Saffron's psychoactivity

I've been doing a little research into saffron and it seems that the effects from it are highly unlikely to be placebo. Most people seem to report mild euphoria, and a resemblance to a low dose of MDMA or methylone.
I'm just wondering what causes this? A thread over on shaman-australis forums (here) mentions that safranal is probably the cause, but there doesn't seem to be anything to compare it to structurally.

There are also studies on pubmed (1, 2 and 3) stating that saffron's antidepressant effects are more than placebo. Also a thread on entheogen.com (here) talks about saffron's effects, along with a thread here - on bluelight.

So what causes this? I've looked at the structures of safranal, crocetin, crocin, safranal and picrocrocin, and the only thing I can really think of is that maybe crocin goes under some sort of reaction (in vivo) that froms it into trans-4-hydroxy-crotonic acid (or a similar looking GHB analog).

I've attached an image below to make things a tiny bit clearer.

(http://www.bluelight.ru/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=38140&cat=621)


ALSO: if anybody could find me the full article for this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10815004&dopt=Abstract it would be appreciated

I would like to add another question:
Most spices (fennel, parsley...) can give you some effect that are not placebo, but they are all very dangerous in "recreational" doses.
Is this the case with Saffron?

jasoncrest said:

I would like to add another question:
Most spices (fennel, parsley...) can give you some effect that are not placebo, but they are all very dangerous in "recreational" doses.
Is this the case with Saffron?

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Well looking at the threads and the studies on PubMed, it seems that it can't be that dangerous, although in the PubMed studies, they use extracts of saffron which could be filtering out any toxic substances.

The alkaloids obtained from members of the crocus genus are particularly unpleasant in that they cause all sorts of things to fuck up concerning cell division (eg colchicine) and will kill you in large enough amounts. I don't know how much, if any is going to be present in commercial saffron, but given the high cost & small amount that is reported as being active, I don't think it would be much of a problem.

As to the active compound, I think it'll take a lot more investigation to ascertain what's doing the psychoactive bit - just think how long it took to isolate salvinorin A and determine its mode of action

fastandbulbous said:

The alkaloids obtained from members of the crocus genus are particularly unpleasant in that they cause all sorts of things to fuck up concerning cell division (eg colchicine) and will kill you in large enough amounts. I don't know how much, if any is going to be present in commercial saffron, but given the high cost & small amount that is reported as being active, I don't think it would be much of a problem.

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Saffron appears to have a very low order of toxicity.[4] It is often said that very high doses of saffron can cause abortion and possible toxic symptoms, but there is no scientific documentation of these supposed effects. However, the so-called meadow saffron, Colchicum autumnale, is highly toxic, and sometimes people mistake one for the other.

[4]: Abdullaev Jafarova F, Caballero-Ortega H, Riveron-Negrete L, et al. In vitro evaluation of the chemopreventive potential of saffron [in Spanish]. Rev Invest Clin. 2003;54:430–6.

^^ Taken from: http://www.thirdage.com/healthgate/files/111801.html

As to the active compound, I think it'll take a lot more investigation to ascertain what's doing the psychoactive bit - just think how long it took to isolate salvinorin A and determine its mode of action

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Well, to most it seems that the higher quality the saffron (as in: stronger taste, aroma and the correct colour) the more psychoactive it is, so this means that the compounds that remain in the poor quality saffron are obviously inactive.

This is what has lead people to expect safranal to be the cause of effects, but this still leads me to wonder why it's causing these effects and of course thats the reason for me creating this thread, to ask if there are any similar compounds.

P.S: how long did it take to find that salvinorin A was the active compound in salvia?

^ Quite a while! I think it took 20+ years from the recognition of S. divinorum as a Mazatec traditional hallucinogen 'till Daniel Seibert confirming the psychoactive principal was salvinorin A (then another 5 years to discover that it exerts its effects via agonism of the kappa opiate receptor).

Safranal might be one of those weird terpenes that folds up nicely to interact with a receptor or undergoes a molecular rearrangement courtesy of metabolic activity. In the widest sense of the term (ie not strictly scientific) there are a lot of terpene like compounds that show CNS activity such as thujone and the aforementioned salvinorin A (the DEA even class THC as a terpene!)

i have the full text of that article. i tried to private message you, but it wouldn't let me bc i am still a "greenlighter."

ha, ironically enough that post made me a "bluelighter."

^^^
That made me laugh out loud

Hello! This is my first post here *waves*

Safranal has shown anxiolytic and hypnotic effects in rats according to this study but crocin has been shown to have no such properties. I think it has properties as a GABAa agonist, which would totally explain it's supposed psychoactivity. It's been said to induce sleep forever, and i remember reading about that property in Culpeper's work, which dates all the way back to the 1600s

Yeah, it's an effective anticonvulsant:

Fitoterapia. 2005 Dec;76(7-8):722-4. Epub 2005 Oct 25.Click here to read Links
Anticonvulsant evaluation of safranal and crocin from Crocus sativus in mice.
Hosseinzadeh H, Talebzadeh F.

Pharmaceutical Research Center, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mashad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran. [email protected]

The anticonvulsant activities of Crocus sativus stigma constituents, safranal and crocin, were evaluated in mice using pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced convulsions in mice. Safranal (0.15 and 0.35 ml/kg, i.p.) reduced the seizure duration, delayed the onset of tonic convulsions and protected mice from death. Crocin (200 mg/kg, i.p.) did not show anticonvulsant activity.

PMID: 16253437 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I think I have to call bullshit on anyone claiming that recreational dosing of saffron can be similar to an mdma or m1 experience, like I read on another thread. My only guess is they are a desparate saffron vendor, but even that speculation seems laughable. My interest in this peaked recently since I just bought these ReBody saffron hunger chews and was reading about the study to curb snack cravings. http://www.satiereal.com/web/fichiers/Gout-et-al-Satiereal-NutResJ%202010.pdf The chews are tasty, but now I am out $30.

Some new minor glycoside components were isolated from saffron a few months ago. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23179314 I've read about a few botanical glycosides having antidepressant effects, like from Peony and the vine Cynanchum auriculatum. It will be interesting to see how these new developments fit it.

First, included for this discussion Donovon - Mellow Yellow (I'm just mad about saffron....)

Heh, the one LEGAL spice which is actually sits somewhere between hydroponic marijuana and wholesale cocaine in South America when talking about $/lb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron#Trade_and_use" said:

To glean 1 lb (450 g) of dry saffron requires the harvest of 50,000–75,000 flowers; a kilogram requires 110,000–170,000 flowers.[76][77] Forty hours of labour are needed to pick 150,000 flowers.[78] Stigmas are dried quickly upon extraction and (preferably) sealed in airtight containers.[79] Saffron prices at wholesale and retail rates range from US$500 to US$5,000 per pound, or US$1,100–11,000/kg, equivalent to £2,500/€3,500 per pound or £5,500/€7,500 per kilogram.

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Ridiculous. I can't say I know what it tastes like because if I've had it, I don't remember.

This different saffron related wikipedia article may help a little? I hate how all the citations in some wikipedia articles are in books that are fairly hard to verify unless they happen to be out of copyright in google books, which is rare, or ready to put in A LOT of work tracking them down from different libraries.

Besides wound-healing and anticancer properties, saffron is also an antioxidant. This means that, as an "anti-aging" agent, it neutralizes free radicals.

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I mean I've actually seen it postulated that removing strong oxidizing molecules like free radicals actually can induce cancer by them not doing their job killing off the weaker cells which could have DNA damage, problems with their stop codons, ect. Kind of like micro-natural selection.


Anyway, I have a feeling if it were psychoactive in a fun way - even mildly at high doses, the interesting things would be synthesized from people playing with the ana/homo-logs.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1573(200005)14:3%3C149::AID-PTR665%3E3.0.CO;2-5/abstract said:

Saffron extract improved ethanol-induced impairments of learning behaviours in mice, and prevented ethanol-induced inhibition of hippocampal long-term potentiation, a form of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity that may underly learning and memory. This effect of saffron extract is attributed to crocin (crocetin di-gentiobiose ester), but not crocetin.

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There are NO shortage of papers mentioning "crocetin" and "saffron:" http://scholar.google.com/scholar?h...a=X&ei=ns4tUcjjEIrt2QWdioGwDg&ved=0CDYQzwIwAA

You'll just need someone with journal access.

Ive eaten 5g with no results, was tasty.

Smoked 1g with nada happening.

Years ago I wanted to extract anything I could get out of saffron and see where that takes me. Too pricey

Had a quick Google about this and ended back on BL.. go figure. James Wong (gardener and herbalist) has a new book out on unusual edibles and it has a section on saffron.. he says it gives a "mild psychoactive buzz with a mild giggly lift for up to 30 minutes". Apparently to get the most effect, add a couple of teaspoons to a small bottle of vodka, leave for a week, and "you will have the most giggle-inducing drink known to man".

Well, I'm interested.

james wong is a bit of a fruit and nut bar. anyone who thinks hot pepper and ... ginseng, was it? ... ice lollies are a "tasty treat" needs to be psychologically evaluated, imo. he does come up with some very interesting herbal decoctions though. if you are into wacky herbalism he did a bbc series called grow your own drugs.

i think in this case the vodka does a lot more than the saffron ever would.

If safranal is a bit of a GABA-A agonist as the Wiki mentions, then it makes sense for a certain quantity of saffron to potentiate alcohol. I suspect the quantity to be pretty huge though, way beyond what James Wong used. How much of a GABA-A agonist is safranal, and how much safranal is typically in saffron, is information that I really can't find from Googling.