If you have been paying attention to the psychedelic revolution happening around the world, you would be right to believe that psychedelics are touted as safe and effective medicines for anyone willing to take the deep dive into the psyche.
But, is it true that psychedelics are perfectly safe?
One issue that we have personal experience with is the effect of psychedelics on magnesium status. Magnesium is required for over 3,300 enzymatic functions in the body, including those that contribute to mood and emotions. When a person is stressed, whether physically by illness or injury, or emotionally, or due to internal mineral stress (largely the result of unbound iron), the body burns through magnesium at a rapid pace. As a result, we are living in a world where nearly everyone is functionally magnesium deficient, and the fix is not as simple as just taking a supplement.
In a magnesium deficient state, the emotions also become disregulated. Mood, perceptions, and the internal state of well-being are all affected by magnesium status. It’s in these states that people are more likely to seek relief and healing from any number of sources, and today psychedelics are touted as a safe way of alleviating symptoms.
But, there is emerging research confirming that psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, mescaline and analogs cause vasospasm and stroke-like effects in magnesium deficient subjects. Read that again–“stroke-like effects.”
See ‘Stroke: A Real Danger of the Therapeutic Use of Psychedelic Drugs and the Role of Magnesium Depletion.’ available at: https://www.ecronicon.com/ecpt/si/ECPT-01-SI-07.pdf
Although there seems to be a renewed effort to utilize mood altering drugs and psychedelic drugs for treatment of patience for various psychological disturbances and disorders (reviewed above), none of these published studies or clinical trials has mentioned the potential stroke-like effects of these drugs. The psychedelic drugs, in these clinical trials, all result in numerous adverse brain circulatory actions in numerous mammals when studied in living animals and on diverse isolated cerebral blood vessels from these mammals, including sub-human primates. We believe, strongly, that in view of the findings reviewed, herein, caution must be exercised on patients entered into clinical trials employing psychedelic or mood-altering drugs. At the very least, effects on brain circulation and metabolism using sophisticated physiological monitoring techniques, such as 31Phosphorus nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P- NMR), near-infrared spectroscopy, magnetic resonance imaging spectroscopy (MRI) as well as fast- MRI spectroscopy to record localized cerebral blood flows and cell metabolism in the brain, must be monitored to protect all patients from potential stroke-like effects of the psychedelic drugs and their analogs. Lastly, in view of our findings, it would be propitious for all investigators and psychiatrists who plan to test psychedelic drugs that blood ionized Mg levels are closely monitored, and if found to be low, the mood-altering drugs should only be administered with extreme caution.’
Id.
This begs the question: Do you even know your magnesium status? Most people don’t, and it’s a difficult thing to ascertain. While certain labs (specifically Magnesium RBC) can be useful if interpreted by someone who knows of these issues, it isn’t definitive. Other more practical tests might also need to be used, such as determining ones tolerance for magnesium (intolerance being another cue as to deficiency).
If you are engaging with psychedelics and/or plant medicines and do not know your magnesium status, it’s a good time to pause and dig in deeper.
