Peyote

Tetracyclines are one of the antibiotics widely employed worldwide and frequently detected in surface waters because of incomplete removal from wastewater treatment. Various advanced oxidation processes have been investigated for tetracyclines degradation and their transformation products (TPs) have recently gained more attention. Studies on ozonation are however seldom for the degradation of oxytetracycline (OTC) and doxycycline (DTC). In the present study, a lower O3 inlet gas concentration (4.67 ± 0...

AIMS: Information on time trends in use of different plant-based hallucinogens is lacking. The current study used nationally representative U.S. data to assess overall and age-specific time trends in the prevalence of lifetime and 12-month use of plant-based hallucinogens and dissociative agents. METHODS: Participants were respondents aged ≥ 12 years (N = 1,006,051) from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2002-2019. Predictors were continuous years...

Tobacco use is the single largest cause of preventable death worldwide, but none of the established treatments aimed at smoking cessation work for a majority of smokers. As such, there is an urgent need for interventions capable of reliably treating nicotine addiction. The use of classic psychedelics has been associated with lower odds of many forms of substance dependence. Here we tested whether lifetime use of classic psychedelics (tryptamine, lysergamide, and phenethylamine) is associated with lower odds of current nicotine dependence...

Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a major source of morbidity and mortality in the U.S. and there is a pressing need to identify additional treatments for the disorder. Classic psychedelics (psilocybin, peyote, mescaline, LSD) have been linked to the alleviation of various substance use disorders and may hold promise as potential treatments for OUD. The aim of this study was to assess whether the aforementioned classic psychedelic substances conferred lowered odds of OUD. Furthermore, this study aimed to replicate and extend findings from Pisano et al...

BACKGROUND: The United States boasts the largest prison population in the world, conferring significant direct and indirect costs (e.g. lost wages for the incarcerated, increased morbidity/mortality, etc.) to society. Recidivism rates are high for the imprisoned and most interventions to reduce criminality are minimally effective. Thus, in addition to the need for criminal justice reform, there is a need to better understand factors linked to lowered criminal behavior. AIM: The aim of this study was to assess the relationships between the use of classic psychedelic substances (psilocybin, LSD, peyote, and mescaline) and past year arrests for various crimes (i...

BACKGROUND: Depression is a major mental health issue worldwide, with high rates of chronicity and non-recovery associated with the condition. Existing treatments such as antidepressant medication and psychological treatments have modest effectiveness, suggesting the need for alternative interventions. AIM: The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine)/ecstasy and psilocybin use and major depressive episodes (MDEs)...

BACKGROUND: Medicine is currently experiencing a "psychedelic renaissance", said by many to have commenced in 2006. Since then, clinical trials have consistently demonstrated promising findings for psychedelic-assisted therapies in the treatment of various mental health conditions and addictions. While most of this work has been privately funded, governmental biomedical research funding bodies in countries such as Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom have begun supporting it...

Background: Serotonergic psychedelics (SPs) like LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and mescaline are a heterogeneous group of substances that share agonism at 5-HT2a receptors. Besides the ability of these substances to facilitate profoundly altered states of consciousness, persisting psychological effects have been reported after single administrations, which outlast the acute psychedelic effects. In this review and meta-analysis, we investigated if repeated SP use associates with a characteristic neuropsychological profile indicating persisting effects on neuropsychological function...

Citrate is widely used as a food additive being part of virtually all processed foods. Although considered inert by most of the regulatory agencies in the world, plasma citrate has been proposed to play immunometabolic functions in multiple tissues through altering a plethora of cellular pathways. Here, we used a short-term alimentary intervention (24 hours) with standard chow supplemented with citrate in amount corresponding to that found in processed foods to evaluate its effects on glucose homeostasis and liver physiology in C57BL/6J mice...

Cardiometabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, have enormous impact on modern societies worldwide. Excess nutritional burden and nutri-stress together with sedentary lifestyles lead to these diseases. Deranged glucose, fat, and energy metabolism is at the center of nutri-stress, and glycolysis-derived glycerol-3-phosphate (Gro3P) is at the crossroads of these metabolic pathways. Cellular levels of Gro3P can be controlled by its synthesis, utilization or hydrolysis...

Commonly, false peyote refers to Lophophora diffusa . However, several other unrelated cacti go by this colloquial name. They either resemble "true" peyote, Lophophora williamsii , or are found in similar habitats. To date, over 40 different alkaloids have been isolated from the Lophophora genus. Of these, only the pharmacological actions of mescaline ( 1 ) have been extensively investigated. The major alkaloid in L. diffusa is pellotine ( 2 ), a tetrahydroisoquinoline (THIQ), which was briefly marketed as a sleeping aid around the beginning of the 20th century, following reports of its hypnotic properties in humans...

Background: One of the main public health strategies adopted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic consisted of implementing strict lockdowns to stop the transmission of the virus. Despite being an effective measure, the confinement and the associated social isolation create a stressful, potentially lengthy situations that has been proven to have several psychological consequences. Given the potential benefits that certain psychedelic drugs have shown for the treatment of psychological disorders, this study aimed to assess the impact of lifetime psychedelic drug use on mental health in relation to the first strict lockdown adopted by various countries (April-July 2020)...

Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) plays an important role in cholesterol homeostasis by promoting the degradation of the LDL receptor (LDLR). PCSK9 loss-of-function mutations are associated with increased fasting plasma glucose levels and slightly elevated risk of type 2-diabetes. Considering the known detrimental effects of cholesterol accumulation in β-cell, and the widespread use of PCSK9 inhibitors to treat hypercholesterolemia, it is important to gain insight into the role of pancreatic PCSK9 in glucose homeostasis and β-cell function...

BACKGROUND: Mescaline is a naturally occurring psychoactive phenethylamine found in several cacti and historically used ceremonially by Indigenous and Latin American populations. Broader recognition of its possible therapeutic value in Western science began in the 1950s; however, knowledge of the safety profile of mescaline and the extent of its use remains limited. The primary aim of this study is to examine the epidemiology of mescaline use among English-speaking adults. METHODS: About 452 respondents completed a web-based survey designed to assess their previous experience with mescaline (subjective effects, outcome measures, and mescaline type used)...

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Initial interest in the value of psychedelic drugs ("psychotomimetics") in psychiatry began in the early 20th century, with explorations of the possibility that mescaline or peyote could produce psychosis-like effects. Over time, interest was focused on whether the effects of psychedelics could inform as to the underlying basis for psychiatric disorders. As research continued, and especially after the discovery of LSD in 1943, increasing interest in a role for psychedelics as adjuncts to psychotherapy began to evolve and became the major focus of work with psychedelics up to the present day...

Enhanced energy expenditure in brown (BAT) and white adipose tissues (WAT) can be therapeutic against metabolic diseases. We examined the thermogenic role of adipose α/β-hydrolase domain 6 (ABHD6), which hydrolyzes monoacylglycerol (MAG), by employing adipose-specific ABHD6-KO mice. Control and KO mice showed similar phenotypes at room temperature and thermoneutral conditions. However, KO mice were resistant to hypothermia, which can be accounted for by the simultaneously increased lipolysis and lipogenesis of the thermogenic glycerolipid/free fatty acid (GL/FFA) cycle in visceral fat, despite unaltered uncoupling protein 1 expression...

Paraphrasing the Swiss physician and father of toxicology Paracelsus (1493-1541) on chemical agents used as therapeutics, "the dose makes the poison," it is now realized that this aptly applies to the calorigenic nutrients. The case here is the pancreatic islet β-cell presented with excessive levels of nutrients such as glucose, lipids, and amino acids. The short-term effects these nutrients exert on the β-cell are enhanced insulin biosynthesis and secretion and changes in glucose sensitivity. However, chronic fuel surfeit triggers additional compensatory and adaptive mechanisms by β-cells to cope with the increased insulin demand or to protect itself...

It is fitting that the 100th anniversary of the Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology celebrates not only its founding but also the founding of experimental pharmacology as both had their beginnings in Germany. Founded in 1919 by Arthur Heffter (1859-1925) as the "Handbuch der Experimentellen Pharmakologie" and renamed to its current title in 1937, the Handbook has continued to capture the emergence and developments of experimental pharmacology since the initial systematic work of Rudolf Buchheim and his student Oswald Schmiedeberg...

Unregulated cacti from the genus Echinopsis are used recreationally as mescaline-containing alternatives to the outlawed peyote. Echinopsis-derived plant materials appear in a variety of nondescript forms, making rapid assessment of whether they are mescaline-containing materials or simply innocuous plant-derived food products, very challenging. Reported here is a DART-HRMS approach for the rapid detection of mescaline in whole plant material and a validated method for the quantification of mescaline in cactus tissue, using mescaline-d9 as the internal standard...