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Diazepam found in a potato: unbelievable!

aced126

aced126

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May 18, 2015
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So I found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3178869

To summarize, the researchers found diazepam along with other benzodiazepine derivatives in potato.

I find this unbelievable! Benzodiazepines were discovered serendipitously and were synthesized from completely synthetic reagents. Sternbach originally intended to make dyes with the benzos. Yet they are biosynthesized by plants!

This could suggest that there are many many more compounds in plants that could show activity that we will only discover by chance in the lab!

Anyway, the publication suggested that having found this, BZPs might be biosynthesized in the brain of mammals and humans possibly. Could this be our endogenous way of controlling seizures and anxiety?

This made me think: could one of the reasons of drowsiness/narcolepsy be due to an excess of endogenous benzos? And if so would treatment with flumazenil, a benzo antagonist, be viable?

Another idea: could this explain varying tolerance to gabaergic drugs (unrelated to mass of an individual)?
 
It is hard to take that seriously. Such an old 'study'. I wonder, would there be any clonazepam, flunitrazepam or quazepam in dietary sources ?

Possibly, the plants were contaminated. If the study was for real, anyway.
 
Surely they mustve had precautions in place to prevent contamination. Also, there is even more evidence that this is true, because I just found this study where flumazenil was given to patients suffering from hepatic encephalopathy, and the drug was effective over placebo in doing so. These patients weren't prescribed any benzos or z-drugs, yet somehow flumazenil works to treat it.
 
This has already been brought up a few years ago (link to thread). Naturally occurring benzodiazepines were also found in humans (link; there are much more other articles on this). I guess some valid questions are asked in the other thread - how is it possible that all the benzodiazepines found in plants are actually the ones synthetically produced? BTW, are there any other chlorinated neurotransmitters produced naturally in human body? I can't remember reading about any. If I remember correctly, benzodiazepines such as diazepam, temazepam, oxazepam, lorazepam etc. were found occurring naturally. Would you expect human body to synthesize lorazepam? Very weird if you ask me. I've seen some images of possible pathways leading to deschlorodiazepam, however, I'm not able to discuss their validity from the perspective of biology/biochemistry, from the perspective of organic synthesis they're plausible and reminiscent of synthetic routes used in benzodiazepine derivatives synthesis. But I have a hard time believing that there are enzymes mediating chlorination to naturally produce lorazepam or lormetazepam, I could be wrong though. Yet benzodiazepines have been so widely prescribed and used that such low amounts found in plants & humans could simply be a result of contamination, right? 8)
 
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It seems highly likely that this is like the discovery of tramadol in that African plant, simple contamination. Note that it hasn't been replicated
 
Kdem said:
It is hard to take that seriously. Such an old 'study'. I wonder, would there be any clonazepam, flunitrazepam or quazepam in dietary sources ?

Possibly, the plants were contaminated. If the study was for real, anyway.
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This isn't the only study...surely you don't expect me to post every link. My point is that it is well known that there may be benzodiazepines in dietary sources. I believe that they were eventually able to detect benzodiazepines in the patients.
 
i've always loved french fries

so that african tramadol tree thing was contamination? i thought it was the tree with meth which was contamined and the one with tramadol was actually for real. that plant had been used as a painkiller before they even knew it had tramadol in it iirc
 
A plant biosynthesizing meth isn't that hard to believe tho, considering ephedrine is found in a lot of plants.
 
ice2x01 said:
Haha.

Isn't vodka made from potatoes?
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That was my immediate thought as I read the post. Lol.
Seriously, I find it hard to relate as benzodiazepines are synthetic all the way from what I've read.
Maybe other studies could tell more about it (?)..
 
Yeah, the natural tramadol thing was contamination. There was an article that followed it refuting it, apparently tramadol is fed to cattle so heavily it pollutes the ground
 
serotonin2A said:
This isn't the only study...surely you don't expect me to post every link. My point is that it is well known that there may be benzodiazepines in dietary sources. I believe that they were eventually able to detect benzodiazepines in the patients.
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Every? You haven't posted any studies that replicated the first. How about 3-4?
 
Hammilton said:
Every? You haven't posted any studies that replicated the first. How about 3-4?
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I'm not trying to argue this one way or the other, and I don't really care about the topic. I just wanted to point out to the OP that people had linked this to a disease. If it interests you then you are welcome to take the time to search. Because as far as I can tell I'm the only one here who spent any time posting a reference, instead of just giving opinions that are obvioisly not based on a comprehensive reading of the literature on this topic.
 
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There's actually still debate going on whether or not tramadol is a natural product: isotope ratio mass spectrometry suggests that it's possible it could be a plant source.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/06/25/the_tramadol_wars

Until someone grows some in sterile soil, it's up in the air still, I guess.

As fore the discovery of diazepam in potato, I'm pretty confident that it's not a false positive. There's a whole host of benzodiazepine type compounds detectable in wheat and potato. They're not present at very high levels, but they're present even if you grow 'taters far away from people who are eating Valium and peeing in your garden.

As for "hasn't been replicated", you may want to check the facts before you say that. Lots of studies corroborate the evidence.

Potato juice exerts an anticonvulsant effect
BZDs are present in germinating seeds
More on BZDs in potatos
Review on natural BZDs
 
This makes me wonder if one should ever eat potatoes or plants after having been through a difficult benzodiazepine withdrawal !
 
Kdem said:
This makes me wonder if one should ever eat potatoes or plants after having been through a difficult benzodiazepine withdrawal !
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The concentration isn't high enough to produce effects in normal individuals.
 
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