The small and handy antioxidants and psychedelics thread

[CZ-741]

The Small & Handy antioxidants, antiinflammatories and psychedelics thread

Has anyone taken an antioxidant (eg vitamin C or E or another) or an anti-inflammatory with a psychedelic to reduce harm, possibly from neuro inflammation?

Post your experiences here.

 

[blur878]

I eat a lot of oranges when I trip.....but just because they taste amazing lol. A friend that I trip with almost always drinks grapefruit juice throughout the day before he trips....not for harm reduction but to potentate the trip....The jury is still out on that one for me...not sure if it really does anything or not.

What are you taking that you are worried about harm? MDMA?

I have heard from others that various Nootropics like Piracetam can help with that.

 

[.:Holy::Toast:.]

The ability of antioxidants to mitigate the possibly harmful effects of oxidative stress has never been proven in vivo IIRC.
Antioxidants do indeed bind free radicals in a laboratory setting, but that certainly doesn't mean that ingesting them in your diet accomplishes the end.
Also psychedelics haven't really been linked with neurotoxicity (except perhaps MDMA or NBOMe with chronic high dose usage).

 

[Hexagon Sun]

Is the first time I hear about psychedelics producing oxidative stress, except the cases that Holy says. Maybe aMT, aET could be slightly oxidant in high doses as well. Hoever taking vits pre and post trip or natural juices seems like a good idea

 

[CZ-741]

The ability of antioxidants to mitigate the possibly harmful effects of oxidative stress has never been proven in vivo IIRC.
Antioxidants do indeed bind free radicals in a laboratory setting, but that certainly doesn't mean that ingesting them in your diet accomplishes the end.
Also psychedelics haven't really been linked with neurotoxicity (except perhaps MDMA or NBOMe with chronic high dose usage).

There is some truth to that.


Psychedelics can, in theory, be linked with potential neurotoxicity, much like MDMA, in high doses, by a common mechanism:

The neurotoxicity of MDMA can be reduced by a 5HT-2A receptor blocker. Also:

(from above source)

...

direct MDMA 5-HT-2A-receptor stimulation produces intracellular oxidative stress that leads to neuronal apoptosis (brain cell death)

...

That receptor is one that has been correlated with psychedelic effects. Most psychedelics activate it.

The 5-HT2A receptor is known to cause increase release of glutamate.

Excess glutamate has been associated with neurotoxicity - likely by oxidative stress associated with neuro-inflammation.


So antioxidants or anti-inflammitories may reduce harm from MDMA, psychedelic use.

 

[TheBlackPirate]

After thousands of years of classical psychedelic usage and decades of clinical research, zero evidence exists directly indicating classical psychedelics result in neuroinflammation. Your wording is confusing. I presume your talking about MDMA. You started this thread in Psychedelic Discussion rather than MDMA & Empathogenic Drugs, why?

I guess you'll probably delete this later the same as another of your anti-psychedelic comments. If this is the situation then this discussion doesn't really matter.

 

[CZ-741]

Hi. To my knowledge, no recent studies of oxidative stress nor inflammation markers of psychedelics have been done in human cells or people. Links to studies showing otherwise are welcome. The intent of the thread is to see if people have noticed any subtle differences in their experiences if they took an antioxidant or antiinflammitory, than when they didn't. CZ

 

[TheBlackPirate]

Regardless of intent your thread establishes fallacy falsely making psychedelics appear dangerous with the following order:


make false statement => begin discussion on detail only relevant assuming the fallacy is true => any further discussion of the detail inculcates the false statement made


Here's another example: "MDMA buns holes in your brain. MDMA users please tell tales about how taking vitamin C reduced this neurotoxicity resulting from MDMA use."

The fallacy above is MDMA burns holes in your brain. MDMA doesn't burn holes in human brains at normal recreational doses. Yet, structuring an argument as I did above means people could only answer the question about vitamin C if they assume the fallacy is true. Hence, further conversation of the influence of vitamin C reinforces the fallacy the original statement bears.

 

[CZ-741]

Regardless of intent your thread establishes fallacy falsely making psychedelics appear dangerous with the following order: make false statement => begin discussion on detail only relevant assuming the fallacy is true => any further discussion of the detail inculcates the false statement made Here's another example: "MDMA buns holes in your brain. MDMA users please tell tales about how taking vitamin C reduced this neurotoxicity resulting from MDMA use." The fallacy above is MDMA burns holes in your brain. MDMA doesn't burn holes in human brains at normal recreational doses. Yet, structuring an argument as I did above means people could only answer the question about vitamin C if they assume the fallacy is true. Hence, further conversation of the influence of vitamin C reinforces the fallacy the original statement bears.

Just because MDMA doesn't produce significant gross brain changes in human users doesn't make it harmless in the short term. The paper mentioned MDMA clearly damages neurons.:

...

MDMA-induced damage on serotonergic nerve endings in the forebrain, which lasts for months in rats and years in primates, has been demonstrated both biochemically and histologically (Ali et al., 1993; Bowyer et al., 2003; Green et al.,2003; Hatzidimitriou et al., 1999; Schmidt, 1987).

Also, in human Ecstasy users a global and local reduction of serotonin transporters binding was found, in comparison to a control group and the decrease was positively correlated with the cumulative lifetime intake of Ecstasy (McCann et al., 1998 ).

These studies indicate that MDMA-induced neurodegeneration may also occur in human users. MDMA-induced neurotoxicity is, though, not only limited to serotonergic and dopaminergic neurons, since a broader neuronal cell death occurs in the brains of MDMA treated animals ...

maybe not all psychedelics are neurotoxic, but LSD seems to be pointing that way:

Long-lasting alterations in behavior and brain neurochemistry following continuous low-level LSD administration


Abstract


Groups of rats were administered either 80 μg LSD-25 continuously over seven days using subcutaneous minipumps, or were given the same total amount of drug in seven daily injections, or were administered vehicle.

When tested long after cessation of drug administration, persisting alterations in behavior and brain were found in the continuous LSD groups. In social open-field tests, this consisted of decreased social distance between animals; this effect increased upon repeated testing. In uptake of labelled ligands, this was reflected predominantly by decreased 3H-LSD binding in several limbic regions.

LSD appears to have especially persisting neurotoxic effects when administered in a continuous, low-level fashion.

CZ

 

[TheBlackPirate]

^This is the equivalent of putting humans in empty cages then administering approximately 250 doses of LSD. Yes, I imagine this could result in psychological trauma with lasting effects. Solitary confinement results in lasting distress without drugs. Luckily modern research with psychedelic medicines involves much smaller doses, with professional guidance, in proper settings. The results are often positive.

Think of the consequences of giving humans 250 doses of whiskey, 250 doses of aspirin, or 250 doses of caffeine. They'd die. If anything this proves LSD is remarkably physically safe.