WASHINGTON – Psilocybin is safe and effective in patients with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), preliminary findings of a small pilot study show.
“The results suggest that psilocybin appears to be relatively safe and potentially helpful for people with BDD, and that it has a broader scope than just depression,” study investigator Franklin Schneier, MD, codirector of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic, New York State Psychiatric Institute, and special lecturer in psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, told this news organization.
So far, psilocybin has mostly been examined in clinical trials among patients with major depression. Dr. Schneier said he is aware of only a single case in the literature of its use in BDD: a patient who self-treated with psilocybin and reported symptom improvement.
The current study was presented as part of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America Anxiety & Depression conference.
Few treatment options
Patients with BDD are preoccupied with a body part they perceive as ugly or defective, “and not just mildly so,” said Dr. Schneier. “It bothers them to the extreme such that they may obsess about it on and off all day long.”
Such patients may engage in compulsive behaviors like constantly checking themselves in the mirror, and going to great lengths to conceal the body part they feel is defective. “They often seek out cosmetic procedures that objectively aren’t warranted,” said Dr. Schneier.
BDD patients often have comorbid depression, and many attempt suicide. As with other anxiety and depressive disorders, BDD is twice as prevalent in women vs. men, said Dr. Schneier.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are the only approved therapies for BDD.
The investigators thought there may be a good chance BDD patients could benefit from psilocybin. Psilocybin alters bodily self-awareness, which “might shake up people’s beliefs about their abnormal body perceptions,” said Dr. Schneier.
There’s also some suggestion that psilocybin relaxes inflexible thinking, he added. “People with BDD have very rigid beliefs about their body distortions that aren’t easily swayed by logic.”
The study included 12 adults (8 women, 4 men) with a mean age of 34 years and moderate to severe BDD who failed at least one SSRI course and had had BDD for an average of 21 years.
Participants had preliminary sessions with a therapist familiar with psilocybin who prepared them psychologically and discussed what to expect from the experience. On the day of the intervention, subjects took a single 25 mg oral dose of synthetic psilocybin in a comfortable setting.
Therapists were present for the next 8 hours to answer questions and support subjects through the experience.
High response rate
The primary efficacy outcome was change in the BDD Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Scale Modified (BDD-YBOCS) total score.
The mean baseline BDD-YBOCS score was 29.17. Researchers regularly assessed this score in the following weeks.
At 12 weeks, BDD-YBOCS scores decreased significantly from baseline (P < .001) with a large effect size (partial eta squared = .54).
However, said Dr. Schneier, what really stood out was the proportion of responders. At week 12, seven (58%) of the 12 participants were responders, as defined by a 30% or greater decrease in the BDD-YBOCS score. Of these, three were “almost symptom-free,” he added.
A number of secondary outcomes, including conviction of belief, disability, and negative affect, also significantly improved.
It’s too early to determine if additional treatment is required. The investigators plan to follow-up with the cohort at 1 year.
Although exciting, these early results warrant caution, said Dr. Schneier. “On the one hand, this is a sample of people who have struggled for a long time and have failed previous therapies, so that’s good. But on the other hand, it’s an open trial with no placebo group, and everyone has high expectations, so we don’t know how much of a placebo effect there was.”
Most adverse events, including headaches and fatigue, were mild and resolved within the first week after dosing, and there were no serious adverse events.
Based on these findings, Dr. Schneier said controlled trials of psilocybin in BDD are warranted.