Psychedelics, including psilocybin — the psychoactive compound produced by ‘magic mushrooms’ — show promise in treating the eating disorder anorexia nervosa. But they don’t work for everyone.
Anorexia nervosa is a mental health disorder that causes people to reduce the amount of food they eat over fear of gaining weight due to a distorted body image. It’s hoped that psilocybin can help ‘break down’ these ingrained patterns of thoughts and behaviour.
But not all people have clinically significant improvements after psilocybin treatments, curiously, particularly those with anorexia nervosa. The reason behind this is still unknown and so scientists are hoping to better understand the biological reasons why psychedelics might be beneficial for some but not others.
