Eating Disorders
Eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa, are among the most serious conditions in psychiatry: anorexia has one of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness, and effective treatments for adults are genuinely scarce. That unmet need is why psychedelic research here is taken seriously. But this is also one of the field’s most preliminary and most safety-sensitive areas. The flagship study was a small feasibility trial that showed psilocybin could be given safely to medically fragile patients, not that it works; the efficacy signals are early and mixed, the MDMA evidence is indirect, and one major trial was withdrawn. This is supervised research in a high-risk group, not an available treatment, and nothing here should be attempted outside a trial.
How are psychedelics being studied for eating disorders? Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and binge-eating disorder are serious conditions with high relapse rates and limited medication options. Early psychedelic research focuses on psilocybin given in supervised sessions with psychological support, mainly in small pilot studies of anorexia, exploring whether it can ease the rigid thinking and distress that maintain the disorder. The evidence is very early, samples are small, and safety screening matters because these conditions can affect physical health. The approach is supported sessions alongside specialist care, not a standalone treatment. Blossom tracks the trials and papers behind eating-disorder research so you can follow the evidence.
Data updated
Key Insights
- 1
Anorexia nervosa has one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disorder, and patients are often medically fragile. This is a vulnerable, high-risk population, and the caution that follows is not a formality: nothing on this page is an available treatment, and none of it should be attempted outside a supervised trial.
- 2
The reason researchers are interested is a real and painful gap: there is no medication that reliably works for anorexia in adults, and relapse is common even after the best current care. Eating disorders are a genuine unmet need, which is what makes even early-stage research worth following.
- 3
The evidence is at the earliest possible stage. The landmark study (2023) gave a single dose of psilocybin to ten women with anorexia and was designed to test safety and feasibility, not efficacy. It showed the drug could be given without dangerous effects, but improvements in eating-disorder symptoms were modest and mixed.
- 4
The MDMA evidence is indirect: it comes from a secondary analysis of trauma trials showing reduced eating-disorder symptoms in people with PTSD, not from trials in eating disorders themselves, and a dedicated multi-site MDMA eating-disorders trial was withdrawn.
- 5
There is a specific safety concern beyond the general ones: psychedelics briefly raise heart rate and blood pressure, which is riskier in underweight, medically compromised patients, so trials screen carefully and often require some medical stability first. No psychedelic is approved for any eating disorder.
By the numbers
- 18
- Trials tracked
- 34
- Papers tracked
- 461
- Trial participants
as of June 2026
as of June 2026
as of June 2026
What is Eating Disorders?
Eating disorders are a group of serious mental illnesses, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder, that involve disturbed eating behaviour alongside intense distress about food, weight or body shape. They affect tens of millions of people worldwide and are not a lifestyle or a choice. Anorexia nervosa in particular has one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disorder, and current treatments, especially medications, work poorly for many adults[1], which is the unmet need driving interest in new approaches.
Before going further, a clear caution. People with eating disorders, especially anorexia, can be medically fragile, with low body weight, disturbed electrolytes and heart-rhythm vulnerabilities. That matters here because psychedelics are not benign in this context, and because eating disorders are surrounded by misinformation and desperation. Everything described on this page is early-stage, supervised research. None of it is an approved or available treatment, and attempting it outside a clinical trial would be dangerous. If you or someone you know is struggling, please contact a doctor or an eating-disorder support service.
Current Treatments
The mainstays of eating-disorder treatment are psychological: family-based treatment for adolescents with anorexia, and cognitive behavioural therapy for bulimia and binge eating disorder, alongside medical and nutritional care to restore weight and physical health. These help many people, and for younger patients with anorexia, family-based treatment in particular has a reasonable evidence base. They are the right starting point, and they save lives.
The gap they leave is real, though. For adults with anorexia there is no medication that reliably works, relapse is common, and a substantial minority develop a long-term, hard-to-treat illness. Reviews of this area consistently describe limited and slow-improving treatment options as the central problem[1]. That is the context for psychedelic research: not that existing treatments fail everyone, but that the hardest cases, particularly enduring anorexia, have been left with too little. What follows is investigational, and is being studied precisely because the standard toolkit runs out so often.
This report summarises what Blossom’s database shows about psychedelic and rapid-acting treatments for eating disorders, and what it does not. The honest headline is a tension: eating disorders, anorexia nervosa above all, are among the most serious and least adequately treated conditions in psychiatry, which makes new research genuinely important, and yet the psychedelic evidence here is among the most preliminary and the most safety-sensitive in the entire field. Both things are true at once, and a responsible account has to hold them together.
A note before the evidence
This page is a research summary, not medical advice, and nothing here is a treatment recommendation. No psychedelic is approved for any eating disorder, and the studies described are early-stage, closely supervised research in a medically high-risk group. Eating disorders, especially anorexia, can be life-threatening, and the established treatments, psychological therapy with medical and nutritional care, save lives and should always come first. Please do not attempt anything described here outside a clinical trial. If you or someone you care about is struggling, reach out to a doctor or an eating-disorder support service now.
A word on scope and numbers. Blossom tracks a few dozen papers and trials under this topic, and those counts appear on the page. Many are protocols, mechanism pieces, qualitative work and studies of related conditions, so the number of completed clinical trials with results is very small, in the low single digits. Read the counts as a measure of rising interest, not of an established evidence base.
Why eating disorders are a serious, and serious-stakes, target
Eating disorders are not vanity or willpower; they are mental illnesses with a major physical toll. Anorexia nervosa in particular carries one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disorder, through both medical complications and suicide, and has stubbornly limited treatment options, with no medication that reliably works for adults[1]. Bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder are more treatable, with cognitive behavioural therapy and, for some, medication, but relapse is common across all of them. This combination, high stakes and limited tools, is exactly why researchers are willing to investigate something as unconventional as psychedelic therapy, and also why they must do so with unusual care.
The mechanistic rationale is genuinely plausible. Eating disorders are marked by rigid, inflexible thinking, harsh self-judgement, distorted body perception and, very often, a history of trauma. These are the kinds of psychological patterns that psychedelic therapy, at least in theory, is supposed to be able to loosen. Plausibility is not proof, but it is more than wishful thinking, and it is part of why the early work has been taken seriously rather than dismissed.
The landmark study: safety first, efficacy unproven
The single most important study is small by design. In 2023, researchers gave ten women with anorexia nervosa, or in partial remission, a single 25 mg dose of psilocybin with psychological support, in a trial built to test safety, tolerability and feasibility rather than whether it worked[2]. In a population where a racing heart or a dangerous drop in blood pressure is a real concern, the central result was reassuring: no clinically meaningful problems on heart tracings, vital signs, blood tests or measures of suicidality, and participants generally found the experience acceptable and meaningful.
It is essential to read that result for what it is. A feasibility study answers the question can this be done safely, not does this help. The changes in eating-disorder symptoms were exploratory, varied a lot between individuals, and came from a tiny group with no control arm. Some participants reported meaningful shifts; others did not. So the correct summary is that the study cleared the first essential hurdle, showing that with careful screening psilocybin can be given to medically fragile anorexia patients without obvious harm, while leaving the efficacy question wide open. That open question is what the larger, controlled trial now under way is designed to answer, and until it reports, claims that psilocybin treats anorexia are ahead of the evidence.
MDMA: a real but indirect signal, and a withdrawn trial
MDMA is often mentioned alongside eating disorders, and there is a real reason, but it needs to be stated carefully. The evidence comes from a secondary analysis of a randomised controlled PTSD trial, which found that MDMA-assisted therapy significantly reduced eating-disorder symptoms compared with placebo among people with severe post-traumatic stress[3]. Because trauma sits underneath a great many eating disorders, this is a meaningful and plausible signal. But it was measured in people whose primary diagnosis was PTSD, using a screening questionnaire, not in a trial designed to treat an eating disorder.
Direct evidence is scarce, and the path has not been smooth. A dedicated multi-site trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for eating disorders was withdrawn before it produced results, and a small study in bulimia nervosa is only now starting. So while MDMA is a plausible candidate, especially for the substantial overlap between eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder, as a stand-alone eating-disorder treatment it has barely been tested. Anyone citing MDMA as an eating-disorder therapy is, at present, extrapolating from trauma data.
The safety question that makes this different
Most psychedelic indications share a generic safety profile. Eating disorders add a specific, serious wrinkle. Classic psychedelics and MDMA briefly raise heart rate and blood pressure and place a transient load on the cardiovascular system. In a healthy adult that is usually trivial; in someone underweight, with disturbed electrolytes and a heart already under strain from malnutrition, it is not. This is why trials in this area screen so rigorously, often require a degree of medical and weight stability before dosing, and monitor closely throughout, and it is the single biggest reason that self-experimentation in this group is genuinely dangerous rather than merely unwise.
There is a psychological dimension to the caution as well. Anorexia in particular often involves a degree of attachment to the illness and a distorted sense of the body, and the effects of a psychedelic are powerful and unpredictable. Done well, within a supported therapeutic frame, the hope is that this can be used to help; done carelessly, it could just as easily destabilise. That asymmetry, large potential downside in a fragile group, modest and unproven upside, is the heart of why caution here is not pessimism but proportion.
Reading this honestly
So where do eating disorders sit? They are one of the most compelling reasons to do this research and one of the least finished stories in it. The need is real and sometimes desperate; the rationale is sound; the first study showed that, handled carefully, psilocybin can be given safely to a dangerously ill group. But the most thorough reviews are clear that the evidence remains preliminary[4], there is no controlled proof that any psychedelic improves an eating disorder, the MDMA case is borrowed from trauma trials, and a flagship trial was withdrawn. For people living with an eating disorder, or those who love them, the truthful message is both hopeful and firm: this is a serious avenue of research worth following closely, it is not a treatment you can or should seek out today, and the proven, life-saving options, therapy with medical and nutritional care, remain where help begins.
Psychedelic Effect Matrix
Compound efficacy and evidence levels for Eating Disorders.
| Compound | Magnitude | Evidence | Consistency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psilocybin The most-studied psychedelic here, but the evidence is early. The landmark 2023 study (n=10 women with anorexia) was a safety and feasibility trial, not an efficacy trial: it showed a single dose could be given safely, with only exploratory, mixed symptom changes. A larger controlled trial is under way. A small binge-eating-disorder pilot adds an early signal. Not approved for any eating disorder. | Small | Low | Low |
| MDMA No completed trial has tested MDMA in a primary eating-disorder population. The signal comes from a secondary analysis of PTSD trials, where MDMA-assisted therapy reduced eating-disorder symptoms in people with trauma. A dedicated multi-site eating-disorders trial was withdrawn, and a small bulimia study is only now starting. Indirect and very preliminary. | Small | Very Low | Low |
| Ketamine A handful of small pilots have explored ketamine in anorexia, mostly aimed at the depression and rigid thinking that accompany it rather than the eating disorder itself. There is no controlled evidence of benefit for the core illness, and it remains exploratory. | Small | Very Low | Low |
Psilocybin and Eating Disorders
Psilocybin is the focus of most eating-disorder research, almost all of it in anorexia nervosa. The landmark result is a 2023 Nature Medicine study in which ten women with anorexia (or partial remission) received a single 25 mg dose with psychological support, and which was explicitly designed to test safety, tolerability and feasibility rather than efficacy[1]. The headline finding was reassuring on its own terms: there were no clinically significant problems with heart tracings, vital signs, blood tests or suicidality, and participants found the experience acceptable.
What it did not show is that psilocybin treats anorexia. Changes in eating-disorder symptoms were exploratory and mixed: meaningful for some participants, minimal for others, in a tiny, uncontrolled sample. The honest reading is that the study cleared the first and most important hurdle in a dangerous population, showing the drug can be given safely, and that the question of whether it actually helps is exactly what the larger controlled trial now under way is meant to answer. A separate small open-label pilot has begun to explore psilocybin for binge eating disorder[2], which is a different condition with its own considerations.
MDMA and Eating Disorders
The MDMA evidence in eating disorders is real but indirect, and it is important to be precise about that. It comes from a secondary analysis of a randomised PTSD trial, in which MDMA-assisted therapy significantly reduced eating-disorder symptoms compared with placebo among people with severe PTSD[1]. That is a genuine signal, and it fits the idea that MDMA may help the trauma and shame that often sit underneath disordered eating, but it was measured in trauma patients, not in people whose primary diagnosis was an eating disorder.
Direct evidence is thin and has stumbled. A dedicated multi-site trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for eating disorders was withdrawn before producing results, and a small trial in bulimia nervosa is only now beginning. Because the trauma link is genuine, MDMA is one of the more plausible candidates, particularly for the large share of eating-disorder patients who also have post-traumatic stress, but as an eating-disorder treatment in its own right it is barely tested.
Ketamine and Eating Disorders
Ketamine has been tried in anorexia in a handful of small pilot studies, but mostly with a specific, limited aim: to lift the depression and loosen the rigid, inflexible thinking that so often accompany the illness, rather than to treat the eating disorder directly. The rationale is reasonable, given how much depression and cognitive rigidity shape the course of anorexia.
But the evidence is minimal and exploratory, with no controlled demonstration of benefit for the core eating disorder, and the same medical-fragility cautions apply. Ketamine in eating disorders should be read as an early research question, not a treatment, and certainly not something to seek out through the rapidly expanding off-label ketamine market.
Clinical Outlook
The realistic near-term outlook is slow, careful and uncertain. The most advanced programme, controlled trials of psilocybin for anorexia, is still running, and until it reports there is no controlled evidence that any psychedelic improves an eating disorder. Given how medically risky this population is, that caution is appropriate: trials here move deliberately, with intensive screening and monitoring, and they should.
There is a reason for measured hope. The rationale is sound: eating disorders involve rigid thinking, distorted self-perception and frequent trauma, all of which psychedelics plausibly act on, and reviews of the area judge the approach worth pursuing while stressing how preliminary it remains[1]. But hope has to be held alongside a hard fact: this is a deadly illness with a long history of treatments that looked promising and disappointed. The honest position is that psychedelics are a serious, well-motivated research avenue for eating disorders, and nothing more than that yet.
Industrial Landscape
The eating-disorder research base is small and largely academic, led by specialist centres such as the University of California San Diego and others, often with support from psychedelic developers including COMPASS Pathways, whose psilocybin formulation was used in the landmark anorexia study and its follow-on controlled trial. Patient advocacy and lived-experience groups are unusually engaged here, both because the unmet need is so acute and because the stakes of getting it wrong are so high.
For an honest broker, eating disorders are a case where responsible communication matters more than almost anywhere else in this field. The combination of a desperate, sometimes ambivalent patient group, a deadly illness, and exciting early headlines is precisely the situation in which hype can cause direct harm, by encouraging unsupervised use in people who are medically unsafe to attempt it. The right tone is to take the science seriously while refusing to overstate it, and to keep the safety warning at the front, not the footnote.
Quick Indicators
Organisations
Search →COMPASS Pathways
COMPASS Pathways is a UK-listed biopharmaceutical company developing COMP360 synthetic psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression, with two successful Phase 3 trials making it the leading candidate for the first regulatory approval of a classic psychedelic medicine.
Imperial College London
The Centre for Psychedelic Research, led by Professor David Nutt and Dr. David Erritzoe, focuses heavily on the action of psychedelic drugs in the brain and their clinical utility as aides to psychotherapy. Thanks to their extensive neuroimaging studies, this group has proposed vital mechanisms for how psychedelics work, including the Entropic Brain Theory and REBUS (RElaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics).
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is a leading US academic medical institution home to the Parsons Research Center for Psychedelic Healing, which runs rigorous clinical trials of MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted therapies for PTSD and trauma in veteran and civilian populations.
Entropy Neurodynamics
Entropy Neurodynamics Limited (formerly Tryptamine Therapeutics Limited, renamed November 2025; ASX: ENP, OTC: TYPTF) is an Australian clinical-stage company developing psilocin-based therapies for conditions with major unmet need including fibromyalgia, binge eating disorder, and IBS. Its two-pronged strategy uses TRP-8802 (oral psilocybin) to establish clinical proof-of-concept, then advances TRP-8803 (proprietary IV psilocin formulation) for precision dosing. Phase 2a fibromyalgia and BED trials showed strong results; the world's first IV psilocin neuropsychiatric trial (TRP-8803 in BED) dosed its first patient on December 1, 2025 at Swinburne University.
University of California San Diego
The Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative (PHRI) focuses heavily on conducting pilot studies and clinical trials while collecting diverse biometric data—including fMRI, EEG, and cognitive metrics—from study participants. This data-driven approach aims to unravel the biological and neurological underpinnings of how psychedelics facilitate healing.
Johns Hopkins University
The Centre for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research focuses on how psychedelics affect behavior, cognition, brain function, and biological health markers. They have been at the forefront of demonstrating the safety and efficacy of psychedelics for mental disorders, expanding their focus into psilocybin research across multiple mental health conditions, including smoking cessation, major depressive disorder, and cancer-related anxiety.
Homeostasis Therapeutics, LLC
Homeostasis Therapeutics LLC is a Delaware company (est. 2020) that developed a novel protocol combining medically supervised ketogenic diet with ketamine infusions for treatment-resistant anorexia nervosa. In 2021–2022 they conducted a five-person IRB-approved pilot study in which four of five participants showed meaningful clinical improvement, advancing the concept of metabolic-state-dependent psychedelic therapy.
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)
NIH center that accelerates the translation of biomedical discoveries into health solutions. NCATS' Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program funds the infrastructure at academic medical centers that supports emerging research including psychedelic-assisted therapy trials.
People
Search →Joost Breeksema
Postdoctoral researcher and Executive Director of the OPEN Foundation
He is a prominent psychedelic researcher and advocate whose work helps shape evidence-based psychedelic policy, ethics, and patient-centered understanding of psychedelic and ketamine/esketamine treatments.
Juliana Rocha
Doutoranda em Ciências Médicas / Saúde Mental at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo
She is a recurring coauthor on clinical psychedelic studies, especially ayahuasca trials on social anxiety, emotion recognition, personality, and social cognition, helping expand the human evidence base for psychedelic-assisted psychiatric research.
Mathieu Seynaeve
Senior Medical Director and Head of Psychotherapy at Beckley Psytech
He is a clinical development leader behind multiple human studies of 5-MeO-DMT and psilocybin, including trials in alcohol use disorder, treatment-resistant depression, and headache disorders.
John Kelly
Associate Professor / Consultant General Psychiatrist at Trinity College Dublin
John R. Kelly is a leading academic psychiatrist in Ireland whose work has helped shape modern psychedelic psychiatry, including psilocybin research across depression, service-user attitudes, and transdiagnostic treatment frameworks.
Martin Williams
Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health, Swinburne University; Adjunct in Computational Neuroscience at the Turner Institute, Monash University; Executive Director of Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine (PRISM)
He is a prominent Australian psychedelic researcher and advocate whose work spans psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, clinical trials, and the science of music and context in psychedelic therapy.
Erwin Krediet
Psychologist and psychedelic researcher at ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre; PhD researcher at Leiden University Medical Center
He is a Dutch psychedelic researcher contributing to clinical studies and educational work on psychedelics, including MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD and LSD/psilocybin studies.
Michael Mithoefer
Senior Medical Director for Medical Affairs at MAPS PBC
Conducted the first FDA-approved clinical trial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD.
Mark Wagner
Professor of Neurology at the Medical University of South Carolina
Mark Wagner is a notable figure in the field of psychedelic research, particularly focusing on the therapeutic implications of personality changes following trauma.
Amy Emerson
CEO of MAPS Public Benefit Corporation (MAPS PBC) / former Director of Clinical Research at MAPS
Notable for her contributions to multi-centre clinical research on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, including dose‑response, neuroimaging, long‑term follow-up and phase‑3 trial design.
Stephen Ross
Professor of Psychiatry
A leading clinical investigator who has advanced the application of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for cancer-related existential distress and substance use disorders through influential clinical trials and qualitative studies.
Guilherme Rossi
Post Doctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, State University of Campinas
Notable for leading and co‑authoring pilot randomised and feasibility trials of ayahuasca and observational studies that advance clinical and safety knowledge of psychedelic use for anxiety, social cognition and substance use.
Robert Schoevers
Professor of Psychiatry
A leading clinical researcher in rapid-acting antidepressant therapies, notable for conducting and supervising trials of oral esketamine and clinical research into psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression.
Connected Evidence
The latest clinical data and verified academic findings associated with Eating Disorders.