WEDNESDAY, Nov. 13, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- People are at higher risk of schizophrenia if they indulge in psychedelic drugs, a new study warns.

Patients who land in the ER following hallucinogen use have a 21-fold higher risk of developing schizophrenia compared to the general population, Canadian researchers report.

Even after controlling for a person’s existing substance use and mental health disorders, there remained a 3.5-fold increased risk of schizophrenia after ER treatment for psychedelics use.

Hallucinogens include drugs like psilocybin, LSD, DMT (Ayahuasca) and MDMA (Ecstasy).

“Our findings underscore a concerning link between hallucinogen use that requires care in the emergency room and increased risk of schizophrenia,” said investigator Dr. Daniel Myran, research chair in social accountability at the University of Ottawa.

“While there is enormous enthusiasm for psychedelic-assisted therapy as a new mental health treatment, we need to remember how early and limited the data remains for both the benefits and the risks,” Myran added in a university news release.

For the study, researchers analyzed health data for more than 9.2 million people ages 14 to 65 living in Ontario between 2008 and 2021.

Researchers looked at emergency room visits involving hallucinogens, and whether patients had been diagnosed with schizophrenia afterward.

Overall, annual rates of ER visits involving hallucinogens increased by 86% between 2014 and 2021, after remaining stable from 2008 to 2012, results show.

About 4% of people were diagnosed with schizophrenia within three years of an ER visit involving hallucinogens, researchers found. By comparison, only 0.15% of the general population developed schizophrenia during the study period.

People with ER visits for psychedelics also were more likely to develop schizophrenia than those who visited the ER due to alcohol (4.7 times greater) or cannabis (1.5 times greater).

However, researchers noted that the findings cannot prove a cause-and-effect link between hallucinogen use and schizophrenia, and that more study is needed to better understand this relationship.

“Clinical trials of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy have safeguards, such as excluding individuals with a personal or family history of schizophrenia and close monitoring while participants use hallucinogens,” Myran said. “Our findings provide a timely caution about potential risks of hallucinogen use outside of trial settings.”

The researchers also noted it’s important that ER doctors treating patients who’ve used psychedelics be aware of the mental health risks these folks face.

The new study was published Nov. 13 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

More information

The National Institutes of Health has more on how psychedelic drugs alter the brain.

SOURCE: University of Ottawa, news release, Nov. 13, 2024

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