Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Mushrooms

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

It wouldn't be Twenty Fungalore without talking about the alleged medicinal properties of mushrooms, which are a fungus and not a plant at all. Justin and Dr. Sydnee talk to Cleveland about common fungi used as medical supplements, from the parasitic Cordyceps to the infamous psilocybin.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

Sawbuns is a show about medical history and nothing the host say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and try not to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, this one is about some books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with its windows blasted out. Pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around. The medicine, the medicine, the best medicine for the mouth. Whoa! Hello, everyone. Welcome to Sawbones, a meritorious tour of Misguided Medicine.

I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. You didn't even leave a gap for my... So sure were you there would be no applause for me. You didn't even leave a gap for one. Wow. I was distracted by how much warmer it is out here. Oh, yeah.

It's so cold downstairs. Yeah. Wow, Sid. Okay, I don't know how we recover from that though, hun. I'm sorry. I mean, you just, do we do it one more time? Just one more. Yeah, go ahead.

I'm Justin McElroy. Yeah. And you can do another one too. And I'm Sydney McElroy. There. Thank you. Thank you. I need 70% as much love as Sydney gets or I can't do this show.

Welcome Cleveland. It's such a pleasure to be back here. Hello. Thank you. That was Charlie, our daughter, doing the intro. I thought I should give her some credit. She did such a great job, didn't she? Yeah. That was Charlie, our daughter, doing the intro. I thought I should give her some credit. She did such a great job, didn't she?

Yeah, Paul didn't have the version that had dad's intro in it. I think it's so moving to see the next generation coming up for Paul screw ups. Just seeing it passed out. Sorry, Paul. Moving. Okay, so when we do live shows, when we're touring, I try to find something relevant to the area

where we're doing a show. I'm usually looking for something in their medical history, in your city's medical history, that is like bad or not the brightest. But here's the problem with you. We like a non-zero percent chance that somebody's going to be like, that's my grandpa. How dare you! I mean, you got some recent stuff, but those people are still alive. And that's not, that's not fun.

You might know them. But here's the problem with you, Cleveland. You've got like a lot of good stuff in your history. I have, do you know how many hours I spent pouring over medical history in Cleveland looking for just something, just something really dumb that somebody did? And I keep finding things like you did the first coronary artery bypass. That's great. And like looking at the history of your institutions like Cleveland Clinic was founded by like four you know World War I returning veteran doctors who were

like we need a nonprofit medical institution that will combine patient care and science and teamwork. Snore. That's not funny. That's good. Unless the next part is, and spells. Like. Where are the bodies buried, Cleveland? Where are they? Whoa. Well, listen, thank you for all your contributions

to our nation. I mean, you really. You're a great city. I wish you'd messed up more for my wife's sake, but hey. It really was hard. I found myself looking at Justin saying there was a fire once in Cleveland Clinic back in the 1920s that was really bad.

That's not funny. It's interesting. It's not funny. So instead we had to find inspiration elsewhere I'll tie it back together, but this is 20 fun galore and This is also our 500th episode of saw bones I know I Don't know how that's possible

But we have never talked about mushrooms and medicine. Somehow. Yeah, I don't know how that's possible. So I thought I thought we would focus on mushrooms. I'll bring it back together. Don't worry Cleveland, but you're just too good. You're too good at medicine to get bashed in a whole live episode of song. There are a lot of other cities who would love to be in your shoes right now. Now we don't have a lot of like concrete scientific evidence on because mushrooms and medicine like used medicinally there's a huge history and I'm gonna go through it but spoilers do we have a lot of evidence to say if they

work or not not a a ton. And I was reading all these studies on medicinal mushrooms, and I think this kind of sums up why it's hard to tell, even though we've used them medicinally through so much throughout history. I mean, time and place, different cultures, different countries. Why don't we know for sure if they work? And I found this quote, and it says, the lag in time for modern science to explore mushrooms for their medicinal properties is probably due to their nature. Mushrooms are ephemeral. They may be in our experiential view for just a few days.

Whereas our encounters with plants and animals can last months or years. Mushrooms can feed you. They can heal you. Some can kill you. And some can send you on a spiritual journey. Speaks of their diverse chemical constituents from an evolutionary and survival point of view, it is safer to avoid that which is poorly understood yet so powerful. All we want in life is for someone to love us. As much as this author, Paul Stamets, who's a mycologist, and Heather Zwicky, the co-author of this article, love mushrooms.

People who study mushrooms love mushrooms in a way that I don't know most of us experience love. I have read a lot of articles from people who study mushrooms, and oh my gosh, these people are into mushrooms. Wait, they said plants and animals. Are you telling me mushrooms are neither of mushrooms. Wait, they said plants and animals. Are you telling me mushrooms are neither of those?

No, they're fungi. They're a whole other thing, but. No. Do you know that mushrooms are fungus, right? They're plants? They're fungus. They're plants. They're fungus.

They're animals? They're fungus. Is this not something you knew? Is it different? They're fungus. Don't mess with me. I know they're fungus. Stop saying they're fungus. They're fungus. Is this not something you knew? Is it different? They're fungus. Don't mess with me. I know they're fungus. Stop saying they're fungus.

Watermelon are fungus, but they're still plants, right? I'm saying- They're fungus. No, they're fungus. I don't mean watermelon are fungus. I mean, watermelon are plants. No, not watermelons. Watermelons are plants. Mushrooms are fungus.

They're fungus. Are you telling me fungus aren't plants? Yeah, they're fungus, honey. I don't know how many more ways to tell you it's fungus. OK. So here's the thing about mushrooms. Some of the stuff they produce might be good for us. Some of it might kill us.

And that's because they didn't adapt to nourish us, which is kind of cool. They evolved to survive, and we adapted to mushrooms. Is the idea, is what they're saying that like, it's harder to rely on them because it's like all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, mushrooms, where'd you come from? And then a few hours later it's like,

ah dang, where'd they go? I mean, you can't like count on that. You can't be like, oh, you got a headache? No sweat, come over. Oh man, they were just right. I just saw them, the headache ones. Yeah, I mean it is. Okay, so not like a few hours,

but generally speaking like mushrooms don't, you know, a tree just, it's there a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't move at all. It doesn't. Well, I'm not saying that the mushrooms move per se, but they're not, I mean, they don't last as long. Yeah, right.

I understand what you're saying. You can't count on them as a medicinal source. It's like, what's the point of researching them? They're gonna be gone tomorrow. They'll be over there. They'll be George's. Then it's his deal. Well, and I mean, it has to have also been

the risk benefit, right? Because it's like, should I eat it? I don't know. It might heal you. You might die. So, so, and then you, and when you think about mycelium, which is, okay, mycelium is like kind of the root system of mushrooms.

It's like this big network of threads or hypha that the mushrooms use to like communicate with each other and to digest things like other animals and materials. Yes, and they're essential to our planet. And like taken all together, they can be like 10 kilometers in size. These fields of mycelium. It's like the largest living organism. Mushrooms are kind of scary if you think about them too much.

Yeah. Imagine if you didn't know a lot about them, apparently. It's quite a trip. You just figured out they're fungus. Yeah. No, I know they're fungus. Really? It's not...

Oh my gosh, this is going to make me so mad. I know that they're fungus. I understand that fungus is a thing. I thought fungus was part of plants as a group because they weren't animals. And I figured everything is animal, plants, or rocks because that's how you play 20 questions. I'm just saying. You had to take like some science in school right like just like in like in elementary or middle school.

I'm saying 20 questions. Animal, vegetable, mineral, right? So I figured, I guess I was kind of figuring, not like science-wise, but like I was kind of putting everything into those categories in my head, right? Because if you were thinking fungus and they were like, animal, vegetable, mineral, there's nothing, right?

You're lost, you already lost the game. Well, and I understand why like, you would think of them as plant adjacent. Like they, especially the way that we think of them in our lives, like we eat them. So that's like plants, right? You can be cut, you're being very generous as this plant adjacent nonsense.

No, I'm saying if there are umbrella of plants, there's a smaller umbrella underneath it and it's mushrooms. They're shaped like a- They're fungus. I get it now, Sydney. I so clearly see the error in my ways. I think I now know this better

than most people know their first names. I'm just saying before, earlier, before I felt like I do now in public, I thought privately that fungus was part of plants because of 20 questions. How did you name your whole tour after mushrooms and you didn't know anything about mushrooms? I'm so sorry.

They are telling me not to say anything else. I am being a vi... Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to comment on this any further. I'm sorry. Okay, so the use of mushrooms in medicine dates back a really long time. A lot of what we understand today, and like if you read about mushroom supplements, because I mean it really is like in the wellness industry, mushrooms and like powdered mushroom supplements,

it's a big industry. A lot of it comes from traditional Chinese medicine. But even before that, we have evidence. So do you remember when they discovered Oatsey the Iceman? Yeah. Do even before that, we have evidence. So do you remember when they discovered Otsi, the Iceman? Yeah. Do you remember that? It was back in what, 91? They found a mummy, and it was, you know, thousands of years ago. It was a very old mummy. And they were like, whoa, we found a very old mummy. And this was a big deal in 91. Like, I in 91. This is pre-internet. So they're all using it, yeah. We found an iceman. One of the things they found on his person was a bag of mushrooms.

So yeah. Nice. I know. For medicine. For medicine. Medicinal mushrooms. And so the thought was that, well, actually part of them were used at the time for worms. And we studied the remains of this ice man and found that, yes, he was infected with

worms. So they didn't work? So they didn't work. That's too bad. That's too bad. It's embarrassing. Or he was in the middle of his course of treatment, clearly. Maybe he wasn't diligent about taking his worms.

And there was another kind of mushroom that was used for like tinder for fires. So like not as exciting medicinally. You just burn these mushrooms. But anyway, it just kind of highlights the idea that mushrooms, it's weird because I look at mushrooms and do you ever look at foods and think who was the first person to look at it and go, I'm gonna eat it?

I don't feel that about mushrooms. You don't feel that about mushrooms? You don't feel that about mushrooms. I grew up in the 80s. So it's like Super Mario. You got like Willy Wonka. We watched a lot of them getting the whipped cream out of the top of the mushroom like that. They look very delicious to me.

Alice in Wonderland. When they eat part of it and there's like cake nearby. OK, I'm talking like before there were like pop culture references to mushrooms for you to appreciate like the first person to like point at a mushroom and be like, I'm going to eat it. That's true. I'm just going to eat it. It's like, you know, I always think that would like artichokes, right?

Somebody was like, that one's not that part. Not this. Not that part. Just keep eating. Something's got to be good. Has anybody invented butter? Call me back when they do. There's no phone. So there are Egyptian hieroglyphics that reference mushrooms.

So we know that like these were very in a lot of cultures mushrooms were and probably because of this sort of ephemeral nature they were the food of of royalty. They were the food of the upper class. It wasn't something that you would necessarily have if you were a common person because they were only so many. And so they were connected to this sort of like elite. They must do something special for you. They were used in particular by Romans, not just for like the elite, but also as some sort of like super food for like soldiers. Like this is what you would feed the soldiers

before they would go out to, you know. That's what Super Mario Brothers is based on actually. Gladiators. Gladiators eating mushrooms before, but going into battle, yeah, it's the exact same idea. There's a great story when it comes to the Romans and mushrooms that actually your dad, Clint, gave me a book

about famous poisoners throughout history I don't know why I don't know what that says about me he was like you would love this book about women who poisoned people I don't love it but it's a it's a great story about the fact that Emperor Claudius was more than likely poisoned by mushrooms because he was a huge fan of mushrooms. So this like made him ripe for poisoning with mushrooms, right? If you let people know that I really love these mushrooms. Just bring me a pile of the things.

I'll eat whichever ones you put in front of me. No questions asked. I'm wild about these guys. His son Britannicus was next in line for the throne, but his wife who, OK, she was his fourth wife. And also in writings, she's referred to as his terminal wife. Who uses that? Like, I mean, OK, yeah, then he died. I get it. But terminal, am I your terminal wife?

That's a wild statement terminal wife. Sweetheart, I know honey 20 minutes ago I thought that mushrooms were plants. I can't run the calculus on what's the right answer of are you my terminal wife or not in this kind of setting right now. Yes, yes, I'm gonna go with yes. No? Dang it! So she hired a poisoner to come and poison Claudius and like it was all this very secretive plan where like they had to get the food taster distracted for a minute, you know?

Cause that was part of it. Like he had one job and he really messed it up cause he didn't taste the mushrooms. Yeah, you can't mess that up enough, huh? And Claudius was, I mean, he died. And then her son became the next emperor and he would take the name Nero. It was shocking, I know.

Whoa, and now you know. They love that one in the New York Times crossword that's always in there. If it's a Roman emperor, it's Nero. Oh yeah. It's like the E and the O's in there. They love all the vowels. Yeah.

Which he went on to employ the same poisoner, by the way, to then just kill Britannicus, which like he was already emperor. He didn't need to do it. You know? Wait, what? Who killed Britannicus? Nero went on to go ahead and employ that same poisoner and like made her like the royal

poisoner. Oh. Yeah. Like, you know, how you have a royal poisoner. Man, I would hate to get hurt, the Secret Santa of... Because they just had no win. What's weird is that we've done a lot of studies to show that in our bodies, we have a lot of receptors that interact with things mushrooms make.

So when I said that, like, mushrooms didn't evolve to be anything to us, but we have evolved to adapt to mushrooms, which is probably why scientists and researchers have done so much work to try and investigate what could they do for us, because we have receptors that interact with the stuff mushrooms do.

In particular, they produce these beta-glucans, which interact with a lot of elements of our immune system and can kind of get cells ramped up and make things happen in an immune response. And so the thought has been for a long time, could mushrooms be good for our immune system? Maybe. We don't know. So I wanna go through some of the different, because there's lots of mushrooms, lots of them. And there's lots of mushrooms we can eat,

but there are certain ones that we've actually done studies to look and see, which before I go into that, I did have a, the mushroom that was used to kill Claudius is a death cat mushroom, which I have a picture of that, yeah, and it is commonly, I feel like this is just a public service. Which one is edible? Do you wanna be the judge?

Wait, can I actually guess because I'm gonna say not the death cat? No, the other one is- Easy. The other one is supposedly delicious. I'm never going to take this gamble. Look at those. I would never know.

That is, OK, you said that about who would eat it first. And I didn't necessarily get what you're saying. I'm sitting here thinking about it. There's a weird triumvirate here of like, so what is this? It's a mushroom. Oh, cool. OK, what does it do? Well, if you eat it, it either kills you,

gets you stoned out of your mind, or is delicious. There's almost no instance where I'm in the mood for one of those where I would be okay with the other two, right? And then there's this- That you run the numbers, they're already a losing bet. Almost any way you slice it, right, without a helping hand. There's this fourth column, which is maybe boosts your immune system

and is healthy. Super ones. Maybe. Yeah, Mario ones, obviously. I don't know. Here is my advice. If you're not an expert in mushrooms, just don't eat any of this that you're looking.

You don't know. I don't know. I wouldn't eat these. Don't eat these. But one of them is delicious, apparently. That's so tempting. One of these is delicious. Take the risk. Only the bravest will enjoy. Hey, do you have a favorite episode of Star Trek? If you do, you should also have a favorite Star Trek podcast. Greatest Trek is about all the new streaming Star Trek shows and it's a great companion

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The Adventure Zoneus Dracula. Yes, a season I will be running using the D&D fifth edition rule set. And there's two episodes out for you to listen to right now. We hope you will join us. Same bat time, same bat channel. And bats. I see what you did there.

So some mushrooms that have been studied. Let's get into are they helpful and what do we know about them? One is called the cordyceps mushroom. You may have heard of this mushroom. It's the one that it's a parasitic fungi. And it looks like somebody left corn on the cob of the grill too long is what it looks like. I was already pretty hungry after the mushrooms, but now I'm starting to get a little bit more worked up.

It grows out of like the heads of caterpillars. That's what you're looking at. Less appetizing, I think we can all agree. See it's long, like fungal arms, just extending from the dead. Like it grows out of larvae, typically it'll infect like the larvae of an insect, but it can infect something and it replaces the of larvae. Typically, it'll infect like the larva of an insect, but it can, I mean, it can infect something and it replaces the tissue with itself.

It really has very little to do with delicious griddled street corn. Now that I think about it, it's not even like corn that much at all now. The long slender stems is how they're, again, somebody looked at this and was like, health food. This is health food. And it's true. this has been used,

cordyceps is one of the most commonly used, not just in traditional Chinese medicine, but in a lot of different medical traditions, as like something that is, I mean, for really everything, you will find studies that say it's anti-aging, that it kills tumors, that it's good for cholesterol, that it's good for cholesterol, that it's good for heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, that kind of like catch-all, inflammation.

Right. Which, I mean, that's like very common in the wellness industry. They'll tell you like, this is good for inflammation, which just means like, I don't know, something doesn't feel well, does it? Well, take this, it's good for that. There are like 400 different species of it. There are two, the sinensis and the militaris, that are the most commonly used in medicine. And we do, like in terms of bodies of evidence, the most studies have been done on this

specific fungus. The problem is, I don't know, one, like getting people to eat it. I don't know. Once you've ground it up in a powder, it's probably not as hard. But the supplements that you will find have really been studied in small groups. When they say claims like it's anti-aging, that was done in fruit flies, which I don't know if you've ever taken a genetics class, fruit flies reproduce really quickly. I don't know why we need them to live longer personally. Yeah. Because they just keep on going.

They're doing fine. So like there's no real evidence in humans. There's been a lot of lab stuff that's interesting. There's been some animal studies that are interesting, but it's kind of like a lot of the supplement world and the herbal medicine world where, I mean, we don't have like big, high quality, double blind studies that we can hang our hat on and say like, yes, this works or not.

Another mushroom that has been studied are the reishi mushrooms. So I know they're beautiful, aren't they? Look, those are lovely. Again- They look like those cookies. You know the cookies that look just like, yeah. OK, thank you for the cries of recognition from my cookie friends.

They do. They do look like those cookies, J-Man, cook up. Like, what are those cookies like elephant ear? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They do. Everybody's yelling. Everybody's yelling names of cookies. They know. I love it.

They're not cookies. They're mushrooms. If you learn one thing tonight. They're not plants. They're fungus. You know, Sid, tragedy plus time does equal comedy, but I don't think there's been quite enough time for us to all laugh about it.

And it's the same kind of thing. These mushrooms have been tested. So there's a lot of research on whether it's cancer or anti-inflammatory or antioxidant. And it's basically putting stuff in Petri dishes or in test tubes in a lab and kind of seeing like what does it do. And just because it works in that setting doesn't necessarily mean it translates to the human body. And so that's kind of where we are with these mushrooms. We've done some stuff in a lab to see specifically

a lot of mushrooms are being studied to fight cancer. That seems to be the main, I mean, everything. Great place to start, I mean. But like right now we don't have any evidence in humans. Another one is the lion's mane mushroom. You can probably guess why it's, I know. They're beautiful, aren't they? I get why people who study these,

why mycologists get so into them, because there's such a huge variety. They all look so different. They're beautiful. And I do like the independence of the fact they don't live for us. They don't care about us. They're beautiful. And I do like the independence of the fact they don't live for us. They don't care about us. They're just doing their thing.

I love that. This was part of my gamer blend, wasn't it? Lion's Mane is one that's used in the pro gamer blends to try to increase your gamer proteins or whatever. I think Lion's Mane was in your gamer blend. Did it help you with your gaming ever? We had a very limited sample size. I can't ever test these because I only play.

With the limited sample sizes, because I did it once and the burps were so bad, I could never do it again. So the research just stalled. The human cost is just too terrible. I couldn't get the board to clear it. The ethics of it were just not fair. I can't burp like that around my kids for science.

Or me. Or you, obviously, hon, but you've been with me through thick and thin. I can't, you know. I only play Animal Crossing, so I don't know that you need Lion's Mane to get better at that. So anyway, it's been used mainly for Alzheimer's disease, and so that, you know, improving

cognitive function. So that's why you would put it in something like a gamer's blend or some other kind of performance enhancing medication. Honey, as we've said before, when you do the air quotes with your voice, you don't also need to do them with your fingers. It starts to get demeaning. It feels like every time you say gamer, but I'm sure there's other times I'm just not air quotes with your voice. You don't also need to do it with your fingers. It starts to get demeaning. It feels like every time you say gamer,

but I'm sure there's other times I'm just not noticing. I do this when I'm recording too, and nobody can see me, but I'm still like. Gamers one. There are studies on it that are things like, okay, to test if it could be good for depression, a study was carried out on Japanese women with many health conditions, including menopause. Hmm, hmm. Some were given

cookies made with lion's mane and others were not. And then the one who got the lion's mane cookies did better with depression. So see, these are not exactly the stuff we need. Wait, wait, wait. I need to clarify something, Dr. McElroy. Did the people who didn't get lines made cookies get any cookies? Because I think I understand the source of their depression. I think they. That would only, oh no, my condition

has been terribly exacerbated by my participation in this research. Look at them across the room. They could have been these. They have the health condition of menopause and they got cookie. Oh man, stupid. Shiitake mushrooms, which a lot of us

have probably had at some point or another, are another very popular health food. They do have a lot of like different vitamins and minerals in them just naturally. And that's the thing, like a lot of mushrooms are kind of digesting other things on Earth. That's like their purpose. That's what they're doing constantly.

So they contain all of these other trace elements of the things they've digested. That's a good thing. These look, I hate eating mushrooms. These look so good though, right? They do. They look crispy and kind of salty a little bit. Oh man.

They have- I'd love to eat these guys. They have a lot of minerals. They have a ton of copper. Oh, yeah. Nice. If you need that, that's great. Couldn't hurt, right?

Get it in there. See what it does. I'm mainly focused on the salt and the crunch over here, Sid. These guys are delicious. They've got copper. In my imagination. Which you can get deficient in copper, especially if you use denture cream that has a lot of zinc in it because then you absorb all the

zinc and it replaces the copper and you get rid of the copper and then you get copper deficiency. This really happens. Think about it. Anyway, cool. It does have a lot of... I did that presentation. That was a real case report I did. I got an award for it. case report I did. I got an award for it. It really happened. I cracked that case. It was very house. So, you can be allergic to these mushrooms that will actually can be allergic to almost anything, right? But like there's a specific condition if you're sensitive to shiitake mushrooms you can get shiitake skin which is just dermat shiitake skin, which is just dermatitis, but like it's just inflammation of the skin. It's

like eczema basically, but they call it shiitake skin, which sounds like really bad. Like I'm not hungry anymore. You have mushroom skin. The other mushroom that's been extensively studied is the turkey tail mushroom. I know it's beautiful, isn't it? I get why it's called that. Don't let her trick you. Why? You love showing us delicious mushrooms

and telling us the problems with them. The studies, again, this one has been studied quite a bit for anti-cancer properties. And again, it's the same kind of thing where in a lab, a lot of things can kill cancer cells in a lab that we can't put in our human bodies, right? Like I don't know, a very powerful light or cancer, or bleach perhaps. Where have we heard this before? There are a lot of substances that we use out in the world that we can't necessarily

inject in our bodies. So it doesn't always translate, right? That's interesting. It's a basis for further research, but it doesn't tell us anything. It has been shown to be well tolerated, so you can eat it. So that's nice. It's important to know that in general, the problem with a lot of these like mushroom supplements in the US is that they are regulated as supplements, not as medications. And I think it's always important to remember that they're not held up to the same standards in terms of do they work. They are held to some standards in terms of safety, for sure, but they don't necessarily contain what

they say they contain. They don't have to. And so the of different in a dietary supplement the amount of actual active ingredient from bottle to bottle, pill to pill, you know run of bottles to run of bottles can be dramatically different and so I think that's always important when you're talking about any kind of you know supplement in the US. The one mushroom we haven't talked about yet that I feel like everybody wants to know about in terms of its medical properties are the psilocybin mushrooms. The magic mushrooms if you will. And this so the reason sure you're not a cop you're like positive. We figured out that this active ingredient existed in these mushrooms a really long time

ago. Like, I found this article from Time Magazine. This was from June 16, 1958. And like, back then, researchers would take the mushrooms and then just like, there's so many articles of scientists describing what it's like to be high in scientific ways. And so the scientists who like isolated psilocybin the first time, Albert Hoffman, wrote, I am losing my normal bodily sensations. My perception of space and time is changing. Your faces appear strange. Now

as I close my eyes I see a wonderful but indistinct kaleidoscope train of visions. They are vividly colored. There are so many, if you're interested, there's so many articles like this of just like researchers very straight-laced in their white coats taking drugs and then writing about it. So there is a lot of interest now in psilocybin as and that family, this whole family of mushrooms, what can we do with this active ingredient that interacts with our serotonin receptors similarly to a lot of antidepressants that do that, that we have made, synthesized to do exactly that.

They also increase our amount of dopamine. So there's a lot of interest in could we treat anxiety, depression, there's been some interest in alcohol use disorder or other sorts of substance use disorders, could this be a way to help people stop using other substances? We really didn't move forward until it could be reclassified in 2019. So the research on this is still relatively new and the same researchers who write so eloquently earlier about mushrooms I found in articles recently like Dr. Stamets saying you know this is

going to be this is the next frontier or these mushrooms and all the things we can do and we're just beginning to unlock their potential and he said in this CNN article, I'm going to say something provocative but I believe it to my core, psilocybin makes nicer people. Psilocybin will make us more intelligent and better citizens. But I think it's important. I think we're more cheering for that would be nice. Whatever, was it mushrooms? Yeah sure whatever you say. Give us all you got. But it's important that we take a scientific approach just

like we do with all of these other mushroom compounds that may or may not do something for us as Matthew Johnson who's a professor in psychedelics and consciousness at Johns Hopkins who answered this by saying well people like being on it but that doesn't validate the claims of microdosing people like being on cocaine too. Okay yeah. Alright smart Alex sure. seen. All right, all right, smart Alex, sure. But there's a lot of potential. All right, well here's hoping.

In fungi, not plants. Thanks so much for coming to our show. We've really enjoyed our time with you. We want to thank the taxpayers for using their song, Medicines, as the intro and outro of our program. We're about to take a brief break. There will be an intermission during which you can feel free to use the facilities. It may be worth just a beautiful poster featuring some primo fungus.

Oh, yeah, there's some fungus. Fungus right there. Thank you so much for being here with us. That is going to do it for us for this week on Sawbones. Be sure to join us again next time. Till then, I'm Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head.

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Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! All right!

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