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Diazepam found in a potato: unbelievable!

serotonin2A said:
The concentration isn't high enough to produce effects in normal individuals.
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Though interestingly, one of the abstracts linked by sekio states that even 100,000-fold diluted potato juice has effects on GABA-R
 
Fascinating, do any of you know any studies have been done on deliberately feeding plants benzo's. To check the results if an certain concentration is given par example to a potata plant. Sounds do able.

This takes my field of potato plants to an whole new level I guess.
 
nAON said:
Though interestingly, one of the abstracts linked by sekio states that even 100,000-fold diluted potato juice has effects on GABA-R
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The benzodiazepine level was 2.5 ng/mL. You would have to drink 1000 L to experience any effect.

They hypothesized that some other constituent of the juice binds to GABA-A. It is entirely possible that the active compound is a peptide, which would explain why potatoes are not psychoactive. Alternatively, some component in potatoes could be screwing up the binding assay.
 
Potato plants are not synthesizing benzodiazepines! Diazepam, which is wholly synthetic, has been and is still being prescribed in huge quantities for something like 45 years now and is a well known persistent chemical pollutant (mainly because it is totally synthetic) in the nation's wastewater from coast to coast. Eventually, it finds itself into the soil and is taken up by plants such as potatoes. Yes, contamination is the right answer! This conclusion is common sense and illustrates the unique and worse than would first be expected implications of producing tons of persistent (and in the case of benzodiazepines, carcinogenic) drugs every year which have no way of ever being broken down (at this point, anyway) once they are released into a river via your piss or solid excrement in sewage wastewater.
 
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That does seem plausible.

There has been a search for natural ´endozepines´, the idea that the ´benzodiazepine receptor´ exists for a reason !
That is really outdated thinking. There are natural substances that bind to the GABAA receptor complex.
 
Dresden said:
Potato plants are not synthesizing benzodiazepines! Diazepam, which is wholly synthetic, has been and is still being prescribed in huge quantities for something like 45 years now and is a well known persistent chemical pollutant (mainly because it is totally synthetic) in the nation's wastewater from coast to coast. Eventually, it finds itself into the soil and is taken up by plants such as potatoes. Yes, contamination is the right answer! This conclusion is common sense and illustrates the unique and worse than would first be expected implications of producing tons of persistent (and in the case of benzodiazepines, carcinogenic) drugs every year which have no way of ever being broken down (at this point, anyway) once they are released into a river via your piss or solid excrement in sewage wastewater.
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That makes the most sense to me too.
 
endotropic said:
That makes the most sense to me too.
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They have done some work to exclude environmental contamination. The study below germinated wheat and potato in distilled water and found elevated levels of diazepam in the seedlings. So uptake couldn't have occured from contaminated soil.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X88810362

There are key control experiments, such as looking at isotopic composition, that would conclusively address this issue. But there does seem to be more going on here then just contamination.
 
serotonin2A said:
They have done some work to exclude environmental contamination. The study below germinated wheat and potato in distilled water and found elevated levels of diazepam in the seedlings. So uptake couldn't have occured from contaminated soil.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X88810362

There are key control experiments, such as looking at isotopic composition, that would conclusively address this issue. But there does seem to be more going on here then just contamination.
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That study shows that the BZD's increase during germination in sterile water, but the plants already had low levels of BZD's in them by that point. The authors point out:

But the values may also be interpreted merely as a result of
rearrangement, as a selective transport of already existing BBI components
from the tuber marrow to the germs can not be completely ruled out,
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Don't you find it a bit suspicious that the most active BZD's they find in the potatoes are also two of the most widely used BZD's around at the time?
 
endotropic said:
That study shows that the BZD's increase during germination in sterile water, but the plants already had low levels of BZD's in them by that point. The authors point out:



Don't you find it a bit suspicious that the most active BZD's they find in the potatoes are also two of the most widely used BZD's around at the time?
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In the section that you quoted, the authors were offering a critique of earlier research, not of their methods with wheat. They grew wheat seedlings from grain, and the total amount of BZ in the seedlings was greater then the amount in the grain. So the findings in wheat couldn't happen due to redistribution.

I am certainly suspicious, yes. But the results of that study are consistant with biosynthesis, and as far as I am aware no contradictory findings have been reported in the literature. If it is not biosynthesis then it should be very easy to demonstrate that benzodiazepines are just accumulating from the environment.
 
Let the potatoes make their benzos they mean you no harm
 
blowpipe said:
Potatoes should be made illegal and every active grower jailed for life. This is a serious health hazard we're dealing with here.
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Maybe the Irish started drinking during the potato famine to regulate their gaba receptors
 
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