People who have used so-called “classic psychedelics” such as psilocybin or LSD are less likely to report having frequent bad headaches, a new study concludes.
The results, authors wrote this month in the Journal of Pharmacology, “add to the literature suggesting classic psychedelics as a possible future prophylactic treatment option for primary headache disorders.”
Researchers gathered data from 11,419 records collected from 1999 to 2000 as part of the British Child Development Study 1958, which follows a cohort of people born over the course of a single week in March 1958.
Specifically, they looked at responses to three questions: “Do you often have bad headaches?” “Have you ever tried LSD, also known as acid or trips?” and “Have you ever tried magic mushrooms?”
The team’s analysis showed that “lifetime use of classic psychedelics was associated with 25% lower odds of having frequent bad headaches.”
There are, of course, limitations as to what conclusions can be drawn from the observational nature of the study.
“Although we have proposed a direction of association, we cannot draw any causal inferences about the association between lifetime use of classic psychedelics and frequent bad headaches,” they wrote. “It is possible that the negative association found is a result of people suffering from frequent bad headaches abstaining from the use of classic psychedelics.”
Data from the same survey, for example, showed that low alcohol use was associated with higher likelihood of frequent bad headaches. In that case, authors interpreted the finding by saying it “may be explained by individuals experiencing frequent bad headaches choosing to abstain from alcohol,” noting that alcohol is understood to be a trigger for headaches.
Overall, 16 percent of people in the survey reported frequent bad headaches. Of those, 71 percent were female and 29 percent were male. Lifetime use of classic psychedelics, meanwhile, was reported by 6.5 percent of people with frequent bad headaches and 8.6 percent of those without.
Notably, when the research team divided reports by sex, they noticed a stronger association between psychedelics use and headaches among female respondents.
“In covariate-adjusted analyses performed in males and females separately, no association was found between lifetime use of classic psychedelics and frequent bad headaches in males,” they wrote, “whereas in females, lifetime use of classic psychedelics was associated with 30% reduced odds of having frequent bad headaches.”
Male participants, however, also were also more likely to report daily alcohol use and lifetime use of other drugs, which the study describes as a possible indication of “an overall less healthy lifestyle.”
“We hypothesize that a possible association between lifetime classic psychedelic use and lower odds of headache in males is masked by a disproportionately elevated drug use in combination with a smaller sample size in the male strata,” authors explained, “reflecting the lower incidence of headache in the male population.”
Another explanation could be that psychedelics have different effects on male and female bodies in terms of impacts on headaches.
“Little is known about sex differences in the physiological response to psychedelics in humans, but data from animal models suggest the topic of sex differences in psychedelics is worth investigating further,” the report says. “Behavioral differences between male and female rodents have been observed in response to psychedelics in experimental settings, as well as differences at a cellular (dendritic spine density) and molecular level (gene expression).”
Regardless of what mechanisms may be at play, the team—from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden—said the findings warrant further study.
“Future research should continue to investigate the potential prophylactic effects and possible mechanisms of action of classic psychedelics in headache disorders,” the article says, “such as migraine and cluster headaches.”
Earlier this year, a short report on the medical use of psychedelics published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) listed headache disorders as a promising application.
Psychedelics “appear to show promise for patients with certain headache disorders and cancer pain,” GAO said, apparently by reducing inflammation and altering pain perception through interactions with the brain’s serotonin receptors.
Last month, meanwhile, a New Hampshire Republican House member, Rep. Kathleen Paquette, shared how cluster headaches affect her life and asked colleagues to approve a bill that would remove criminal penalties around psilocybin.
Psilocybin is “believed to help people like me by potentially interrupting and preventing headache cycles,” Paquette said. “It is thought to reduce inflammation in the brain, alter pain perception and reset the neural pathways that interrupts these painful cycles.”
“Very occasional use of small, non-hallucinogenic, microdoses—and at times, even a single dose—has been known to increase remission periods or even stop a cycle completely in its tracks,” she added. “As little as a single dose has the power to allow someone relief when there hasn’t been any for years or even decades. It has the power to give someone back their ability to be present for their family, to give someone back their dignity and, most of all, making psilocybin available to someone like me has the power to save lives.”
Last year the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, also published an informational web page about psilocybin, acknowledging the substance as a possible treatment for alcohol use disorder, anxiety and depression and also highlighted psilocybin research being funded by the federal government into the drug’s effects on pain, migraines, psychiatric disorders and various other conditions.
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