Are psychedelics better than antidepressants? New study says no(medicalxpress.com)
medicalxpress.com
Are psychedelics better than antidepressants? New study says no
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-psychedelics-antidepressants.html
5 comments
That's a pretty low bar, too.
Simple but clever study.
One issue is heterogeneity in effects across individuals. Even with traditional antidepressants, it's common for people to respond to one drug class but not another. So it's conceivable, just based on this study, there are people who might respond to psychedelics who might not respond to other things, and vice versa. So even if the effect in the general population, on average, is the same, it might be useful for a different subgroup, which is still differentially useful.
I suspect a lot of these effects have been overhyped, but the same could be said of any depression treatment, and there's good evidence for a lot of treatments even if the effects are smaller than they're sometimes made out to be.
One issue is heterogeneity in effects across individuals. Even with traditional antidepressants, it's common for people to respond to one drug class but not another. So it's conceivable, just based on this study, there are people who might respond to psychedelics who might not respond to other things, and vice versa. So even if the effect in the general population, on average, is the same, it might be useful for a different subgroup, which is still differentially useful.
I suspect a lot of these effects have been overhyped, but the same could be said of any depression treatment, and there's good evidence for a lot of treatments even if the effects are smaller than they're sometimes made out to be.
One provable method to controlling or even curing depression is consistent and rigorous exercise. Society wants pills to shortcut the work required. You see it with GLP-1 as well.
my answer which seems to be increasingly unpopular is: "depression kills. attack it with all the tools available. see your pri care doc for an SSRI and be willing to work with them with dosage and medication for effectiveness and comfort. exercise, preferably exercise a lot. try the talking cure. go to church or something like that."
a lot of people have problems with some of those things and in that case do all the others. like personally i find it hard to not get exercise, i can't get it how people hate going to the gym, but i know a lot of people find it hard.
a lot of people have problems with some of those things and in that case do all the others. like personally i find it hard to not get exercise, i can't get it how people hate going to the gym, but i know a lot of people find it hard.
the people require their soma