct a large-scale study
on substances that are effectively illegal
in many parts of the world?
Furthermore, how do you do it
on a shoestring budget?
To work around both hurdles,
the Imperial team decided to use
a do-it-yourself citizen science approach.
They've recruited experienced microdosers
from Reddit and other online forums,
and the volunteers were instructed
to implement their own self-blinding protocol.
They never came into a lab
and the researchers did not provide the drugs.
The study was conducted entirely online
and the volunteers got to choose their drug of choice,
and the microdose that they are typically used to.
240 participants were randomized into three control groups,
The microdosing group, the placebo group,
and the half-and-half group.
two weeks of placebo,
two weeks of microdosing.
The volunteers were given instructions
to place their microdoses
into opaque, gel capsules
while empty ones were used as placebos.
The volunteers then organized their capsules
into weekly sets and placed each set
inside an envelope with a unique QR code.
These QR codes would ultimately reveal
who's been assigned to which group
after the study had been completed.
All three groups followed a twice a week
micro-dosing protocol for four weeks.
75% of volunteers chose to microdosed with LSD
or an LSD analog.
24% chose to microdose with psilocybin mushrooms,
and the remaining sample population
chose to microdose with DMT
or Morning Glory seeds
which I didn't know was a thing until very, very recently.
The big assessment checkpoints happened
at baseline, immediately
after the four week microdosing period,
and then optionally again at the 10 week mark.
All participants filled out self-reported questionnaires
and participated in cognitive tests.
So what were the findings of this study?
After the month-long testing period,
participants in the microdosing group
reported improvements in the domains of well-being,
mindfulness, life satisfaction, and paranoia.
These are all positive psychological outcomes.
Of course, that is the good news.
The bad news is that the placebo group
also reported improvements in the same domains.
Ultimately, the researchers found
that there were no significant differences
between the two groups.
Furthermore, when it came to performance
on cognitive tests (which, in general,
are more objective than self-reports),
researchers found no significant differences
between the microdosing group and the placebo group.
As a result, the researchers concluded
that the positive psychological outcomes
reported by those in the microdosing group
are likely explained by the placebo effect.
That was the study in a nutshell.
Now let's talk about the limitations,
and I'm gonna begin with three limitations
that the authors of the study have acknowledged.
I pulled these three limitations
straight from the study itself
which I highly recommend you to read.
I'm gonna link to it in the description box below.
Number one: the researchers had no way of verifying
whether the participants actually followed
the studies, instructions through and through
because they used a self-blinding citizen science approach.
This meant that the volunteers never actually
had to show up in a lab.
There were so much that the researchers couldn't verify.
One of the things that the researchers couldn't verify
was whether or not the participants
actually followed the self-blinding procedure accurately.
Researchers also had no way of confirming,
whether the capsules were taken as instructed
during the dosed period or not.
Limitation number two is the lack of verification
of the nature, purity, and dosage
of the psychedelic substance used for microdosing
for the exact same reasons as stated previously.
Because the participants didn't have to show up in a lab,
there was so much that the researchers couldn't verify.
But you know what?
I actually don't think that these two limitations
are that big of a deal
because why wouldn't I trust that the participants
followed instructions?
These are experienced microdosers.
Why wouldn't I trust that they knew what they were doing?
So even though these are two limitations
that the researchers have acknowledged,
I personally don't see them as being that big of a deal.
Limitation number three is one that I actually think
is more of a big deal, and you can let me know if you agree.
This study was not conducted on a clinical population.
And what this means is that a vast majority
of the sample population, they're healthy, you know?
66% of them reported to have never had
a psychiatric diagnosis in the past
(anxiety, depression, PTSD).
And only 7% of the sample
had a current mental health diagnosis,
which means that 93% of the sample
did not have a current mental health diagnosis.
The authors acknowledged that if they had conducted
their study on a clinical population
instead of a healthy one,
then their study could have yielded more promising results.
Because of course, in a clinical population,
there is more scope for potential improvements.
I'm gonna pull a quote directly from the study.
This is what the researchers said,
"We cannot rule out the possibility that a study
in a clinical population would yield
more promising results.
In the present healthy sample
where wellbeing scores are high at baseline,
there's less scope for potential improvements
which could have prevented the observation
of placebo-microdose differences."
So those were the acknowledged limitations.
I have two more limitations to share with you
that I don't believe the researchers acknowledged,
and I've read the study twice over
through and through at this point.
So correct me if I'm wrong.
I could be wrong.
I don't believe I'm wrong.
These are limitations they haven't acknowledged.
Number one: there was selection bias in the study
which influenced the results that we ended up seeing.
What is selection bias?
It has to do with who you choose to be included
in your sample population.
It matters who you choose.
That could skew the results of the study.
Every single participant in the study
already had a history,
and an intention to continue microdosing.
90% of the volunteers either agreed
or strongly agreed with the statement,
"I am an active advocate
of the therapeutic use of psychedelics."
So what does this mean?
It means that nearly every single one
of the volunteers already had a bias
towards viewing microdosing favorably,
whether they wind up being in the microdosing group
or the placebo group.
This coupled with the fact that the vast majority
of volunteers had high baseline scores
across all psychological dimensions
and hence had little scope for improvement
made it even more difficult
to determine the true drug effect
of microdosing psychedelics.
Number two: there's the phenomenon that we see
in experienced psychedelic drug users
that we cannot discount here,
and that is this: microdosing a psychedelic
over time can condition you to the drug's effect
which makes it possible for you
to create the same state without using the drug.
And I've seen this in myself,
you know, there would be days,
I've had days when I'll be out
and I will be just so engrossed
by whatever it is that's going on like I'm so tuned in
to noticing my surroundings
that I have to stop myself.
I'm like, "Have you microdosed today?"
Like I'll be staring at a leaf,
and like, "Ooh, that is such a colorful leaf."
And I, you know, just very brief moments like that.
Then I have to check in with myself.
I'm like, "Have you microdosed today?"
I hadn't microdosed in months,
but yet it felt as if,
you know, I could recreate the same state
of being on a microdose
without actually having taken any microdosing pills, caps.
Closing thoughts:
The Imperial study was built
as the largest placebo controlled study
on psychedelics to date, micro-dosing or not.
The authors appeared to be quite proud
of their use of the self-blinding citizen science approach.
The biggest advantage
of this methodology of course, is the cost.
The study cost just $10,000
whereas its clinical equivalent would have cost
millions.
I don't believe that I am scientifically literate enough
to have an opinion as to whether or not
this approach really is that innovative.
I just don't have an opinion with that regard.
What I will say though is that,
just whatever this opinion is worth,
I would have liked to see this study conducted
on people who've never microdosed before.
I would've liked to see these studies be conducted
on a clinical population,
preferably, with people who've never microdosed before.
But of course at this point,
we run into issues within that regard
because psychedelic substances
are not legal in many, many countries.
And so that's a hurdle.
It's like, how do you give an illicit drug
to somebody who's never taken it before?
That's why the researchers had to rely
on experienced microdosers.
And I understand that.
I think that is the greatest strategy of these all.
There's been like a little bit of a catch-22 effect here
where psychedelics are illegal
for the most part in many Western countries
because of a lack of research, they say,
and the reason why there's a lack of research,
one of those reasons is because of the illegality
of the substances that people would like to research.
So I understand, and it is incredibly frustrating,
but know this, there's so much we don't know,
but what we do know is that the jury is out.
I don't believe anybody can conclusively say, at this point,
the effects of microdosing can be explained
by placebo through and through
especially, if you are microdosing
for a mental health purposes.
The jury is out.
That is my personal opinion.
What do you think?
I've shared everything with you.
The link to the study can be found below.
I'd love to open this discussion up
and I want to know what you think.
Do you think microdosing can be explained by a placebo?
Maybe at a certain point, it can be.
Nuance.
Anyways, that's the video today.
Thank you so much for joining me for this video.
Give this video a like.
If you haven't already,
subscribe for more videos like this,
and I will see you next week.
(gentle serene music)