Psychedelic Drug Therapy: Cure Your Mind, Save Your Heart?

• A growing body of clinical research is showing psychedelic drugs can very successfully treat numerous stress-related mental health disorders
• Economic data shows that psychedelic drugs have the potential to save the global economy $100’s of billions in treatment costs and reduced productivity losses
• Psychedelic drugs may also have the potential to save large numbers of lives

Can the investment drivers for psychedelic stocks get any more positive?
 

1. A rapidly worsening Mental Health Crisis is enveloping the planet. Stress-related disorders like depression, anxiety, addiction and PTSD afflict over 1 billion people.
2. Existing treatment options are grossly inadequate. Numerous multi-billion-dollar treatment markets are wide open for psychedelic drug development.
3. A large and growing number of clinical studies are indicating that psychedelic drugs are strong candidates to revolutionize these treatment markets.
4. Productivity losses from the Mental Health Crisis already cost the global economy $1+ trillion per year
5. Treatment costs for these mental health disorders amount to $300 billion annually in the U.S. alone – often with very little to show for that spending. An economic study on a psychedelics-based treatment shows the potential for enormous cost savings.

A crisis. A solution. Billions of treatment dollars up for grabs in numerous major healthcare markets. Billions more in potential savings.

Psychedelic drug industry is attracting huge flows of capital

Sounds great. It’s been enough to draw in large numbers of big-name investors – and the investment clout that comes with that. Financings for psychedelics-based companies are already reaching into nine figures.
 

The enthusiasm for psychedelic drugs goes well beyond the investment community.

Rarely a day goes by without some major media entity bullishly trumpeting the potential of psychedelic drugs to alleviate mental health disorders.
 

This is the same Big Media that spent over 40 years relentlessly demonizing these same substances – as part of the War on Drugs.

A Renaissance in psychedelic drug research is taking place. It’s being driven by a Revolution in public attitudes toward psychedelic drugs.

Looking at all these bullish fundamentals, Psychedelic Stock Watch compiled our own list of the leading investment drivers for psychedelic stocks.
 

Can psychedelic drug therapy save millions of lives?

Psychedelic drugs have already demonstrated the potential to save lives through fixing mental health disorders.

Successfully treating addiction can help to prevent addiction-related deaths. Successfully treating depression and PTSD can reduce the number of deaths by suicide.

What if that was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of saving lives?

What if the therapeutic benefits of psychedelic drug therapy in treating mental health conditions simultaneously reduces fatalities from the leading cause of death?

Heart disease kills 17.3 million people each year, the #1 cause of death globally. Can psychedelics-based medicine have a significant impact in reducing these deaths?

This is where some new research on the brain seems to be leading, according to an article from PsyPost, a mental health website.
 

Exactly. We don’t have a physiological understanding of how anxiety/depression affects the brain — or, perhaps, how the brain affects anxiety and depression.

“Stress kills.” We know that. Chronic stress leads to a much higher incidence of death by heart disease.

What we don’t know in precise physiological terms is how stress accelerates heart disease and coronary risk.

The connection between depression, anxiety and heart disease

This study takes us closer to that physiological understanding. And it reveals a potential role for psychedelic medicine as a powerful tool to reduce the risk of heart disease.
 

In layman’s terms, the natural “fight or flight” instinct of all mammals works against us.

Stress causes an elevation in heart rate and blood pressure, increasing the strain on the heart. Chronic stress causes prolonged or even continuous additional strain on the heart.

The result: heart disease.

That much was already fairly well understood. But as the authors of the study note:
 

And now it seems that depression, anxiety and heart disease are all influenced by brain function in the same part of the brain: the subgenal anterior cingulate cortex.

The inference here is obvious. If psychedelic drug therapy can dramatically alter brain function in treating stress-related disorders like depression and anxiety, will this deliver the additional benefit of reducing stress-related risks of heart disease as well?

People receiving psychedelics-assisted therapy to treat depression and/or anxiety can’t eliminate stresses from their lives. Their brains simply no longer generate the same symptoms of depression/anxiety in response to such stress.

It is in no way far-fetched to think that people who (through successful psychedelics therapy) experienced greatly reduced depression or anxiety from stress would also experience far less physiological strain on their heart. Now we have a physiological link that could establish this connection.

Legalizing psychedelics: saving billions of dollars, saving millions of lives?

The implications for the psychedelic drug industry are potentially enormous.

It this research pans out, governments have another huge incentive to push ahead with the legalization of psychedelic drugs for medicinal use. Insurers would have an additional huge incentive to cover psychedelics-based therapy.

They can save on treatment costs up front. Research from MAPS on MDMA-assisted treatment for PTSD showed potential savings of $103,000 per patient.

If psychedelics therapies aimed at these stress-related disorders also deliver long-term savings via reduced risks of heart disease, that’s a pretty significant bonus to entice insurers into covering such therapies.

Potent medicines that can deliver extremely effective treatments for mental health disorders while generating enormous savings in treatment costs and reduced productivity losses.

That’s the headline with psychedelic drug R&D today.

Psychedelic drugs can also reduce the risks of heart disease, thus saving millions of lives?

That could be the headline of tomorrow.