The Use of Ayahuasca - Research Paper Example

? Health Effects of Ayahuasca Health Effects of Ayahuasca This paper will provide an extensive literature review of peer-reviewed articles concerning the use of ayahuasca, a Brazilian customary brew for Santo Daime religion. For some time, scientists have embarked on establishing the potential health risks that the use of ayahuasca poses to its users. From the literature review, the psychopharmacological effects of the different componenst of the brew become evident. In addition, the paper also highlights the behavioral profiles of users of ayahuasca. The paper finally draws conclusions based on the evidences in the experimental research and literature review. Ayahuasca is a common term to religions such as the Santo Daime that have adherents in Brazil, Europe, and the United States of America. The ayahuasca is a beverage associated with spiritual strength, taken by all the adherents of the Santo Daime religion. An interpretation of ayahuasca denotes the essence of a ‘vine of the soul’. This religion holds onto the customary preparation of the beverage from Banisteriopsis caapi vine as a beta-carboline rich plant and the Psychotria viridis that is highly hallucinogenic. The leaves and bark of the vine tree are important constituents of the brew that causes a unique spiritual awakening and rebirth. The Santo Daime relies on the ayahuasca as a drink that leads them to the right tracks spiritually. The religion has its roots in Brazil after its foundation by Raimundo Serra. The use of ayahuasca as a central part of religion has drawn concerns from, different scientists. The cause of concern is the revelation that the beverage adored by the Santo Daime has di-methyltryptamine (DMT), a pharmacological ingredient that has psychedelic properties. Psychologists have ventured into the analysis of the pharmacological effects of the drug following the proven psychoactive characteristics of related substances. This paper will present a literature review on the effects of DMT. Psychopharmacology of DMT as the Active Ingredient in Ayahuasca N, N- dimethyltryptamine underwent analysis and identified as hallucinogenic in 1956 (Pellerin & Seefelt, 1998). Its presence in several genera in the plant kingdom is evident. Some experts argue that the substance proves inactive even after consumption of high doses ranging above 1000mg. However, intramuscular doses of DMT prove to cause activity that surpasses the threshold level in does of 30 mg. In higher doses, the substance presents an increased level of psychedelic properties. Experimental pharmacological studies reveal that DMT has unique features. These features include the speed at which the psychoactive effects begin. After five minutes of administration of the dose, there is an increase in heartbeat, dilation of pupils, and increased blood pressure. According to pharmacologists, an intoxication results as a full manifestation of the effects of DMT. The substance causes neurological stimulations and physical changes. Scientists have ventured into studying the effects of the DMT in order to determine whether ayahuasca has any side effects on the Santo Daime adherents. The review of findings from different studies into the issue will elaborate on the pharmacological effects of DMT available in ayahuasca. Barbanoj et al (2007) sought to establish the potential effects of DMT in the body of men who had been using other psychedelic substances. These authors have prior knowledge that ayahuasca contained DMT and beta carboline alkaloids that possessed monoamine oxidase-inhibiting characteristics. These features accounted for the activity of orally ingested DMT. The authors had noted that DMT formed interactions with serotonergic neurotransmission and acted as an agonist of several receptors. An understanding of the role played by serotonin in the body was cause enough for the authors to establish the potential effect of DMT. Some men volunteered for the study had used hallucinogens previously. The authors considered some parameters such as polysomnography (PSG), sleeping quality, and spectral analysis. The authors describe the wider use of ayahuasca in many congregations of a religious group thus holding it as sacred sacrament. The research sought to compare the effects of daytime administration of the ayahuasca with a control group of amphetamine. The research preferred the use of amphetamine because it registers similar features of stimulation as ayahuasca (Barbanoj et al, 2007). Additionally, a shared feature is the inhibition of waking. However, the fact that amphetamine lacks psychedelic properties associated with ayahuasca. The researches predicted that ayahuasca would cause a decline of sleep initiation, subjective quality, and maintenance that was evident in amphetamine. In addition, prior to study, the authors suspected that ayahuasca would cause rapid eye movement and slow-wave sleep. Prior to research, the men received an orientation of the laboratory in which the experiment would take place. The study required the men to avoid intake of any illicit drugs and substances that had the potential of causing changes to their sleep patterns. In addition, it was advisable for volunteers to maintain regular sleep patterns two weeks prior to the experiment. In order to establish the effects of ayahuasca, the researchers used three sets of drugs. Some men received a physiologically inactive placebo, with others receiving a dose of amphetamine. The rest of the men received samples of ayahuasca capsules prepared for this experiment. In this study, double blinding applied because neither the experimenter nor the participants had knowledge on which of the participants formed the control or the placebo group. As a result, the experiment was without bias. The double –blinding procedure was random, and the study had features of crossover studies (Barbanoj et al, 2007). The experiment had three sessions. During each of these sessions, each of the participants received a dose of one of the three drug preparations. The results from this research reveal that ayahuasca presented multiple psychedelic effects similar to those displayed by amphetamine. These include modulations in rapid eye movement and short wave sleep indicating that ayahuasca interacts actively with the brain resulting to these changes. Other psychoactive effects include changes in polysomnography (PSG) and sleep power spectrum. Psychological Symptoms An additional research proved by Riba et al (2006), supports the fact that ayahuasca causes psychopharmacology. Just like in the experiment described above, this study relied on volunteers who had used other drugs in the past. The researchers used double blinding in order to minimize bias. The experimental design was similar to that adopted in Babanoj et al (2008). Urinalysis tests confirmed that the participants had refrained from the use of illicit drugs two weeks prior to the study, as this would interfere with results. The participants received dosages of either placebo or the ayahuasca capsules. This study established that the beverage used by the Santo Daime religion presents psychedelic effects in six scales similar to other psychedelic drugs. These effects are subjective included somaethesia, affect, cognition, intensity, volition, and perception. In addition, ayahuasca resulted to a marked increase in blood flow in the forebrain region. The neocortical and paralimbic areas of the forebrain presented evidence of ayahuasca influence. However, the most significant effect was in the right anterior insula, the left amygdale, and the frontal gyrus. These authors confirmed that ayahuasca has numerous effects in activation of different parts of the brain (Riba et al, 2006). Risk assessment Gable (2006) sought to determine whether the use of ayahuasca presented new health risks. A prompt to establish the risk posed by ayahuasca came after the U.S Supreme Court had to determine a case involving the use of the beverage by Santo Daime adherents. This study combined literature review with interviews from some of the customary users of ayahuasca. Consequently, this research embarked on establishing any future harm resulting from the use of the ayahuasca. This research highlighted a new finding concerning the content of DMT in the dry weight of P. viridis that users of ayahuasca combine with B. caapi in the preparation of their sacrament. Gable highlighted that DMT content shifted from 3mg/g to 9.5mg/g in the leaves of P. viridis within the course of the day. The author highlighted the health hazards of DMT from a broad perspective considering insufficiency of available literature concerning the issue (Gable, 2006). This literature review highlighted the difference between the injected DMT and the oral administration common among users. It became evident that injected DMT caused the highest physiological effect rapidly and the peak occurred in the initial ten minutes after injection. In oral administration in combination with MAOs, the substance projects its physiological effects in 60-120m minutes. There is a possibility that DMT presents similar lethal dose values that are close to the lethal dose presented by structurally similar drugs. This conclusion comes from the comparison of DMT with serotonin, psilocin, bufotenin, and psilocybin. The extensive review of previous findings showed that the majority of the customary users combine DMT with harmaline, harmine and tetrahydroharmine as beta carboline alkaloids that render DMT active in oral usage. According to Gable (2006), it proves untenable to apply data from rodents to humans in most of the cases. However, it becomes the possible to make predictions of a drug that has proved lethal in rodents to humans through the shift of some parameters. For example, ten fold weight adjustments must come into place because of the immense weight difference between the rodents and humans. Through the effective scaling down the data from rodents to humans, it becomes evident that 1.6mg/kg of an intravenous dose presents potential lethality in humans with 20% sensitivity to DMT. However, since oral dosages prove to have lower bioavailability than intravenous injections, the intravenous dosed scales down to 1.0mg/kg oral equivalent. The oral dose equivalent presents increases blood pressure and heart rate in users. High oral doses present high psychedelic effects. 1.6mg/kg intravenous dose is the median lethal dose. Conversion into the oral equivalent brings the dose to 8mg/kg, which translates to 560 mg in average weight individuals with about 70 kilograms. Gable (2010) applied this logic and predicted the safety margin for DMT as 20.7 after comparison of the lethal dose in an adult with the 27mg that is the content of DMT in the majority of ceremonial doses. From Gable’s analysis, it becomes evident that very high doses of the ayahuasca brew exceeding the concentration taken in religious settings may result to cardiac stress and death may result from motor tremors. Psychological effects may result from the normal doses that ceremonial users consume, but these do not make individuals lose conscience or the connection they have with the environment. Behavioral Profile of Ayahuasca Users Freedland and his colleagues sought to establish how ayahuasca influences behavior. They needed a specific analysis of the B. caapi potential to alter behavior. The research also sought to carry out a comparison between the effects of the beta-carbolines with the main component harmine. Previous studies reveal that harmine has the potential to cause behavioral changes.The tests employed in the study had the potential of assessing the sensory, motor integrity and autonomic changes in experimental mice. These researchers revealed that beta-carbolines available in the B.caapi component in the ayahuasca mixture, act as MAO inhibitors enhancing the activity of DMT that would prove inactive without the MAO inhibition. These beta carbolines also contribute to other interactions with different parts of the brain that result to multiple behavioral changes. However, the inhibition of monoamine oxidases by beta carbolines presents a dietary risk. Physicians advise a stringent dietary restriction during the use of MAO inhibitors. Any food substance containing tyramine results to a hypertensive reaction because the boy lacks the capacity of metabolizing the dietary tyramine, a pathway that utilizes the MAOs. Therefore, ayahuasca users risk adverse effects of hypertensive tyramine reactions (Freedland, and Mansbach, 1999) Sensory Motor Effects Santos (2011) and his colleagues confirmed that ayahuasca has the potential to cause a significant level of subjective and neurophysiologic effect that exceeded those presented by a positive control amphetamine. The study involved a double-blinded administration of the ayahuasca freeze-dried capsules similar to those in the studies described above, a placebo or a dose of amphetamine. The experiment ascertained that ayahuasca presents similar effects as amphetamine. However, authors established that ayahuasca presented higher levels of activity than amphetamine as other studies had indicated. This study summarized the effects of ayahuasca as increased levels of neuroendocrine stimulation, modulations on cell-mediated immunity and symphathomimetic changes in moderation (Santos et al, 2011). The Non-Scientific Experience of Ayahuasca The ceremonial users of ayahuasca often experience a unique feeling. In the first few minutes, they vomit a symbolic result of getting rid of the eminent evil spirits. The individual then experiences new realms of the spiritual world. Individuals using the beverage confess that it presents them with the capacity to communicate with superior individuals in the spiritual world and receive spiritual instruction. Users often experience a loss of some aspects of consciousness. This loss accounts for the shift to spiritual consciousness according to the confession of users. Synthesis of the Literature Reviewed All the authors tried to establish whether ayahuasca poses any health risks to the customary users. The articles provide explanations for the psychological effects of the beverage on its users. In addition, the authors highlight the specific effects and interactions that occur in the body. All the authors highlight the potential psychopharmacological effects of DMT, but mention that when taken orally, the beta carbolines of B. caapi often enhance the activity of DMT present in P.viridis. The findings in each article help build the bigger picture of the potential effects of ayahuasca. Except the case for Gable who relied on literature review, the other authors carried out a study on volunteers in order to establish the psychopharmacology and behavioral effects of ayahuasca. Double –blinding was a common factor in all the experiments and this makes the findings more reliable because of the elimination of bias. In other cases, authors utilized amphetamine as a positive control in order to establish the measurable differences of the effects of the placebo and ayahuasca. Therefore, the articles present evidence that ayahuasca has the potential to cause multiple changes in the systems of the user. The effects depend largely on the dosage level. The leaders of Santo Daime usually take more of the beverage and this translates to the increased level of psychological effect that they project. Lethal doses would require an individual to take more than 280mg/kg of DMT. Since most preparations in the customary cases only contribute to 27mg/kg, there is broad safety margin of 20.7% among users. The effects of the beverage appear to hit the peak activity in 1-2 hours in oral doses and individuals return to normal after 24 hours. The presence of beta carbolines that inhibit monoamine oxidases presents a dietary challenge for the users as their bodies lose the capacity to metabolize tyramine. Ayahuasca has many psychedelic that can cause adverse effects in high doses although substantial evidence of acute lethality in humans is still lacking. Future research will probably provide solutions to the existing gaps concerning the use of ayahuasca. For now, the adherents Santo Daime will continue to use ayahuasca as a sacrament because the there is lack of evidence of lethal cases of the brew. However, it is evident that the brew causes multiple interactions that result to the psychological experiences of the users. The effects of the mixture continue to draw the interest of researchers and the future may bring along new lines of evidence concerning the use of ayahuasca and any health risks to the individual. References Barbanoj, J. et al. (2007). Daytime Ayahuasca administration modulates REM and slow-wave sleep in healthy volunteers. Psychopharmacology, 196(2008), 315-326. Freedland, C. and Mansbach,R. (1999). Behavioral profile of constituents in ayahuasca, an Amazonian psychoactive plant mixture. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 54(1999), 183-194. Gable, S. (2006). Risk assessment of ritual use of oral dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and Harmala alkaloids. Journal Compilation, Society for the Study of Addition, 102, 24-34. Pellerin, C. & Seefelt, E. L. (1998). Trips: How Hallucinogens Work in Your Brain. London: Seven Stories Press. Riba, J. et al. (2006). Increased frontal and paralimbic activation following ayahuasca, the pan-amazonian inebriant. Psychopharmacology, 186(2006), 93-98. Santos et al. (2011). Autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immunological effects of ayahuasca; A Comparative study with d-Amphetamine. Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, 31(6), 717-726. Read More