Was the Life-Extending Psilocybin Study All Hype?

Happy Monday! Welcome to another edition of The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter delivering independent journalism about psychedelics straight to your inbox.

Did you see the recent study touting the age-defying powers of psilocybin mushrooms? Every. single. media. outlet. published a story on it. But are the study’s results commensurate with the psychedelic hype machine’s promises of eternal youth? (The longevity bros seem to think so 😝). We don’t do spoilers here, so you’ll have to read the story. You can find it immediately below!

If you keep scrolling, you’ll find an interview with a Shipibo Onanya, a mushroom farmer in India growing fungi in sub-zero temps, how psilocybin can reduce shame in those with HIV, and so much more.

Enjoy the brain food⚡🧠🍌

Mary Carreón
Editor-in-Chief

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Was the Life-Extending Psilocybin Study Just Hype?

A recent study on psilocybin set off a wave of longevity headlines, reminding us that hype ages faster than any of us ever could.

In July, a team of researchers published a study suggesting that psilocybin might slow down aging. It set the internet aflame with the longevity bros claiming they knew it all along. News stories proclaimed it a fountain of youth. Headlines said that mushrooms would “extend one’s life” by upwards of 50% and “turn back the biological clock.” One headline boldly declared that mushrooms would “help you live longer.”

But here’s what actually went down in the study: Scientists dosed human lung and skin cells with psilocin (the substance psilocybin metabolizes into), and those cells lived a bit longer in petri dishes — about 50 percent longer, which sounds cool and meaningful until you remember these are cells divorced from the human body in the lab. Then, researchers gave elderly mice heavy monthly doses of psilocybin for nearly a year, and yes, those mice outlived their drug-free peers by a few months and even grew “glossier” fur. But let’s be clear: The mice were getting doses of more than seven grams of mushrooms every month. That’s a fuckton of mushrooms for 95% of people.

But the overwhelming narrative crafted by the media was that humans are one clinical trial away from eternal youth. Are we at DB shocked this happened? No. All of this is emblematic of the psychedelic hype machine, which has been running hot for the past decade. Once relegated to the counterculture fringes of society, psychedelics are now being rebranded as miracle drugs, hailed as panaceas for depression, PTSD, cluster headaches, addiction, weight loss, and everything else. We are not saying psychedelics can’t help these conditions; we know they can. But without fail, as soon as a well-designed study drops, headlines start promising utopia like clockwork. Mikael Palner, a neurobiology professor at the University of Southern Denmark, tells DoubleBlind that this phenomenon might end up hurting the psychedelic field more than helping it.

“Psychedelics and longevity are probably the two most hyped areas of scientific research at the moment,” Mikael tells DoubleBlind via email. “Both are unique in that they have large communities of people who practice or advocate for them even before we have solid scientific proof. That’s why we need to be diligent in our communication and ensure that our claims are backed by strong evidence. Otherwise, we risk doing more harm than good to the cause of making psychedelic therapy accessible to patients.”

Mikael — who penned a story for The Conversation about this study — has been studying psychedelics in rodent models for two decades, long before The New York Times started covering ayahuasca ceremonies with similar zeal it reserves for new fitness trends. And while he’s clearly not anti-psychedelics, he does want the science to survive the hype cycle. “I’ve been studying psychedelics since before the hype began, particularly focusing on dosing in rodent models. I want this treatment to be available to patients, but I also want the field to be respected and not dismissed as pseudoscience. That’s why we, as researchers, need to speak up about false claims, acknowledge side effects, and discuss realistic treatment outcomes.”

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: What works in mice almost never works the same way in humans. Mice metabolize drugs differently, age faster, and, notably, don’t write think pieces about their mystical revelations. (Crazy, we know.) The psilocybin-treated mice in this study weren’t microdosing; they were taking the equivalent of multiple heroic doses per month. We have zero data on what that would do to a human brain over time, aside from some old, alarming studies from the 1960s suggesting it might induce psychotic-like states in rodents. (These poor animals…)

Yet the media coverage didn’t mention any of these nuances. Outlets largely failed to mention that the study didn’t track how much the mice were eating, which is crucial, because simply eating less food can extend one’s lifespan. It didn’t mention that the researchers themselves cautioned that the study was all very preliminary. Instead, the public got the psychedelic version of clickbait: “Eat mushrooms, live forever.”

The trouble is that hype burns hot and fast. When early trials fail to match the lofty expectations set by giddy coverage, the backlash can be brutal. “We need more scientists to engage with public media, not just publish in scientific journals,” Mikael says. “Scientists carry a level of credibility that politicians and influencers often lack, and we should leverage that to promote scientific truth. Science should never be sidelined or neglected.”

And that’s the crux of the issue: If we want psychedelics to become legitimate therapies rather than a wellness fad, we can’t afford to sensationalize their benefits and label them as miracle drugs when this data simply doesn’t show that yet. Every exaggerated headline chips away at credibility. It makes the whole field seem like snake oil, further distancing it from the role psilocybin can potentially play in future mental health care.

No one can take away the profound implications of this study. But it’s not a ticket to immortality, and pretending it is only sets everyone up for disappointment in a field that is showing real promise. The last thing the psychedelic movement needs is bullshit fairy tales perpetuated by the media. It needs patience, nuance, and better reporting instead.

If nothing changes, we’ll wake up decades from now disillusioned about this entire era… and we’ll probably be out of mushrooms, too.

Meet Gwyllm Llwydd, the OG Psychedelic Art Polymath

From ferrying LSD and mescaline as a teenage hitchhiker in the ’60s to layering 190 digital mandalas into a single collage, Gwyllm Llwydd has lived several lifetimes’ worth of psychedelic adventures.

A fixture of the “entheogensia,” Llwydd’s world sprawls from blotter art (one of his designs appears in Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium by Erik Davis) to publishing the long-running art-and-poetry journal The Invisible College, to curating the trippy radio stream Radio EarthRites. He’s also illustrated a lush new edition of The Hasheesh Eater, drawing from his own hash-fueled visions.

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