Psychedelic treatments for Long COVID

Hi there 🍄 

This week’s highlights include psychedelic treatments for Long COVID and how mushrooms could help plants withstand droughts.

Can psilocybin treat Long COVID?

Psychedelic potential 👍 Psilocybin and MDMA may positively impact the neurological and mental health challenges associated with Long COVID symptoms, according to a new case report. Most people who get COVID-19 recover within a few days or weeks. But for some patients, symptoms of Long COVID have lasted for months or even years.

• Wide range of symptoms 🤒 Common Long COVID symptoms include fatigue, difficulty breathing, joint or muscle pain, chest pain, heart palpitations, brain fog, headaches, sleep problems, anxiety, and depression.

• What causes Long COVID? ⚠ Researchers believe prolonged symptoms are caused by viral remnants in the body, overactive immune systems, or lingering inflammation from infection. 

• Cardio complications ♥ Vascular issues, such as blood clots or blood vessel damage, have also been connected to Long COVID. According to Yale Medicine, patients with Long COVID experienced difficulty extracting oxygen from the blood.

• No catch-all treatment 🩺 With varying potential causes for Long COVID — and so many symptoms — there’s no specific treatment yet. But according to one new case study, psilocybin and MDMA may help neurological symptoms due to the ability of these psychedelics to create new neural pathways.

• Case study 🔎 A 44-year-old woman had tried several medications, fasting, acupuncture, and massages to ease her COVID symptoms. Nothing worked until she tried psilocybin, and after two sessions, she reported significantly less anxiety and depression. 

• She’s not alone, either 👨‍⚕️ Dr. Joel Castellanos, associate medical director at the University of California and lead author on the case study, says he’s heard from “plenty” of Long COVID patients who have tried psychedelics to ease their symptoms … or are interested in trying.

• Anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal 🤷‍♀️ While this single case study should not be taken as a broader medical recommendation, it opens up the door for future studies on how psychedelics could potentially treat Long COVID.

Click here for the full scoop on psychedelics versus Long COVID. 👈

Plants + mushrooms = drought resistance

Thanks, climate change 🏜 Water scarcity and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns threaten global food security. The United Nations estimates that 1.84 billion people — nearly a quarter of humanity — lived under drought in 2022 and 2023.

Prolonged drought leads to famine. In 2022, drought left almost 23 million people in food insecurity across the Horn of Africa. As of April 16, 2024, 17.9% of the lower 48 United States is officially in drought. In response, the worldwide agriculture sector is experimenting with new ways to boost drought resilience and maintain food production.

• Like coffee for plants 🚀 Biostimulants are substances that improve a plant’s ability to resist environmental stress without altering the plant’s genetic makeup. Chitosan is a biostimulant derived from chitin — a fibrous substance found in the outer shells of crustaceans, certain insects, and the cell walls of mushrooms! 

• The benefits ✅ Chitosan can improve plants’ drought resistance by raising water absorption capacity and reducing water usage — without adverse effects on biomass production and yield. This is thanks to chitosan’s ability to form cells and films that bind with various substances. 

• Replacing shellfish 🦐 Most commercial chitosan comes from shellfish, which leads to concerns about the environmental impact of overharvesting and potential allergic reactions for consumers. 

• Here fungi go saving the day again 💪 Thankfully, mushrooms can also produce the chitin for chitosan without the use of crustaceans. Researchers found that plants enriched with mushroom-derived chitosan tolerated drought conditions better than untreated plants.

• But … how? 🤔 In this recent study, mushroom-based chitosan helped plants develop longer, denser roots to take in deeper water. The chitosan also enhanced photosynthesis capability, so the plants still produced energy for growth despite water shortages. Stressed plants produce harmful molecules that damage cell function. Chitosan helped neutralize the effects of this process to keep cells healthy.

• Optimization 📈 While further research is needed to explore and optimize chitosan applications, the implications are massive for making crop production more viable in drought-stricken regions.

Click here to read more about how chitosan can combat drought. 🍄

Featured artist: Wild Yam Co

I’ve been wowed by how Wild Yam Co merged mushrooms and ammonites into jewelry, ceramics, and even glassware. The natural spirals of the ammonite are a perfect counterpart to our favorite wavy ‘shrooms.

Scroll through her profile and store for more mushroom-inspired crafts using a stunning variety of natural materials!