Ayahuasca: This Amazonian Brew May Be the Most Powerful Antidepressant Ever Discovered
Recent studies show that
this Amazonian healing elixir has the power to alleviate feelings of
depression in just a few hours, with lasting positive changes.
After centuries of being labeled as primitive, traditional medicines
are slowly making a comeback, especially in academia. The more research
that's conducted on traditional remedies, the more scientists must bow
to the wisdom of our ancestors,
as well as contemporary indigenous healers who are carrying these
traditions forward. One of the most powerful traditional remedies is ayahuasca.
Ayahuasca
is a psychoactive healing elixir from the Amazon rainforest, a bitter
tea consumed during healing ceremonies by native peoples of Peru,
Brazil, Columbia and Ecuador. Ayahuasca is the only combinatory
vision-inducing agent in the world. Like a tea, ayahuasca is made by
brewing a combination of bark from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine (aka "the vine of the soul") and leaves from Psychotria viridus (aka chakruna).
Shamans
describe it as a sacred plant medicine that "opens a portal to the
spirit world." Portal or not, the healing properties of ayahuasca are
undeniable. There are thousands of anecdotal reports of people having
been healed from physical and mental disorders by taking
ayahuasca—including some for whom death seemed near. The cases of
post-ayahuasca cancer
remission are too numerous to ignore, and the psychological benefits
seem equally impressive. However, quality clinical studies are scarce.[i]
In a 2015 study
led by neuroscientists at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, even one
dose of ayahuasca was found to have powerful and immediate
antidepressant effects. The study involved six volunteers with depression
that was unresponsive to at least one antidepressant drug. The
volunteers were administered the tea, then monitored in a quiet room and
evaluated with standard clinical questionnaires to track their
depression symptoms. The treatment was well tolerated, except for half
of the participants vomiting (a common side effect). The psychedelic
effects of ayahuasca wear off in about five hours.
