Scientists found a surprising potential use for the psychedelic in magic mushrooms

The useful part

For people undergoing cancer treatment, the nerve pain associated with blasting the body with chemotherapy can be debilitating. Even worse, the pain and discomfort can last for years—well after the body is done fighting cancer—and there's no effective treatment to relieve it. Known as peripheral neuropathy, the condition is caused by damage to nerves in the extremities, often the hands, feet, arms, and legs.

How it works

• The chemotherapy worked just as well to reduce the tumors for mice in the psilocybin test group.
• Mice in the study received two doses of psilocybin, the compound in mushrooms that causes hallucinations.
• Animals in a control group not given psilocybin went on to develop hypersensitivity to pain, a dulled sense of touch in their paws, and "withered" sensory nerve fibers in their skin.
• Miraculously, the animals treated with psilocybin made it through chemo without any of the reduced paw sensation or shriveled nerves.
• The results are so compelling that human trials are set to begin this month.

Details worth keeping

They then underwent six rounds of chemotherapy lasting six months.