Ibogaine, a psychoactive drug, helps veterans with traumatic brain injuries who served in special operations.
Researchers at Stanford Medicine found that ibogaine, a psychoactive compound found in plants, helped soldiers with traumatic brain injuries feel better about their depression, anxiety, and ability to function.
For veterans, many of the worst scars of war are hard to see: Veterans who have been through traumatic events like head injuries or explosions are more likely to have PTSD, anxiety, sadness, and even suicide. There aren’t many treatments that can help lessen the long-term effects of TBI, which makes many soldiers feel hopeless.
Now, experts at Stanford Medicine have found that the plant-based psychoactive drug ibogaine works safely and effectively to help veterans with PTSD, anxiety, and depression function better when combined with magnesium to protect the heart. Their new study, which came out online on January 5 in Nature Medicine, has a lot of information about 30 former members of the U.S. special forces.
A professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences named Nolan Williams, MD, said, “No other drug has ever been able to ease the functional and neuropsychiatric symptoms of traumatic brain injury.” “The results are dramatic, and we intend to study this compound further.”
Options
A traumatic brain injury is when something outside the brain, like a blast, a car accident, or another physical impact, changes the way the brain normally works. Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) can change the way the brain works and/or how it is built, which can lead to mental symptoms.
In the last few decades, hundreds of thousands of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered traumatic brain injuries. These injuries are thought to be a factor in the high rates of depression and suicide among veterans. Because standard treatments don’t always work for some soldiers, researchers have looked for other ways to help them.
Ibogaine is a chemical that is naturally found in the iboga shrub’s roots. It has been used in spiritual and healing practices for hundreds of years. Recently, scientists and doctors have become interested in it because they think it might help treat opioid and cocaine addiction. Studies have shown that it raises the signaling of a number of important molecules in the brain, some of which are linked to drug addiction and depression. Ibogaine has been a Schedule I drug since 1970, which means it can’t be used in the U.S. However, it can be legally treated in hospitals in both Canada and Mexico.
“There were a handful of veterans who had gone to this clinic in Mexico and were reporting anecdotally that they had great improvements in all kinds of areas of their lives after taking ibogaine,” Williams said. “Our goal was to characterize those improvements with structured clinical and neurobiological assessments.”
Results that change lives
On average, people who were treated with ibogaine saw big changes right away in their functioning, PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Even better, those benefits lasted for at least one month after treatment, which was the study’s endpoint.
Before they got treatment, the veterans had an average disability grade of 30.2 on a scale that measures disability. This means that they had a mild to moderate disability. That grade went up to 5.1 a month after treatment, which means there was no disability. In the same way, subjects had 88% fewer PTSD symptoms, 87% fewer depression symptoms, and 81% fewer anxiety symptoms one month after treatment compared to before treatment with ibogaine. Formal cognitive tests also showed that the participants’ ability to focus, process knowledge, remember things, and control their impulses got better.
“I didn’t want to admit that I was having any problems because of my TBI.” Craig, a 52-year-old man from Colorado who served 27 years in the U.S. Navy, said, “I just thought my bell had been rung a few times until the day I forgot my wife’s name.” “Since Ibogaine treatment, I can think and remember things clearly again.” This has helped me move up at work and has made it much easier for me to talk to my kids and wife.
According to Sean, a 51-year-old soldier from Arizona who served in six combat deployments and took part in the study, “before the treatment, I was living life in a blizzard with zero visibility and a cold, hopeless, listless feeling.” Sean says that ibogaine saved his life. “After ibogaine, the storm lifted.”
Importantly, ibogaine did not have any major side effects, and it did not cause any of the heart problems that have sometimes been linked to it. During treatment, soldiers only said they had normal symptoms like headaches and feeling sick.
How to deal with PTSD, sadness, and anxiety
Williams and his team are going to look at more information about the soldiers that wasn’t included in this study. For example, they are going to look at brain scans that could help them figure out how ibogaine improved their thinking. They also want to start new tests to find out more about how the drug could be used to treat TBI.
But they believe that ibogaine’s strong effects on TBI also show that it could be used to treat other neuropsychiatric problems. “In addition to treating TBI, I think this may emerge as a broader neuro-rehab drug,” he said. “I think it targets a whole host of different brain areas and can help us better understand how to treat other forms of PTSD, anxiety and depression that aren’t necessarily linked to TBI.”
Generous gifts from Steve and Genevieve Jurvetson paid for the study on its own. Neither VETS, Inc. nor Ambio gave any money to Stanford Medicine.
Recent Comments