Research & Studies

The science, told straight.

Ibogaine is one of the most researched, and most misrepresented, medicines in the world. Below is the real published literature: what was studied, in whom, what changed, and for how long, in plain language. Some of this research is early, and some of it is observational. We will always tell you which is which. And when the results are remarkable, we let the study speak for itself. Every entry links to the original paper.

The Roots

Older than the laboratory

Long before Ibogaine had a chemical name, the iboga shrub (Tabernanthe iboga) grew in the forests of Gabon and the wider Congo Basin, and the Bwiti tradition grew around it. In Bwiti ceremony, iboga root bark is taken in carefully held rites of passage: a threshold crossing, a reckoning with one’s ancestors and one’s own life, guided by elders who have carried the knowledge for generations.

That lineage matters, and we name it with respect rather than decoration. Iboga is not a product that happened to be found in Africa; it is a sacrament that was entrusted there. The modern clinic, ours included, is a guest in a much older house.

It is also why we carry this medicine the way we do. Ibogaine and Bufo changed our own lives, and our mission is to give back, to do our part to help heal the world, one person at a time. Science tells us what Ibogaine does. Gabon teaches us how to carry it.

In the 1960s, Western researchers began isolating Ibogaine and noticing something no one had designed it for: people dependent on opioids reported their withdrawal simply stopping. The studies on this page are the fifty-year attempt to understand that observation honestly.

How It Works

Three things researchers believe are happening

Ibogaine does not work like any single-target drug, and its full mechanism is still being mapped. Here is the current scientific picture, in plain terms. Each strand is drawn from the published literature below.

01

Many systems at once

Most addiction medications touch one receptor. Ibogaine interacts with many, opioid, serotonin, dopamine, and NMDA systems among them, which researchers believe is part of why it can interrupt withdrawal and craving simultaneously rather than substituting one dependence for another. It is also, they note, part of why it must be handled with medical respect.

02

The long echo: noribogaine

The body converts Ibogaine into noribogaine, a related compound that remains active for days to weeks after a single treatment. Researchers point to noribogaine to explain Ibogaine’s long tail: the quieting of craving and the steadier mood many people report in the weeks when new habits are either built or lost.

03

Growth factors & neuroplasticity

In laboratory research, Ibogaine raised levels of GDNF, a growth factor that nourishes dopamine neurons, in the brain’s reward center. Follow-up work found similar effects on BDNF. These are the proteins of neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to rewire itself. It may be the biology behind the “reset” so many people describe.

The Library

The studies themselves

Seven papers that, together, sketch the current state of knowledge, from the Stanford veteran study to the largest monitored case series to the safety literature we think every prospective guest deserves to see.

2024
Nature Medicine
Stanford University
Observational

Magnesium-Ibogaine therapy in veterans with traumatic brain injuries

Cherian, Keynan, Anker, et al., senior author Williams, Nature Medicine, 2024; 30(2): 373 to 381

Who was studied: 30 U.S. special operations veterans with traumatic brain injuries from repeated blast exposure, men carrying, alongside the injuries, high rates of PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Stanford researchers assessed them independently before and after they received Ibogaine combined with magnesium (given to help protect the heart) at a clinic in Mexico.

What changed: One month after treatment, average PTSD symptoms had fallen 88%, depression 87%, and anxiety 81%. Disability ratings moved from the mild-to-moderate range to, on average, no disability, and formal testing showed gains in concentration, processing, and memory. No serious adverse events occurred. The authors are careful about the limits: no placebo group, a small and specific population, and results that now need testing in controlled trials.

In plain terms: substantial improvements across every symptom measure the team tracked, still present a month after a single treatment, in a population for whom very little else had worked.

Read the paper: PubMed: PMID 38182784 · DOI 10.1038/s41591-023-02705-w

2018
Frontiers in Pharmacology
University of Miami
Case series · N=191

Ibogaine detoxification transitions opioid and cocaine abusers between dependence and abstinence

Mash, Duque, Page & Allen-Ferdinand, Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2018; 9: 529

Who was studied: 191 people dependent on opioids or cocaine, treated with a single dose of Ibogaine under inpatient medical monitoring, the largest series of its kind published at the time. Researchers tracked withdrawal, craving, mood, and safety laboratory measures through treatment, at discharge, and at one-month follow-up where available.

What changed: Ibogaine administration was associated with diminished opioid withdrawal symptoms and reduced heroin and cocaine craving on standardized questionnaires, with improvements in mood at discharge. There were no serious adverse events within the dose range studied. Nausea and unsteady gait were the most common effects. As an open-label case series without a comparison group, it cannot prove cause and effect; its weight is in its size, its monitoring, and its consistency with the smaller studies around it.

Read the paper: PubMed: PMID 29922156 · DOI 10.3389/fphar.2018.00529

2018
American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
UC San Diego / NYU
Observational · 12 months

Treatment of opioid use disorder with Ibogaine: detoxification and drug use outcomes

Brown & Alper, The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2018; 44(1): 24 to 36

Who was studied: 30 people with opioid dependence (most using oxycodone and/or heroin daily, averaging more than three previous episodes of treatment that had not held) treated at clinics in Mexico and followed for a full year at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months.

What changed: Subjective withdrawal scores fell from 31.0 to 14.0 within about three days of treatment. At one month, half of participants reported no opioid use in the previous 30 days. Addiction Severity Index drug-use scores improved relative to baseline at every follow-up point through 12 months, strongest early, then sustained at a somewhat lower level, which is precisely why the authors, and we, treat integration and aftercare as part of the medicine.

Read the paper: DOI 10.1080/00952990.2017.1320802

2018
American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
University of Otago, NZ
Observational · 12 months

Ibogaine treatment outcomes for opioid dependence from a twelve-month follow-up observational study

Noller, Frampton & Yazar-Klosinski, The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 2018; 44(1): 37 to 46

Who was studied: 14 people with opioid dependence treated legally, by prescription, in New Zealand, most dependent on methadone, and followed for twelve months with addiction-severity and depression measures.

What changed: Withdrawal scores fell significantly in the days after a single treatment, and among those who completed the follow-ups, drug-use severity scores dropped by more than 80% from baseline at 12 months, with depression scores significantly reduced as well. This study also carries the library’s most sobering line, and we will not hide it: one participant died during treatment, and the coroner concluded the death was very likely related to a cardiac arrhythmia. That death is part of why our screening exists in the form it does: EKG, heart evaluation, and a medical team on site, with the authority to say no.

Read the paper: PubMed: PMID 28402682 · DOI 10.1080/00952990.2017.1310218

2017
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
Johns Hopkins
Survey · N=88

Subjective effectiveness of Ibogaine treatment for problematic opioid consumption

Davis, Barsuglia, Windham-Herman, Lynch & Polanco, Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 2017; 1(2): 65 to 73

Who was studied: 88 people who had received Ibogaine treatment in Mexico between 2012 and 2015, surveyed about their use, their withdrawal, and their lives afterward. Most had used opioids for at least four years; 69% had used daily.

What they reported: 80% said Ibogaine eliminated or drastically reduced their withdrawal symptoms. Half reported reduced craving, a quarter of them for at least three months. 30% reported never using opioids again after treatment, and 41% reported sustained abstinence of more than six months at the time of the survey. The honest other side: 70% reported a relapse at some point, though nearly half of those said they were using less than before treatment. A survey can only report what people say, and people who respond to surveys differ from those who don’t; read this as the patient’s-eye view, to set beside the measured studies.

Read the paper: DOI 10.1556/2054.01.2017.009

2017
PLOS ONE
Johns Hopkins
Safety analysis

The incidence and severity of adverse events attributable to Ibogaine use

Davis, Barsuglia, Lancelotta, Grant & Renn, PLOS ONE, 2017; 12(6): e0178240

What it did: Researchers pooled the safety data from three separate observational studies to ask a simple, necessary question: when people are harmed around Ibogaine treatment, how, and how often? It remains one of the most useful papers in the field for anyone considering treatment, because it takes risk seriously instead of waving at it.

Why we include it: The pattern in the literature is consistent: serious harm clusters where screening is absent, hearts are unchecked, other substances are involved, or nobody qualified is watching. That is the entire argument for doing this the way we do it: full cardiac screening, toxicology, a surgeon and nurses on site full-time, and the willingness to turn someone away. Safety is not the opposite of this medicine’s promise. It is the condition of it.

Read the paper: PubMed: PMID 28570608

2005
The Journal of Neuroscience
UCSF
Preclinical · Animal research

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor mediates the desirable actions of the anti-addiction drug Ibogaine against alcohol consumption

He, McGough, Ravindranathan, et al., senior author Ron, The Journal of Neuroscience, 2005; 25(3): 619 to 628

What it did: In rodent studies, Ibogaine reduced alcohol self-administration, including in a relapse model. The team then traced a mechanism: Ibogaine increased expression of GDNF, a growth factor that sustains dopamine neurons, in the ventral tegmental area, a hub of the brain’s reward circuitry. Injecting GDNF itself reproduced the effect; blocking GDNF with antibodies removed it.

How to read it: This is animal research, not a human result, and we label it that way. Its importance is explanatory: it gave the field a testable biology for Ibogaine’s most mysterious property, effects that outlast the drug itself, and later laboratory work extended the story to BDNF, another growth factor central to learning and repair.

Read the paper: DOI 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3959-04.2005 · PMID 15659598

What the research does not yet show

A library that only argues one side isn’t a library. Here is what remains genuinely unknown, stated plainly:

  • There has never been a large, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of Ibogaine. Most human evidence is observational, real signal, honestly limited.
  • Follow-up beyond twelve months is thin. Durability is suggested, not established.
  • The strongest study was in a very specific group: special operations veterans with TBI. How far its results generalize is an open question.
  • Ibogaine has never been compared head-to-head with standard treatments in a trial.
  • Ibogaine is a Schedule I substance in the United States and is not FDA-approved for any use. Treatment at New Life takes place in Mexico, under Mexican law and our medical team’s protocols.

We publish all of this because trust is the treatment’s first ingredient. If the science grows stronger, this page will say so. If it complicates the picture, this page will say that too.

Read and watch it at the source

Every study above links to its paper. For the wider coverage: Stanford's release on the Nature Medicine study · Reuters on the first U.S. government-funded trials · Watch the trailer and the Rogan & Shawn Ryan conversations.

A mossy boardwalk climbing through sunlit rainforest
A boardwalk through the rainforest of the Riviera Maya

Questions about the research?

Bring them to the screening call. We’ll walk through what the studies do and don’t say, what screening involves, and whether New Life is right for you, honestly, and within 24 hours.

WhatsApp 1-801-907-0885 Call 1-801-907-0885 jake@newliferivieramaya.info

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