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A decades-long campaign to legalize MDMA as a mainstream medical treatment will reach a climax as soon as Friday, with the Food and Drug Administration poised to decide whether the psychedelic should be approved as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in conjunction with psychotherapy. The regulators face an Aug. 11 deadline to decide whether to sign off on the drug or reject it. The agency could also postpone its decision if it needs more time to review data and investigate claims of irregularities in clinical trials run by Lykos Therapeutics. (Keshavan and Goldhill, 8/9)

Larger studies are under way to see if psilocybin could be a tool regularly used for palliative care, to ease the dying process. But researchers are still asking: how exactly does psilocybin help people confront their demise? (Love, 8/6)

Two hours, one workout and an oat-milk iced coffee after his “breakfast of champions”, Mike Tommasiello feels it kicking in. “I can feel it start to course through my body,” he says. “I feel the energy. I feel the spark. All of a sudden, it’s like, everything becomes sort of very clear.” Every morning from Monday to Thursday, shortly before hitting the gym, Tommasiello, a 36-year-old advertising executive, takes a finely tuned cocktail of supplements, including ashwagandha and green tea extract. He also takes a dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in hallucinogenic magic mushrooms. (Joyner, 8/9)

The Food and Drug Administration’s “hands-off approach” to food additives, including those found in ultraprocessed foods and energy drinks, may allow unsafe ingredients to enter the nation’s food supply, according to the authors of an editorial published Thursday. The paper, in the American Journal of Public Health, comes as lawmakers and public health groups allege that the FDA has failed to take quick action to protect the public from certain additives — including brominated vegetable oil and red dye No. 3 — in food products. (Lovelace Jr. and Fattah, 8/8)