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Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

146 points by jeffwass 9y ago

nowherecat 9y ago
Having had frequent ceremonies over the course of several months I stopped drinking the tea, because I find it is not helping being pulled from one extreme into another. Our western way of life makes it very difficult to integrate the profound experiences that one can get through this medicine and it requires major commitments to change..and it requires good helpers and facilitators. We, as westerners, are often times not equipped to integrate this lost wisdom into our lives. I know it is said it is not addictive but I know enough people that at least appear dependent on it and swear by it being the solution. I personally believe that meditation and journeying inward without drugs brings about insights of a similar magnitude in a pace that we can cope with and integrate what we learn without jojo’ing between bliss and depression. Ayahuasca has its place. It definitely helped us experience that there is much more to life than the material. But in my opinion I t’s a sledge Hammer that helps crack hard nuts or sets a direction. The work has to be done by oneself and the risk with ayahuasca is that one just keeps drinking the tea, thinking that that is enough. Apart from that it is quite dangerous nowadays to do ceremonies with traveling “shamans”, because a lot of them don’t even brew the tea themselves and oftentimes facilitate in a way that it is bound to go wrong at some point.
- kobeya 9y ago
  Or psychoactive drugs don’t teach you anything new but rather modify brain functionality such that you feel different. Gaining new belief or believing you have new beliefs are typically indistinguishable from the inside.
  - mustacheemperor 9y ago
    What is different between having a new belief and having your brain functionality modified such that you indistinguishably genuinely feel you have a new belief? Wouldn't the act of integrating a new belief also modify your brain functionality somehow? Not trying to start an esoteric argument, I'm interested if there's an actual answer to that.
    - kobeya 9y ago
      You can profoundly understand something because you understand the mechanism of its working and have deeply integrated it into your mental model of the world. Or you can "profoundly understand" something by having your brain remember what it feels like to profoundly understand, and enter that state in association with the new belief. Even if the belief is wrong (and you will never see that it is wrong).
  - nowherecat 9y ago
    Well, could’t You say the same thing about experiences of any nature? For example: our thoughts always affect our body/mind .. if I take a drug or in the case of ayahuasca an entheogen, it creates a non ordinary state of consciousness, which -if strong enough- can permanently change the way I feel and act. The same you could achieve by meditating on a regular basis or going on a long trip, having a traumatic experience etc .. our brains are being modified constantly by our experiences, not just by drugs. And yeah, a belief is a belief - if it’s a conscious belief you could say ‘I believe in having this belief’ and if it’s unconscious it’s just a belief I am not consciously aware of. But both have the same Effect on my body and mind
    - kobeya 9y ago
      It permanently changes you by causing conditions by which your brain rewires itself. For psychiatric patients that is often a good thing because where they are at is not a good place. But why would you throw a spanner in the works if you're already a well adjusted individual? If you want to be content and enjoy life, why not get a lobotomy. It's a more consistent result. Oh you don't want to do that to your brain? Well acid may have different mechanisms but can trigger similarly drastic effects, it's just now you've introduced a roll of the die, and I'm not a fan of gambling without a winning strategy.
      - KennyCason 9y ago
        Given your very clear and strong stance that this is something you won't ever try, of which I don't have any issue with, I won't spend a lot of time debating this statement. But, your analogy with getting a lobotomy to enjoy life being even remotely equivalent to doing psychedelics is simply wrong. The effects are not similar. You are also drastically overestimating the gambling nature of psychedelics. You're probably way more likely to wreck your life while drinking alcohol than you are with psychedelics.
  - jasonm23 9y ago
    Corrective lenses don't teach you anything directly, but you can see more wearing them.
- remir 9y ago
  I agree. Sometimes these substances act like a bulldozer that destroy doors that should have remained closed. For some people, opening these "doors" will lead to more harm than good. I am not writing this to demonize psychedelics, but only to say they can be unpredictable. As I grow older, I realize we are the product of organized and sometimes very ancient memories and obviously we have not been told (by parents, society) to take a step back and look at things from a detached perspective. As a results, we are like prisoners of memories, symbols and habits, unable to see what's beyond all that.
nicodjimenez 9y ago
Psychedelics provide a incredible jolt to the system (at least that's what they tell me) but if they do provide health benefits I believe they are short term, similar to traveling to another country or doing something unusual with your life. On the other hand, people that take psychedelics too often tend to have long term negative consequences such as anxiety or become dysfunctional in other ways. It's very hard to have nuanced opinions these days, but I think society in general needs to come to terms with psychedelics, the dangers they present, the novel experiences they enable, and some mental health benefits they may enable.
- ianai 9y ago
  Considering the US still throws people away for going near drugs I’d say the pendulum doesn’t need to swing further the same direction.
  - freeloop2 9y ago
    Most countries do this. I don't know why people always pick on the US in this regard.
    - ianai 9y ago
      Highest per capital inceration rate.
      - freeloop2 9y ago
        But not the most stringent drug laws.
    - whiddershins 9y ago
      I am under the impression the United States pushed hard for the international treaty in 1961 that required these drugs be prohibited in most of those countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcoti...
afro88 9y ago
A negative anecdote: a friend of a friend of a friend went on a retreat and did actually lose his mind. He needs help and probably will for the rest of his life. Just putting it out there for some balance. I’ve heard my fair share of positive anecdotes too.
- laser 9y ago
  So some guy on the internet says that a friend of a friend of a friend of his lost his mind on Ayahuasca? Based on schizophrenia rates, I suspect pretty much everyone even has a friend of a friend that might catalyze their latent schizophrenia through psychedelics. But, the idea that psychedelics cause mental illness in those that otherwise would have been fine is not supported by scientific evidence[1][2], only anecdotes. [1] https://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedelics-and-psychosis-1.16968 https://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedeli... [2] http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/03/28/lsd-and-schizophrenia-does-acid-cause-mental-illness/ http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/03/28/lsd-and-schizophreni... [3]
  - darpa_escapee 9y ago
    The functional difference between 'causes schizophrenia' and 'triggers latent schizophrenia' to someone who is diagnosed with schizophrenia after ingesting ayahuasca is practically non-existent. Sure, you can generalize that those with family members who have schizophrenia are at an increased risk of having it rear its head. However, not everyone with schizophrenia gets diagnosed nor do many people have detailed psychiatric evaluations of their relatives to make decisions off of.
    - berberous 9y ago
      I would agree with you if there are people with 'latent schizophrenia' that would never have it become active but for the drug use. But perhaps it's more like someone with a heart defect that dies after some physical exercise -- there was a latent defect that would have revealed itself sooner or later (and schizophrenia is generally diagnosed by one's mid to late 20's). Does the literature have a consensus on which is the case?
swayvil 9y ago
I have used psychedelics. I consider it to be one of the most beautiful, educational and healthful things that I have ever done. These days I meditate.
mooneater 9y ago
I permanently quit a 15 year cigarette habit after a weekend with Aya. And I have never wanted to go near a cigarette since (7 years ago).
beepboopbeep 9y ago
We won't know unless we research it!
- Rafert 9y ago
  Exactly. Medicinal marihuana or more recently MDMA for PTSD treatment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15120656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15120656) all took a while too.
- EasyTiger_ 9y ago
  Difficult when big pharma is involved. Profits take precedence over wellbeing.
someonewhocar3s 9y ago
Could this be wishful thinking? I think the church banned psychedelics because it gives people religious experiences easily, and their interpretations sometimes really stink. So I'm curious where all this is going wrt spirituality. Especially during the last days of humanity, as we are slowly self assimilating into a system greater than humans.
indescions_2017 9y ago
One theory is that psychedelics increase the Shannon entropy of the brain’s functional connectivity: Shannon entropy of brain functional complex networks under the influence of the psychedelic Ayahuasca https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5547073/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5547073/
jack_pp 9y ago
I don't have any evidence of this but I stronly suspect that doing regular meditation will reduce the chance of bad trips or atleast let you deal with them much better. I'm saying this in case someone decides to experiment with DMT or other halucinogens, you should seriously consider trying meditation as a prerequisite.
- avenoir 9y ago
  Interestingly, I've been reading that traumatic/bad trips are actually the most healing because they often reveal inner, subconscious struggles and repressed feelings that haven't been adequately dealt with.
  - nowherecat 9y ago
    There is potential for healing, yes. But what comes up needs to be integrated and dealt with appropriately .. if not, it can mess up things quite a bit.
- virtualwhys 9y ago
  > doing regular meditation will reduce the chance of bad trips or at least let you deal with them much better. Perhaps, but meditation as it is often practiced by lay people is one of convenience. That is, this is pleasant, I'll sit for an hour, but not more, because that would become unpleasant (to my knees and back). I don't think this kind of practice does anything to prepare you for the rigors of deep psychedelic experience, where control and choice go completely out the window whether you like it or not. A one week meditation retreat, with 14 1-hour sittings per day, however (i.e. Vipasana, Zen, etc. style retreats), that will help for sure, though I suspect none but meditation masters can emerge unscathed from the psychedelic deep dive.
- R_haterade 9y ago
  Anything specific practices you recommend? I'm not interested in ayahuasca, but meditation has been on my list for a while now.
  - 9y ago
Fnoord 9y ago
Ayahuasca is a South American brew consisting of two plants one consisting of a MAOI and another of DMT (the exact plant genus differs). DMT without a MAOI gets broken down by the blood brain barrier, so its not efficient without the MAOI. The MAOI however puts dietary restrictions before the drug is being administered, and also makes the drug last vastly longer. Without the MAOI, the DMT wouldn't last long (IIRC even less long than Salvia). That might be an interesting use case. Apart from that, there's all the time research on tryptamines [1] (MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, etc) used to treat mental diseases and personality disorders. The advantage synthetic drugs have is they're easier to standardise. I'm not sure why you'd want to research MAOI + DMT instead of the ones already mentioned? What advantages could it have over those? [1] http://psychedelic-information-theory.com/Psychedelic-Pharmacology http://psychedelic-information-theory.com/Psychedelic-Pharma...
- pstuart 9y ago
  My only DMT experience lasted about 15 minutes, and that was plenty.
  - nicodjimenez 9y ago
    Yes, SWIM took DMT and loved it but finds the idea of Ayahuasca very frightening indeed.
    - hysterix 9y ago
      Only idiots refer to themselves as "SWIM". Go back to dmt-nexus. You're not throwing off the DEA or any other law enforcement agency, you just come off as a moron.
    - cc81 9y ago
      It is probably pointless to use "SWIM"
      - jasonm23 9y ago
        I expect it's not a written confession if someone who isn't me committed a crime. Although IANAL.
tudorw 9y ago
It's modulating the expression of some important genes; "It is also a selective inhibitor of the human cytochrome P450 isozyme 2D6 (CYP 2D6)" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16149329 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16149329 "the inhibitions on human liver CYP3A4 and CYP2D6 enzymes by those β-carboline alkaloids were studied kinetically. Harmine, harmol and harmane exhibited noncompetitive inhibition on the activity of CYP3A4 with K(i) values of 16.76, 5.13 and 1.66 μM, respectively. These β-carboline alkaloids were also found to be both substrates and inhibitors for CYP2D6. Harmaline, harmine and harmol showed typical competitive inhibition on the activity of CYP2D6 Inhibition of Human Cytochrome P450 Enzymes 3A4 and 2D6 by β-Carboline Alkaloids, Harmine Derivatives (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50834428_Inhibition_of_Human_Cytochrome_P450_Enzymes_3A4_and_2D6_by_b-Carboline_Alkaloids_Harmine_Derivatives https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50834428_Inhibition... [accessed Oct 1, 2017]." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50834428_Inhibition_of_Human_Cytochrome_P450_Enzymes_3A4_and_2D6_by_b-Carboline_Alkaloids_Harmine_Derivatives https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50834428_Inhibition...
- nnfy 9y ago
  Do you have evidence that ayuhuasca is mutagenic? Inhibition of enzymes is temporary and generally harmless if you are careful not to consume certain drugs while inhibited.
  - tudorw 9y ago
    Not I, though Dr. Shulgin says; "The second question relates to yet another beta-carboline alkaloid, Harman. This is a structural analogue of Harmine that has been stripped of its methoxyl group. It is widely found in plants and foods, and has been shown in experimental animals to be a vasodilator and a hypotensive agent. It also interacts directly with DNA and is thus a possible mutagenic agent." Courtesy of the wayback machine you can read the article, https://web.archive.org/web/20020325022732/http://www.alchemind.org/shulgin/adsarchive/ayahuasca_maoi.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20020325022732/http://www.alchem...
virtualwhys 9y ago
> Could psychedelic drug ayahuasca have health benefits? Certainly, anecdotally I kicked a very strong 20 year coffee and sugar habit after doing a 3-day retreat in Latin America this past winter. Just happened naturally, oh, I don't need this daily coffee and sugar fix anymore. On the flip side, as the article mentions, the psychedlic tourism industry as a whole doesn't have formal safe guards in place for when the shit hits the fan with one (or more) of the attendees. My friend, who sat all eleven days, said that two women just completely lost it on day 3, screaming hysterically, out of their minds battling unknown demons. The retreat "helpers", do the best they can to settle you down, but when you're deep in the experience it's very hard to distinguish between real/unreal. For example, in some kind of existential moment I shouted out in my mind's eye, "you are the most high!". In reality I shocked the 30 other attendants out of their seats, and a helper rushed up to see if I was Ok. It's an extremely powerful substance. At the end of the retreat, when everyone headed off to sleep, I was still tripping so hard that sleep was impossible. When I finally lay down the sheer flow of non-stop Dali/Escher-like hallucinations running through my mind were sufficient to make me question whether I was ever going to return to reality -- Pandora's box indeed. tl;dr; proceed with caution, can have beneficial side-effects.
- hal9000xp 9y ago
  > I don't need this daily coffee and sugar fix anymore. In the same way, some people just stop being "addicted" to life in general after strong trip. Some of them decide to commit suicide. Just yesterday, I've been in party and one guy told story of his friend who committed suicide after such trip. The big problem with psychedelics is that you can't predict in which way a trip could change you.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Yea, in simple terms it has a multiplier effect on everything you experience. If feelings go bad, they can go really bad and remain that way afterwards. But you commented on suicide. I also have a friend who unfortunately passed this way. Do you have any data on this? From what I have seen, studies have been limited. I had read somewhere on erowid years ago a study where an increase in mental illness and suicide after psychadelic use was positive but less than an increase seen in another study of people who had completed religious quests.
stefek99 9y ago
WOW. I really enjoy whenever psychedelics hit the mainstream. I'm sitting on the fence regarding psychedelic coming out: blog.mostlydoing.com/2016/04/7-reasons-why-you-dont-psychedelic.html Those who know know, default legal system is still unadvantageous towards drug users.
- flycaliguy 9y ago
  I was hoping to gain some insight from the link, but it's just immature and condescending... I have really grown to resent that tone and it's become very popular in a lot of opinion writing on the web. Seeing it from a psychedelic advocate is not doing his cause any favours. EDIT: Noticed that you wrote that, so to clarify what I'm saying: Your tone implies that it's absurd for somebody to have an opinion contrary to your own. It's not a healthy contribution to anything.
leggomylibro 9y ago
It might be easier to find out, if rigorous research into psychedelics weren't so arbitrarily difficult compared to other medicines.
- schedule1 9y ago
  Nothing will happen until psychedelics are rescheduled. It's a travesty that even the "natural" tryptamines (psilocybin/psilocin and DMT) can't be researched more easily.
  - anythingnonidin 9y ago
    Not true - psilocybin is being actively researched by Heffter/Usona. They are much more limited by funding than they are by scheduling (at least, in the US). The main benefit of rescheduling will likely be through easier access to government funding and funding from large foundations. If you’re very wealthy, you can fund psychedelic research that interests you today - again, the scheduling is not close to being the main limiting factor. Source: I’ve talked with multiple researchers who are studying psychedelics.
- anythingnonidin 9y ago
  The main barrier to more psychedelic research is funding / $$ - far more than anything else. In the US, access to research funding is a far larger issue than scheduling. The main benefit of rescheduling would likely be through its indirect benefits on access to funding. Source: I’ve talked with multiple researchers who are studying psychedelics.
- jmcgough 9y ago
  We're actually in the middle of a renaissance when it comes to psychedelic drug research. Research essentially ended after the panic in response to Leary's misuse of drugs, and the association of drugs with counter-culture movements in the 60s and 70s... and then in the 80s and 90s we had the much maligned War on Drugs. Now that it's become more widely accepted that psychedelic drugs are comparatively harmless next to opioids, there's been a HUGE amount of new psychedelic drug research. I attended Horizons (annual NYC conference on psychedelic drug research) several years ago when I was doing my neuroscience undergrad, and was really impressed with how many new studies were coming out. Interesting enough, a lot of it was focused on psilocybin (e.g. treating anxiety in end of life cancer patients), because LSD still has a bit of a bad reputation after Leary. Probably the most interesting researcher I met was a professor in Europe who was doing fMRI scans of grad students on psilocybin. Nowadays, MDMA has been receiving a lot of attention for its potential to treat those with PTSD. Anyways, super rambling response, but there's reason to be more optimistic about psychedelic research compared to decades past.
icarito 9y ago
As a practitioner of traditional amazonian spiritual tradition, I and my family drink Ayahuasca on a regular basis and find it to be invaluable, our first line of defense for disease both physical and spiritual.
- colordrops 9y ago
  Did you pick up this tradition through family or did seek out this practice and learn it?
  - icarito 9y ago
    It was in my own pursuit.
- moh_maya 9y ago
  How does one get in touch with you? :)
  - icarito 9y ago
    I've added my email to my HN profile. :-)
dnc 9y ago
While I was on a retreat this year in a Peruvian village, I was told by several natives (Shipibo people) that, by their tradition (some estimations are that Shipibo tribes have been using Ayahuasca for millenias), Ayahuasca is orally taken in healing ceremonies by their shamans only. Traditionally, in the normal course of a healing ceremony, it is not a patient who takes 'the medicine' or 'the plant teacher' (Ayahuasca), but the shaman in order to learn from the plant what his patient illness is and how to go about healing it. Also traditionaly, Ayahuasca is taken during shamanic training (which takes years, if not a whole life) as a part of a special and very strict diet that can last between several weeks to a year or more, depending on a plant that one is dieting. During the diet shaman apprentice is supposed to take Ayahuasca, but only at the beginning and at the end of the diet, if it is a short one, or every once in couple of months if the diet is longer. The diet is a way to become familiar with the plant and learn what it has to teach you and Ayahuasca, the teacher plant, is used as a sort of a learning facilitator. From my understanding, a practice of organizing Ayahuasca ceremonies and giving the brew to foreigners in exchange for money has been relatively recently established with rising popularization of Ayahuasca and demand for it from abroad.
- Radim 9y ago
  the shaman in order to learn from the plant what his patient illness is and how to go about healing it. And how was that working out for them, from what you could see? Did patients there prefer the "traditional" or the "western" medicine?
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. That argument leads nowhere new and therefore nowhere interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: whoops I misread that one and broke the site rules in the process. Sorry and carry on!
    - borski 9y ago
      dang, apologies, but the parent didn't seem to be taking this on a generic tangent. The OP has a very interesting anecdotal story to tell, related directly to a group of people that take ayahuasca for healing, and I, too, am curious about how it worked for them, specifically.
astura 9y ago
My brother went on an Ayahuasca retreat but ended up deeply disappointed that it didn't change his life and his problems got much worse as a result. Of course, that can happen with any treatments as well. However, professional support could maybe mitigate that a bit. Plus actual data may give a better idea of likely outcomes. He then came home and took LSD that caused an episode of psychosis that lasted a couple weeks and landed him on the hospital plus in trouble with the law. I don't disagree that these drugs can be beneficial for many people and should be studied but there is dangers as well and the dangers are often downplayed as "just anti drug FUD."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- anythingnonidin 9y ago
  Did any of the following apply? > No current or past history of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, no Bipolar I or II disorder, and no first or second-degree (“A second-degree relative is defined as a blood relative which includes the individual’s grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces or half-siblings.”) relatives with these disorders.3 https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-lsd/#1-avoid-with-certain-health-conditions https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-lsd/#1-avoid-with-certain-h... Also this means that it is advisable for you to steer clear of psychedelics. For what it’s worth: > “Since the early 1990s, approximately 2000 doses of psilocybin (ranging from low to high doses) have been safely administered to humans in the United States and Europe, in carefully controlled scientific settings, with no reports of any medical or psychiatric serious AEs, including no reported cases of prolonged psychosis or HPPD (Studerus et al., 2011).”1 https://tripsafe.org/shrooms/#2-the-safety-profile-of-shrooms-might-surprise-you https://tripsafe.org/shrooms/#2-the-safety-profile-of-shroom...
  - tgb 9y ago
    I really dislike this argument. About 1% of US adults have had schizophrenia in the past year. And 2.6% of the adult population has bipolar. Yet at some point in their life they didn't know they were going to have schizophrenia or bipolar! You're arguing that this only affects people with the condition already but if you can't know if you are predisposed for that, then you have to accept that there's risk. I support studying the risk and benefits, but your argument suggests that the risk only applies to other people. It doesn't and it's destructive to suggest otherwise. Let me put this another way. Their recommendations include first and second degree relatives. Wikipedia says that the risk of having schizophrenia when you have a first degree relative with it is 6.5% [1] This is the single biggest risk factor for it but it's still pretty small. If it's too dangerous to take based off a 6.5% risk then it's also probably too dangerous to take off the 1%-ish risk that the entire general population faces. At the very least, it's important to acknowledge that there exists these risks instead of replying to every anecdote that hurts your cause with this misleading information while allowing the anecdotes that help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Genetic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Genetic
thescribe 9y ago
Given the article this basically comes down to "We don't know".
fapjacks 9y ago
You can buy the ingredients for ayahuasca (B. Caapi vines and P. Viridis leaves) online for cheap.
ssijak 9y ago
Yes : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161207124115.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161207124115.h... http://beckleyfoundation.org/ayahuasca-stimulates-the-birth-of-new-brain-cells/ http://beckleyfoundation.org/ayahuasca-stimulates-the-birth-... http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042421 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v12n2/12225mab.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v12n2/12225mab.html http://beckleyfoundation.org/resource/exploring-the-therapeutic-potential-of-ayahuasca-acute-intake-increases-mindfulness-related-capacities/ http://beckleyfoundation.org/resource/exploring-the-therapeu... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773875/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773875/ http://www.maps.org/research/ayahuasca/ayahuasca-canada http://www.maps.org/research/ayahuasca/ayahuasca-canada http://beckleyfoundation.org/resource/long-term-use-of-psychedelic-drugs-is-associated-with-differences-in-brain-structure-and-personality-in-humans/ http://beckleyfoundation.org/resource/long-term-use-of-psych... http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/ayahuasca-may-act-against-chronic-low-grade-inflammation-and-oxidative-stress http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/ayahuasca-may-act-agains... http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v08n3/08312rib.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v08n3/08312rib.html http://www.trnres.com/ebook/uploads/rafael/T_12998350813%20Rafael.pdf http://www.trnres.com/ebook/uploads/rafael/T_12998350813%20R... http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06324aya.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06324aya.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06327tak.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06327tak.html http://www.trnres.com/ebook/uploads/rafael/T_12998352185%20Rafael.pdf http://www.trnres.com/ebook/uploads/rafael/T_12998352185%20R... http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v11n1/11125hof.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v11n1/11125hof.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=evidence%20of%20health%20and%20safety%20in%20american%20members%20of%20a%20religion%20who%20use%20a%20hallucinogenic%20sacrament# https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=evidence%20of%20hea... http://www.maps.org/research-archive/html_bak/kristensen.html http://www.maps.org/research-archive/html_bak/kristensen.htm... https://qz.com/963683/the-ayahuasca-ceremony-is-going-under-the-scientific-method-microscope/ https://qz.com/963683/the-ayahuasca-ceremony-is-going-under-... http://www.iceers.org/docs/science/ayahuasca/ICEERS2012_Ayahuasca_literature_compilation.pdf http://www.iceers.org/docs/science/ayahuasca/ICEERS2012_Ayah... more here : https://www.globalayahuascaproject.org/ayahuasca-research/ayahuasca-research-papers/ https://www.globalayahuascaproject.org/ayahuasca-research/ay... many new research presented here also : https://www.youtube.com/user/mapsmdma/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/mapsmdma/videos etc, etc.. And aslo from anegdotal evidence answer is - YES.

146 points by jeffwass 9y ago

Having had frequent ceremonies over the course of several months I stopped drinking the tea, because I find it is not helping being pulled from one extreme into another. Our western way of life makes it very difficult to integrate the profound experiences that one can get through this medicine and it requires major commitments to change..and it requires good helpers and facilitators. We, as westerners, are often times not equipped to integrate this lost wisdom into our lives. I know it is said it is not addictive but I know enough people that at least appear dependent on it and swear by it being the solution. I personally believe that meditation and journeying inward without drugs brings about insights of a similar magnitude in a pace that we can cope with and integrate what we learn without jojo’ing between bliss and depression. Ayahuasca has its place. It definitely helped us experience that there is much more to life than the material. But in my opinion I t’s a sledge Hammer that helps crack hard nuts or sets a direction. The work has to be done by oneself and the risk with ayahuasca is that one just keeps drinking the tea, thinking that that is enough. Apart from that it is quite dangerous nowadays to do ceremonies with traveling “shamans”, because a lot of them don’t even brew the tea themselves and oftentimes facilitate in a way that it is bound to go wrong at some point.

kobeya 9y ago
Or psychoactive drugs don’t teach you anything new but rather modify brain functionality such that you feel different. Gaining new belief or believing you have new beliefs are typically indistinguishable from the inside.
- mustacheemperor 9y ago
  What is different between having a new belief and having your brain functionality modified such that you indistinguishably genuinely feel you have a new belief? Wouldn't the act of integrating a new belief also modify your brain functionality somehow? Not trying to start an esoteric argument, I'm interested if there's an actual answer to that.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    You can profoundly understand something because you understand the mechanism of its working and have deeply integrated it into your mental model of the world. Or you can "profoundly understand" something by having your brain remember what it feels like to profoundly understand, and enter that state in association with the new belief. Even if the belief is wrong (and you will never see that it is wrong).
- nowherecat 9y ago
  Well, could’t You say the same thing about experiences of any nature? For example: our thoughts always affect our body/mind .. if I take a drug or in the case of ayahuasca an entheogen, it creates a non ordinary state of consciousness, which -if strong enough- can permanently change the way I feel and act. The same you could achieve by meditating on a regular basis or going on a long trip, having a traumatic experience etc .. our brains are being modified constantly by our experiences, not just by drugs. And yeah, a belief is a belief - if it’s a conscious belief you could say ‘I believe in having this belief’ and if it’s unconscious it’s just a belief I am not consciously aware of. But both have the same Effect on my body and mind
  - kobeya 9y ago
    It permanently changes you by causing conditions by which your brain rewires itself. For psychiatric patients that is often a good thing because where they are at is not a good place. But why would you throw a spanner in the works if you're already a well adjusted individual? If you want to be content and enjoy life, why not get a lobotomy. It's a more consistent result. Oh you don't want to do that to your brain? Well acid may have different mechanisms but can trigger similarly drastic effects, it's just now you've introduced a roll of the die, and I'm not a fan of gambling without a winning strategy.
    - KennyCason 9y ago
      Given your very clear and strong stance that this is something you won't ever try, of which I don't have any issue with, I won't spend a lot of time debating this statement. But, your analogy with getting a lobotomy to enjoy life being even remotely equivalent to doing psychedelics is simply wrong. The effects are not similar. You are also drastically overestimating the gambling nature of psychedelics. You're probably way more likely to wreck your life while drinking alcohol than you are with psychedelics.
- jasonm23 9y ago
  Corrective lenses don't teach you anything directly, but you can see more wearing them.
remir 9y ago
I agree. Sometimes these substances act like a bulldozer that destroy doors that should have remained closed. For some people, opening these "doors" will lead to more harm than good. I am not writing this to demonize psychedelics, but only to say they can be unpredictable. As I grow older, I realize we are the product of organized and sometimes very ancient memories and obviously we have not been told (by parents, society) to take a step back and look at things from a detached perspective. As a results, we are like prisoners of memories, symbols and habits, unable to see what's beyond all that.

nicodjimenez 9y ago

Psychedelics provide a incredible jolt to the system (at least that's what they tell me) but if they do provide health benefits I believe they are short term, similar to traveling to another country or doing something unusual with your life. On the other hand, people that take psychedelics too often tend to have long term negative consequences such as anxiety or become dysfunctional in other ways. It's very hard to have nuanced opinions these days, but I think society in general needs to come to terms with psychedelics, the dangers they present, the novel experiences they enable, and some mental health benefits they may enable.

ianai 9y ago
Considering the US still throws people away for going near drugs I’d say the pendulum doesn’t need to swing further the same direction.
- freeloop2 9y ago
  Most countries do this. I don't know why people always pick on the US in this regard.
  - ianai 9y ago
    Highest per capital inceration rate.
    - freeloop2 9y ago
      But not the most stringent drug laws.
  - whiddershins 9y ago
    I am under the impression the United States pushed hard for the international treaty in 1961 that required these drugs be prohibited in most of those countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcoti...

afro88 9y ago

A negative anecdote: a friend of a friend of a friend went on a retreat and did actually lose his mind. He needs help and probably will for the rest of his life. Just putting it out there for some balance. I’ve heard my fair share of positive anecdotes too.

laser 9y ago
So some guy on the internet says that a friend of a friend of a friend of his lost his mind on Ayahuasca? Based on schizophrenia rates, I suspect pretty much everyone even has a friend of a friend that might catalyze their latent schizophrenia through psychedelics. But, the idea that psychedelics cause mental illness in those that otherwise would have been fine is not supported by scientific evidence[1][2], only anecdotes. [1] https://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedelics-and-psychosis-1.16968 https://www.nature.com/news/no-link-found-between-psychedeli... [2] http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/03/28/lsd-and-schizophrenia-does-acid-cause-mental-illness/ http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2014/03/28/lsd-and-schizophreni... [3]
- darpa_escapee 9y ago
  The functional difference between 'causes schizophrenia' and 'triggers latent schizophrenia' to someone who is diagnosed with schizophrenia after ingesting ayahuasca is practically non-existent. Sure, you can generalize that those with family members who have schizophrenia are at an increased risk of having it rear its head. However, not everyone with schizophrenia gets diagnosed nor do many people have detailed psychiatric evaluations of their relatives to make decisions off of.
  - berberous 9y ago
    I would agree with you if there are people with 'latent schizophrenia' that would never have it become active but for the drug use. But perhaps it's more like someone with a heart defect that dies after some physical exercise -- there was a latent defect that would have revealed itself sooner or later (and schizophrenia is generally diagnosed by one's mid to late 20's). Does the literature have a consensus on which is the case?

swayvil 9y ago

I have used psychedelics. I consider it to be one of the most beautiful, educational and healthful things that I have ever done. These days I meditate.

mooneater 9y ago

I permanently quit a 15 year cigarette habit after a weekend with Aya. And I have never wanted to go near a cigarette since (7 years ago).

beepboopbeep 9y ago

We won't know unless we research it!

Rafert 9y ago
Exactly. Medicinal marihuana or more recently MDMA for PTSD treatment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15120656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15120656) all took a while too.
EasyTiger_ 9y ago
Difficult when big pharma is involved. Profits take precedence over wellbeing.

someonewhocar3s 9y ago

Could this be wishful thinking? I think the church banned psychedelics because it gives people religious experiences easily, and their interpretations sometimes really stink. So I'm curious where all this is going wrt spirituality. Especially during the last days of humanity, as we are slowly self assimilating into a system greater than humans.

indescions_2017 9y ago

One theory is that psychedelics increase the Shannon entropy of the brain’s functional connectivity: Shannon entropy of brain functional complex networks under the influence of the psychedelic Ayahuasca https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5547073/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5547073/

jack_pp 9y ago

I don't have any evidence of this but I stronly suspect that doing regular meditation will reduce the chance of bad trips or atleast let you deal with them much better. I'm saying this in case someone decides to experiment with DMT or other halucinogens, you should seriously consider trying meditation as a prerequisite.

avenoir 9y ago
Interestingly, I've been reading that traumatic/bad trips are actually the most healing because they often reveal inner, subconscious struggles and repressed feelings that haven't been adequately dealt with.
- nowherecat 9y ago
  There is potential for healing, yes. But what comes up needs to be integrated and dealt with appropriately .. if not, it can mess up things quite a bit.
virtualwhys 9y ago
> doing regular meditation will reduce the chance of bad trips or at least let you deal with them much better. Perhaps, but meditation as it is often practiced by lay people is one of convenience. That is, this is pleasant, I'll sit for an hour, but not more, because that would become unpleasant (to my knees and back). I don't think this kind of practice does anything to prepare you for the rigors of deep psychedelic experience, where control and choice go completely out the window whether you like it or not. A one week meditation retreat, with 14 1-hour sittings per day, however (i.e. Vipasana, Zen, etc. style retreats), that will help for sure, though I suspect none but meditation masters can emerge unscathed from the psychedelic deep dive.
R_haterade 9y ago
Anything specific practices you recommend? I'm not interested in ayahuasca, but meditation has been on my list for a while now.
- 9y ago

Fnoord 9y ago

Ayahuasca is a South American brew consisting of two plants one consisting of a MAOI and another of DMT (the exact plant genus differs). DMT without a MAOI gets broken down by the blood brain barrier, so its not efficient without the MAOI. The MAOI however puts dietary restrictions before the drug is being administered, and also makes the drug last vastly longer. Without the MAOI, the DMT wouldn't last long (IIRC even less long than Salvia). That might be an interesting use case. Apart from that, there's all the time research on tryptamines [1] (MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, etc) used to treat mental diseases and personality disorders. The advantage synthetic drugs have is they're easier to standardise. I'm not sure why you'd want to research MAOI + DMT instead of the ones already mentioned? What advantages could it have over those? [1] http://psychedelic-information-theory.com/Psychedelic-Pharmacology http://psychedelic-information-theory.com/Psychedelic-Pharma...

pstuart 9y ago
My only DMT experience lasted about 15 minutes, and that was plenty.
- nicodjimenez 9y ago
  Yes, SWIM took DMT and loved it but finds the idea of Ayahuasca very frightening indeed.
  - hysterix 9y ago
    Only idiots refer to themselves as "SWIM". Go back to dmt-nexus. You're not throwing off the DEA or any other law enforcement agency, you just come off as a moron.
  - cc81 9y ago
    It is probably pointless to use "SWIM"
    - jasonm23 9y ago
      I expect it's not a written confession if someone who isn't me committed a crime. Although IANAL.

tudorw 9y ago

It's modulating the expression of some important genes; "It is also a selective inhibitor of the human cytochrome P450 isozyme 2D6 (CYP 2D6)" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16149329 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16149329 "the inhibitions on human liver CYP3A4 and CYP2D6 enzymes by those β-carboline alkaloids were studied kinetically. Harmine, harmol and harmane exhibited noncompetitive inhibition on the activity of CYP3A4 with K(i) values of 16.76, 5.13 and 1.66 μM, respectively. These β-carboline alkaloids were also found to be both substrates and inhibitors for CYP2D6. Harmaline, harmine and harmol showed typical competitive inhibition on the activity of CYP2D6 Inhibition of Human Cytochrome P450 Enzymes 3A4 and 2D6 by β-Carboline Alkaloids, Harmine Derivatives (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50834428_Inhibition_of_Human_Cytochrome_P450_Enzymes_3A4_and_2D6_by_b-Carboline_Alkaloids_Harmine_Derivatives https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50834428_Inhibition... [accessed Oct 1, 2017]." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50834428_Inhibition_of_Human_Cytochrome_P450_Enzymes_3A4_and_2D6_by_b-Carboline_Alkaloids_Harmine_Derivatives https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50834428_Inhibition...

nnfy 9y ago
Do you have evidence that ayuhuasca is mutagenic? Inhibition of enzymes is temporary and generally harmless if you are careful not to consume certain drugs while inhibited.
- tudorw 9y ago
  Not I, though Dr. Shulgin says; "The second question relates to yet another beta-carboline alkaloid, Harman. This is a structural analogue of Harmine that has been stripped of its methoxyl group. It is widely found in plants and foods, and has been shown in experimental animals to be a vasodilator and a hypotensive agent. It also interacts directly with DNA and is thus a possible mutagenic agent." Courtesy of the wayback machine you can read the article, https://web.archive.org/web/20020325022732/http://www.alchemind.org/shulgin/adsarchive/ayahuasca_maoi.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20020325022732/http://www.alchem...

virtualwhys 9y ago

> Could psychedelic drug ayahuasca have health benefits? Certainly, anecdotally I kicked a very strong 20 year coffee and sugar habit after doing a 3-day retreat in Latin America this past winter. Just happened naturally, oh, I don't need this daily coffee and sugar fix anymore. On the flip side, as the article mentions, the psychedlic tourism industry as a whole doesn't have formal safe guards in place for when the shit hits the fan with one (or more) of the attendees. My friend, who sat all eleven days, said that two women just completely lost it on day 3, screaming hysterically, out of their minds battling unknown demons. The retreat "helpers", do the best they can to settle you down, but when you're deep in the experience it's very hard to distinguish between real/unreal. For example, in some kind of existential moment I shouted out in my mind's eye, "you are the most high!". In reality I shocked the 30 other attendants out of their seats, and a helper rushed up to see if I was Ok. It's an extremely powerful substance. At the end of the retreat, when everyone headed off to sleep, I was still tripping so hard that sleep was impossible. When I finally lay down the sheer flow of non-stop Dali/Escher-like hallucinations running through my mind were sufficient to make me question whether I was ever going to return to reality -- Pandora's box indeed. tl;dr; proceed with caution, can have beneficial side-effects.

hal9000xp 9y ago
> I don't need this daily coffee and sugar fix anymore. In the same way, some people just stop being "addicted" to life in general after strong trip. Some of them decide to commit suicide. Just yesterday, I've been in party and one guy told story of his friend who committed suicide after such trip. The big problem with psychedelics is that you can't predict in which way a trip could change you.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Yea, in simple terms it has a multiplier effect on everything you experience. If feelings go bad, they can go really bad and remain that way afterwards. But you commented on suicide. I also have a friend who unfortunately passed this way. Do you have any data on this? From what I have seen, studies have been limited. I had read somewhere on erowid years ago a study where an increase in mental illness and suicide after psychadelic use was positive but less than an increase seen in another study of people who had completed religious quests.

stefek99 9y ago

WOW. I really enjoy whenever psychedelics hit the mainstream. I'm sitting on the fence regarding psychedelic coming out: blog.mostlydoing.com/2016/04/7-reasons-why-you-dont-psychedelic.html Those who know know, default legal system is still unadvantageous towards drug users.

flycaliguy 9y ago
I was hoping to gain some insight from the link, but it's just immature and condescending... I have really grown to resent that tone and it's become very popular in a lot of opinion writing on the web. Seeing it from a psychedelic advocate is not doing his cause any favours. EDIT: Noticed that you wrote that, so to clarify what I'm saying: Your tone implies that it's absurd for somebody to have an opinion contrary to your own. It's not a healthy contribution to anything.

leggomylibro 9y ago

It might be easier to find out, if rigorous research into psychedelics weren't so arbitrarily difficult compared to other medicines.

schedule1 9y ago
Nothing will happen until psychedelics are rescheduled. It's a travesty that even the "natural" tryptamines (psilocybin/psilocin and DMT) can't be researched more easily.
- anythingnonidin 9y ago
  Not true - psilocybin is being actively researched by Heffter/Usona. They are much more limited by funding than they are by scheduling (at least, in the US). The main benefit of rescheduling will likely be through easier access to government funding and funding from large foundations. If you’re very wealthy, you can fund psychedelic research that interests you today - again, the scheduling is not close to being the main limiting factor. Source: I’ve talked with multiple researchers who are studying psychedelics.
anythingnonidin 9y ago
The main barrier to more psychedelic research is funding / $$ - far more than anything else. In the US, access to research funding is a far larger issue than scheduling. The main benefit of rescheduling would likely be through its indirect benefits on access to funding. Source: I’ve talked with multiple researchers who are studying psychedelics.
jmcgough 9y ago
We're actually in the middle of a renaissance when it comes to psychedelic drug research. Research essentially ended after the panic in response to Leary's misuse of drugs, and the association of drugs with counter-culture movements in the 60s and 70s... and then in the 80s and 90s we had the much maligned War on Drugs. Now that it's become more widely accepted that psychedelic drugs are comparatively harmless next to opioids, there's been a HUGE amount of new psychedelic drug research. I attended Horizons (annual NYC conference on psychedelic drug research) several years ago when I was doing my neuroscience undergrad, and was really impressed with how many new studies were coming out. Interesting enough, a lot of it was focused on psilocybin (e.g. treating anxiety in end of life cancer patients), because LSD still has a bit of a bad reputation after Leary. Probably the most interesting researcher I met was a professor in Europe who was doing fMRI scans of grad students on psilocybin. Nowadays, MDMA has been receiving a lot of attention for its potential to treat those with PTSD. Anyways, super rambling response, but there's reason to be more optimistic about psychedelic research compared to decades past.

icarito 9y ago

As a practitioner of traditional amazonian spiritual tradition, I and my family drink Ayahuasca on a regular basis and find it to be invaluable, our first line of defense for disease both physical and spiritual.

colordrops 9y ago
Did you pick up this tradition through family or did seek out this practice and learn it?
- icarito 9y ago
  It was in my own pursuit.
moh_maya 9y ago
How does one get in touch with you? :)
- icarito 9y ago
  I've added my email to my HN profile. :-)

dnc 9y ago

While I was on a retreat this year in a Peruvian village, I was told by several natives (Shipibo people) that, by their tradition (some estimations are that Shipibo tribes have been using Ayahuasca for millenias), Ayahuasca is orally taken in healing ceremonies by their shamans only. Traditionally, in the normal course of a healing ceremony, it is not a patient who takes 'the medicine' or 'the plant teacher' (Ayahuasca), but the shaman in order to learn from the plant what his patient illness is and how to go about healing it. Also traditionaly, Ayahuasca is taken during shamanic training (which takes years, if not a whole life) as a part of a special and very strict diet that can last between several weeks to a year or more, depending on a plant that one is dieting. During the diet shaman apprentice is supposed to take Ayahuasca, but only at the beginning and at the end of the diet, if it is a short one, or every once in couple of months if the diet is longer. The diet is a way to become familiar with the plant and learn what it has to teach you and Ayahuasca, the teacher plant, is used as a sort of a learning facilitator. From my understanding, a practice of organizing Ayahuasca ceremonies and giving the brew to foreigners in exchange for money has been relatively recently established with rising popularization of Ayahuasca and demand for it from abroad.

Radim 9y ago
the shaman in order to learn from the plant what his patient illness is and how to go about healing it. And how was that working out for them, from what you could see? Did patients there prefer the "traditional" or the "western" medicine?
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. That argument leads nowhere new and therefore nowhere interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: whoops I misread that one and broke the site rules in the process. Sorry and carry on!
  - borski 9y ago
    dang, apologies, but the parent didn't seem to be taking this on a generic tangent. The OP has a very interesting anecdotal story to tell, related directly to a group of people that take ayahuasca for healing, and I, too, am curious about how it worked for them, specifically.

astura 9y ago

My brother went on an Ayahuasca retreat but ended up deeply disappointed that it didn't change his life and his problems got much worse as a result. Of course, that can happen with any treatments as well. However, professional support could maybe mitigate that a bit. Plus actual data may give a better idea of likely outcomes. He then came home and took LSD that caused an episode of psychosis that lasted a couple weeks and landed him on the hospital plus in trouble with the law. I don't disagree that these drugs can be beneficial for many people and should be studied but there is dangers as well and the dangers are often downplayed as "just anti drug FUD."

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
anythingnonidin 9y ago
Did any of the following apply? > No current or past history of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, no Bipolar I or II disorder, and no first or second-degree (“A second-degree relative is defined as a blood relative which includes the individual’s grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces or half-siblings.”) relatives with these disorders.3 https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-lsd/#1-avoid-with-certain-health-conditions https://tripsafe.org/how-to-take-lsd/#1-avoid-with-certain-h... Also this means that it is advisable for you to steer clear of psychedelics. For what it’s worth: > “Since the early 1990s, approximately 2000 doses of psilocybin (ranging from low to high doses) have been safely administered to humans in the United States and Europe, in carefully controlled scientific settings, with no reports of any medical or psychiatric serious AEs, including no reported cases of prolonged psychosis or HPPD (Studerus et al., 2011).”1 https://tripsafe.org/shrooms/#2-the-safety-profile-of-shrooms-might-surprise-you https://tripsafe.org/shrooms/#2-the-safety-profile-of-shroom...
- tgb 9y ago
  I really dislike this argument. About 1% of US adults have had schizophrenia in the past year. And 2.6% of the adult population has bipolar. Yet at some point in their life they didn't know they were going to have schizophrenia or bipolar! You're arguing that this only affects people with the condition already but if you can't know if you are predisposed for that, then you have to accept that there's risk. I support studying the risk and benefits, but your argument suggests that the risk only applies to other people. It doesn't and it's destructive to suggest otherwise. Let me put this another way. Their recommendations include first and second degree relatives. Wikipedia says that the risk of having schizophrenia when you have a first degree relative with it is 6.5% [1] This is the single biggest risk factor for it but it's still pretty small. If it's too dangerous to take based off a 6.5% risk then it's also probably too dangerous to take off the 1%-ish risk that the entire general population faces. At the very least, it's important to acknowledge that there exists these risks instead of replying to every anecdote that hurts your cause with this misleading information while allowing the anecdotes that help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Genetic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Genetic

thescribe 9y ago

Given the article this basically comes down to "We don't know".

fapjacks 9y ago

You can buy the ingredients for ayahuasca (B. Caapi vines and P. Viridis leaves) online for cheap.

ssijak 9y ago

Yes : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161207124115.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161207124115.h... http://beckleyfoundation.org/ayahuasca-stimulates-the-birth-of-new-brain-cells/ http://beckleyfoundation.org/ayahuasca-stimulates-the-birth-... http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0042421 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v12n2/12225mab.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v12n2/12225mab.html http://beckleyfoundation.org/resource/exploring-the-therapeutic-potential-of-ayahuasca-acute-intake-increases-mindfulness-related-capacities/ http://beckleyfoundation.org/resource/exploring-the-therapeu... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773875/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773875/ http://www.maps.org/research/ayahuasca/ayahuasca-canada http://www.maps.org/research/ayahuasca/ayahuasca-canada http://beckleyfoundation.org/resource/long-term-use-of-psychedelic-drugs-is-associated-with-differences-in-brain-structure-and-personality-in-humans/ http://beckleyfoundation.org/resource/long-term-use-of-psych... http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/ayahuasca-may-act-against-chronic-low-grade-inflammation-and-oxidative-stress http://www.greenmedinfo.com/article/ayahuasca-may-act-agains... http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v08n3/08312rib.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v08n3/08312rib.html http://www.trnres.com/ebook/uploads/rafael/T_12998350813%20Rafael.pdf http://www.trnres.com/ebook/uploads/rafael/T_12998350813%20R... http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06324aya.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06324aya.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06327tak.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06327tak.html http://www.trnres.com/ebook/uploads/rafael/T_12998352185%20Rafael.pdf http://www.trnres.com/ebook/uploads/rafael/T_12998352185%20R... http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v11n1/11125hof.html http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v11n1/11125hof.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=evidence%20of%20health%20and%20safety%20in%20american%20members%20of%20a%20religion%20who%20use%20a%20hallucinogenic%20sacrament# https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=evidence%20of%20hea... http://www.maps.org/research-archive/html_bak/kristensen.html http://www.maps.org/research-archive/html_bak/kristensen.htm... https://qz.com/963683/the-ayahuasca-ceremony-is-going-under-the-scientific-method-microscope/ https://qz.com/963683/the-ayahuasca-ceremony-is-going-under-... http://www.iceers.org/docs/science/ayahuasca/ICEERS2012_Ayahuasca_literature_compilation.pdf http://www.iceers.org/docs/science/ayahuasca/ICEERS2012_Ayah... more here : https://www.globalayahuascaproject.org/ayahuasca-research/ayahuasca-research-papers/ https://www.globalayahuascaproject.org/ayahuasca-research/ay... many new research presented here also : https://www.youtube.com/user/mapsmdma/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/mapsmdma/videos etc, etc.. And aslo from anegdotal evidence answer is - YES.