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Are phens hard on the liver (Or tryptamines too?)

sheekle

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 25, 2010
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176
I know it's pretty well documented that MDMA is hard on the liver, are other phenethylamines hard on the liver too?

Do you think phenethylamine trips should be more spaced out than tryptamines since they can have toxic effects when used too often?
 
I don't feel like they are directly toxic on the liver, no. They don't seem to be as taxing as MDMA or anything like that. Coming from someone with liver issues, MDMA is not good for ya. Heavily metabolized! AMPS (and stimulants) tend to be very toxic to the liver, partially because of the complex metabolism.

The phenethylamines dont seem to be as heavy on the liver.I am quite aware of any liver problems and i've never had any... Now tryptamines, IMHO are good for the body.

Granted, larger MG doses of anything seem to be harder for the liver to deal with.

You also have to take into account how you're treating your body. If you're really worried about your liver take some phyto-zymed milk thistle for a few days before dosing and the day of. Should protect the liver pretty well from most things.
 
Liver disease is one of the few serious, fatal illness actually on the rise in the West. I suspect over-use of alcohol & over reliance on processed foods has a part to play.

I didn't know that MDMA was bad for the liver. Whether or not it does any long-term damage I don't know, but MDMA does disrupt Kidney function (hence the weeing problems many suffer when high), but liver damage is new to me. Anyone got any citations?
 
Not sure but mescaline is apparently not something to take in megadoses, maybe not surprising since relatively an average dose is pretty mega already in mg's. There might be more info on it in the mesc thread, but citations on that were pretty limited and it is a bit hard to find where they got that info from. Plus the doses involved were pretty nuts.

I think the problems with urination on MDMA are not kidney related, to urinate you need to relax certain muscles, not flex them. And the stimulant nature of MDMA (as well as many other stimulants of course) apparently tenses these muscles involuntarily. To overcome that you need to do some heavy overriding by sending 'relaxing' muscle control signals. Not something we are used to or trained for, especially when rolling ballz.
 
That's sad. :(

But I'd like to hear about psychedelics - not sure if there is any research on this.
 
I haven't ever seen indications that PEA usage causes acute liver injury in humans. Whether or not it damages cells in a petri dish is another thing.
 
I had no idea these drugs even affected the liver. Cocaine, stimulants? what? If you are all serious then damn.
 
also, if a psychedelic affects the liver, does it do it on the first pass metabolism? or through its metabolites?

i wonder how most common substances are excreted....

that being said, im sure some effects might be present form phens at least, as there are some people complaining about depressed immunit following usage. this might have something to do with liver proteins and whatnot
 
I've heard that sh rooms are hard on the liver... But I have no idea.
 
i think most psychs are pretty benign in general. If the classic psychs (mesc,lsd,mushrooms) haven't had any reports or evidence of liver damage then i'm going to bet that 5ht2a psychs in general aren't hard on the liver. Guess we won't really know unless there are some actual studies done, especially on things like the nbomes and stuff or the dox family of drugs.

PEAs are definitely more stimulating than many tryptamines so i'd say they are harder on the body but whether that causes actual damage or not is a different story.
 
Solipsis makes an excellent point regarding Mescaline. Of the Phenethylamine Psychedelics I am unaware of any others that are ingested in such large doses, 600mg being common for Mescaline if I remember correctly. Given that the use of Mescaline amongst humans is documented back thousands of years & that shamans tend to live longer than their regular community counterparts (hence gaining & distributing vital knowledge) it could be assumed that newer, stronger Psychedelic Phenethylamines which are used in much lower doses would be even less likely to seriously damage vital organs.

Of course, more & more new Psychedelic compounds related to Mescaline & often derived by or through the work of Alexander Shulgin are coming into common usage every day & it cannot be entirely assumed that none of them will ever be toxic to some or other part of the human body while no genuine medical research is being undertaken. So proceed with new chemicals with due caution.
 
There is no research I am aware of to suggest that any of the substances you suggest cause any issues for the liver. Not MDMA, not tryptamines and not phenethylamines. Just because something is broken down in the liver does not mean that it is "hard" on the liver.

Alcohol is hepatoxic mostly because it produces a lot of acetaldehyde, and above a certain level the liver is unable to process it effectively. This leads to it escaping the the normally contained enzyme systems and causing cellular damage in the liver and other parts of the body.

MDMA's urinary issues are caused by its induction of vasopressin secretion which tells the kidneys to retain fluids.1

I do recall seeing a single reference to large doses of mescaline casuing jaundice(?) but I've never seen any other cases or references and it was talking about doses in excess of a gram, if I recall. I think there is a thread on BL about it somewhere.
 
also, if a psychedelic affects the liver, does it do it on the first pass metabolism? or through its metabolites?

i wonder how most common substances are excreted....

that being said, im sure some effects might be present form phens at least, as there are some people complaining about depressed immunit following usage. this might have something to do with liver proteins and whatnot

Well, I was medically screened before participating as a volunteer (guinea pig) in intravenous synthetic cannabinoid studies and at the time I was consuming a lot of such compounds, especially psychedelics. Apparently they found that I had a metric fuckton of liver enzymes that kind of baffled them, but for some reason I have just shrugged that off jokingly as seeming to have trained my liver to deal with the variety of drugs I ingested.

Whether or not a psychedelic drug encounters first pass metabolism or not, eventually a part of it gets metabolized probably mostly in the liver because sooner or later that is where your blood takes it. But - especially when the drug itself is polar enough to be excreted by the kidneys - I think the ratio could vary between the drug itself and the metabolites found in your excrements depending on the ROA.
For compounds that absolutely need to be metabolized to get filtered by the kidneys, there would not be this difference in ratios because it is just a matter of time before the drug passes through the liver, and it would only be the kinetics that are different.

AFAIK it is not so much the problem of putting your liver to hard work, but rather that if metabolism of certain drugs produces toxic metabolites or intermediaries this is obviously the cause of injuries. So that is what matters.

As always, remember I am a dropout chemist, not an MD. :)
 
I think for a drug to have any effect on the liver you need to be taking it regularly - George Best was drinking 3 bottles of scotch a day for 30 years before his liver went. Three bottles of scotch does exponentially more damage to the liver than any dose of psychedelics.

To do a similar damage using any psychedelic you'd need to be tripping every day for about a thousand years. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
 
Yes, but best was also drinking a notoriously hepatoxic substance. It only takes one consumption of amatoxin to destroy the liver, and the evidence we have now suggests that an infinite number of regular phenethylamine doses would have no effect on the liver.
 
I don't think it's safe to say it would have *no* effect, but it certainly wouldn't be a major one in the average individual.
 
Yes it's never wise to speak in absolutes but I think you're right, there would be far larger concerns than liver damage if you took enough to sustain liver damage.
 
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