Systematic review · 2026
Review of how the body handles LSD, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline and 5-MeO-DMT
- Original title
- A systematic review of the pharmacokinetics of classical serotonergic psychedelic compounds in healthy adult subjects.
- Authors
- Hampsey E, Martin K, Kalfas M, et al.
- Journal
- Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England), 2026
- Molecules
- LSD, Psilocybin, DMT, 5-MeO-DMT, Mescaline
- Conditions
- Healthy volunteers
- Evidence grade
- Low
- Source
- Read the original paper
The question
How does the body absorb, distribute and clear classic serotonergic psychedelics, and how do these profiles differ between drugs and routes of administration?
What they did
The authors searched the published literature for studies in healthy adult volunteers that measured drug levels in the body after taking LSD, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline or 5-MeO-DMT. They found 32 eligible trials and pulled together the reported pharmacokinetic data, that is, what happens to the drug inside the body over time. They compared different doses and different routes, such as swallowing a capsule versus an intravenous infusion.
What they found
LSD was the most studied compound, followed by DMT, which was split between intravenous and oral forms. Psilocybin was also studied often. Mescaline appeared in two trials, while intravenous LSD, intravenous psilocybin, inhaled 5-MeO-DMT and intranasal 5-MeO-DMT each appeared in only one study. For LSD and psilocybin, peak blood concentration rose in proportion to the dose, and oral and intravenous DMT showed differences the authors judged potentially clinically meaningful.
The fine print
This is a summary of other studies, not new data, and the abstract does not report the total number of volunteers involved or the size of any effect. Several drugs and routes rest on a single small trial, so those findings are fragile. The included studies were in healthy adults, so the results may not transfer to patients being treated for a health condition. This summary is based on the abstract alone.
What it means
Blood-level profiles differ substantially between these drugs and between routes of administration, which matters for designing and interpreting clinical research, but this review does not tell us anything about treatment benefit or harm.
Evidence grade: Low. A systematic review that gathers small healthy-volunteer drug-level studies; it measures blood concentrations rather than clinical outcomes, and no pooled sample size is reported.
This summary is based on the study’s published abstract.