Magic Mushrooms ...

Psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in shrooms, may protect telomeres, structures at the ends of DNA that are known to shrink with aging. (Image credit: Saska RF via Shutterstock)

Back in the day, yours truly experienced Psilocybin on numerous occasions, all of which were truly grand. LSD was also part of the equation in spite of the  hysteria centered around these psychoactive chemicals reaching the same level of insanity as per Reefer Madness. Fast forward 55 years and it seems magic mushrooms containing psilocybin has anti-aging properties unseen until now.

Psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, extends the lifespan of human cells, a lab study suggests. Researchers also found that the psychedelic compound slows certain hallmarks of aging in older mice while improving their fur quality.

The findings, published July 8 in the journal npj Aging, provide the first experimental evidence of psilocybin's potential anti-aging properties.

"The study provides a unique look at the potential of psychedelics to promote healthy aging and provides a provocative mechanism to explain how they do it," Scott Thompson, a professor in the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry who was not involved in the research, told Live Science in an email.

One theory, dubbed the "psilocybin-telomere hypothesis," proposes that psilocybin preserves the length of telomeres, the protective caps of repetitive DNA sequences located at the ends of chromosomes. Researchers have long understood that telomeres shorten with age, and the rate of that shortening correlates to the rate of aging.

I guess ingesting magic mushroom was truly grand in more ways than one. :)