[willy wanker]

Hi,

Does anyone know if psilocybean mushrooms can be detrimental to the liver? i.e. cause increased enzyme reading etc?

I know psilocine/psilocybine are safe, but some references suggest other substances in mushies can be toxic to the liver.

I've been trying for years to get to more references on that subject, but it seems very little research's been done.

Any help would be really much appreciated.

Cheers.

[wisemonkey]

I was told that they have arsenic in them. This was nt by any mycologist, chemist or any other qualified proffessional so could be untrue

[ferret]

ive been told by a few backyard rocket scientists that shrooms contain strychnine but im pretty sure its bs, a lot of dudes i went to school with used to think it was strychnine that was responsible for the effects...

some mushrooms however can accumulate arsenic and heavy metals from the soil , one being the delectable macrolepiota rachodes i still eat the fuckers

[_e_]

a dear friend of mine feels their is some form of load ont he kidneys from psilocybin mushrooms as she has had kidney stones removed before and reports kidney ache similiar to that from drinking alcohol post consumption...
but this is just a single occurrence so i have no idea... I have also been curious nonetheless

[Pelinster]

ferret, on May 1 2006, 05:11 PM, said:

a lot of dudes i went to school with used to think it was strychnine that was responsible for the effects...

You know it's funny you say this because I used to believe that, and I am almost positive I was told this by one of those travelling anti-drug groups that came to my High School. Bastards!

[PD.]

I found this on another site if its any use to you.

Psilocybin and psilocin are part of the tryptamine family (indole C8H7N & ethylamine side chain). They bear close resemblance to the neurotransmitter serotonin. How these substances work is, I have come to believe, still quite obscure. Primary effect seems to be the inhibition of neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine aka 5-HT), i.e. a 5-HT2A post-synaptic agonist that mimics the effects to 5-HT to put it in jargon. This is the working hypothesis for LSD-25 at the moment and it's probably true for psilocybin as well. These substances also present some cross-tolerance.

As a good psychedelic should, psilocybin, psilocin and psilocybian mushrooms have low toxicity - in tests with mice, doses up to 200 mg of psilocybin/kg of body (in average human terms (65 kg) 13 grams) have been injected intravenously without lethal effects. The ED50:LD50 ratio is 641 according to the NIOSH Registry of Toxic Effects; compare this with 9637 for vitamin A, 4816 for LSD , 199 for aspirin and 21 for nicotine. Poisoning, at least physically, is thus not a problem.

Then we have the two other significant indole alkaloids, Baeocystin, unlike psilocybin, baeocystin is somewhat unstable, and decays noticeably with age. And then we have baeocystin's close chemical cousin, Norbaeocystin. Baeocystin and norbaeocystin are just psilocybin with one methyl and two methyls respectively lopped off. And unfortunately for all you synthesis experts, while baeocystin and norbaeocystin do not have DEA control numbers they do both come under the Controlled Substance Analogue Act.

When dephosphorylated, they turn into 4-hydroxy-N-methyltryptamine and 4-hydroxytryptamine. All 4 substances are presumed hallucinogenic, but less so than psilocin or psilocybin. Very little work seems to have been done on them (Chemical Abstracts averages a cite a year, with most of them of the variety "baeocystin found in Psilocybe totallyobscuralis"). There has been some speculation on the 'net about them, and a possible correlation between nausea and the amount of baeocystin has been found. We hope to be able to investigate the question further for the next version.

These are just the four "biggies". A whole truckload of other indoles are known to exist in Psilocybe mushrooms. Here's a sample of what was found in a batch of Psilocybe baeocystis, excluding the ones mentioned above:

Indole derivative, Amount (ug)

5-Benzyloxy-3-indole acetic acid 2
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine hydrogen-oxalate [aka DMT] 4
Gramine 40
3-Hydroxyethyl indole 2
5-Hydroxy-3-indole acetic acid 2
5-Hydroxyindole 4
3-Hydroxymethylindole 2
5-Hydroxytryptamine creatine sulfate [aka Serotonin] 4
5-Hydroxytryptophane 2
Indole 4
3-Indoleacetamide 2
3-Indole acetic acid 2
3-Indoleacetic acid ethyl ester 2
3-Indoleacetonitrile 2
3-Indolealdehyde 40
3-Indoleacetaldehyde 2
3-Indolecarboxylic acid 4
3-Indolelactic acid 2
gamma-(Indole)-N-butyric acid 4
beta-Indole-3-acrylic acid 2
beta-(Indole-3)-propionic acid 4
Indoxylacetate 2
Indoxylbutyrate 2
Isatin 2
5-Methoxy-2-carboxyindole 2
5-Methoxydimethyltryptamine monooxalate [aka Bufotenine] 4
5-Methoxyindole 4
2-Methylindole 2
3-Methylindole 4
5-Methylindole 4
5-Methyltryptophane 2
N-Methyltryptophane 2
Tryptamine hydrochloride 4
L-Tryptophane 0.8
From: A.Y. Leung, A.H. Smith & A.G. Paul, "Production of Psilocybin in Psilocybe baeocystis Saprophytic Culture" J Pharm Sci 54: 1576 (1965)


Yes, Psilocybe mushrooms contain DMT, but in microscopic amounts. DMT is not orally active anyway, so it doesn't do anything.

[spiders]

Im pretty sure that psilocin psilocybin are particularly easy for the liver to metabolise - infact i read somewhere that LSD and Psilocin were much less a liver load than caffiene...
I think the lethal dosage for both is MASSIVE - like 1000 times things like caffiene etc.
I know a chick who has hepatitis C and she has no problem with mushrooms - cant tough booze or kava - or even large amounts of citris fruits but she is fine with mushrooms.
I dont think mushrooms would have any effect on the kidneys at all - they are not diaretic or anything like that. They do shoot off a spike in the sympathetic nervous system - releasing large amounts of epinephrine and norepinephrine - the later which i have a problem with because it stays in my system longer than it should - but nothing dangerous or anything.

[Rev]

yes i think shrooms are safe

particularly if its a tea rather than eating the solids
all Bm says
shrooms are the safest of all halucinogens on the toxicology side

they can cause a general malaise afterwards, or sinus congestion, or kidney 'fullness'

my opinion on that is that its your fault for having treated your body so bad before the shrooms.
a clean body deals with them fine
if you re out of shape r contaminated the shrooms will bring it to attention. a purging.

do the exercise
empty your gut
get it toned
drink plenty of fresh water to cleanse

and you wont get the hangover

shrooms are to me the best medic you can find. they will tell you in no unceratin terms waht you have done wrong by yourself and what to do about it. listen to them
Aya and chewed sally can help the same. maybe aya is for deeepr cleaning and chewed sally for leswser but powerful maintenace
i say no one lives forever bt if you cant keep the hardware in good nick then how do you expect to be around for all life has to reveal?

This post has been edited by Rev: 01 May 2006 - 08:21 PM

[willy wanker]

thanks a lot for really good comments.

I've combed the net for days trying to find the definite answer, but haven't found it.
There are a few suggestions that psilicybine and psilocin aren't toxic, but other chemicals in shrooms can be potentially harmfull( some suggest it's them which are responsible for stomach cramps and vomiting and spiking in liver enzymes). Also, in some recent medical publicatioons it's been suggested shrooms are detrimental to the heart muscle.

Anyway, that's just stuff which will probably make most users yawn...I was just curious. I think what Rev said knoked it on the head for me: I should probably look at detox more seriously and then try again.

Thanks once again.

[strangebrew]

Any pains felt afterwards are due to accumulated wind pain. Before I knew better I often used to get pains around the kidney area for a few days and used to worry about it.

One year I mentioned it to my doc and he just gave me some antacids and I've never had any further trouble after taking them. The funny thing was according to his records I'd mentioned the same problem to him EXACTLY a year ago when visiting him for something else. He thought it was quite a coincidence but I didn't. I always loved the Queen's birthday weekend! :D

This post has been edited by strangebrew: 06 May 2006 - 04:09 PM

[teonanacatl]

there was a journal article about possible toxicity in hallucinogenic mushrooms due to mycotoxins i was looking for but it was in another language and i couldnt make sense of it. that said given the large number of people who consume them with no illeffects i think if any mycotoxins are present their effects are hardly significant.

[occidentalis]

willy wanker, on May 2 2006, 10:34 AM, said:

Also, in some recent medical publicatioons it's been suggested shrooms are detrimental to the heart muscle.

This is apparently the case in people with a particular heart condition. Some form of coronary myopathy. But doesn't seem to be the case for most people.

As for hepatotoxicity, there was a report on this site a while ago about people who suffered liver problems after IVing shroom juice or some kind of extract, can't remember. See if you can dig it up.

[Rev]

Quote

As for hepatotoxicity, there was a report on this site a while ago about people who suffered liver problems after IVing shroom juice or some kind of extract,

yikes
i know a gy who IV'd shroom juice and was found making cave paintings on the toilet walls with his own excrement some hours later

not a recomended mode of consumption

[teonanacatl]

yeah those guys spent ages in hospital with infections and shit. natural selection:S

[whiterasta]

A link to folks who have taken extreme doses without renal or hepatic impairment, or it would seem mental either
http://www.shroomery.../gonew/1#UNREAD
Fungi are some of the safest forms of sacrament available to man
WR

This post has been edited by whiterasta: 07 May 2006 - 11:53 AM

[spiders]

WR - 'You moderate a forum which talks about injecting "shroom juice"'

Indeed I do - but Im surprised you'd want to bring your discussion on your mushroom dosage over here, since you were using this thread to discredit me only a minute earlier...

[whiterasta]

bluemeanie, on May 7 2006, 01:12 PM, said:

WR - 'You moderate a forum which talks about injecting "shroom juice"'

Indeed I do - but Im surprised you'd want to bring your discussion on your mushroom dosage over here, since you were using this thread to discredit me only a minute earlier...

Discredit ,no, point out your focused hostility toword me, yes
Ciao,
WR

[Archaea]

I have read that a lot of people are allergic to cubensis, but that has to do with psilocybin and its relatives which are safer compounds than caffeine and aspirin. Such allergies do not often hold true for other fungi but can occur. The single death related to ingestion of these mushrooms that I can find, ( the guy died of respiratory failure after eating liberty caps in Europe) does not seem to be related to the pharmacology of psilocybin.

A lot of propaganda exists but many legitimate studies have been done and none have found that psilocybin mushrooms are detrimental to health, rather the opposite has been found in a few cases.