Danger: Covid-19 and use of psychedelics

[Egzoset]

Well we wouldn’t want all those people getting high from your weed now would we.

Maybe not if they're all confusing the substance with its consumption method & associated ritual, not to mention numerous 3rd-party vilification vectors... Which is the usual initiation scenario: to learn systematic dosing abuse + vilification 1st then eventually whine around that dame Cannabis kicked their sorry butt.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

So, back to the cytokines. It seems that most psychedelics, particularly DOI (which, incidentally, hardly anyone uses because it lasts for 2 days) inhibit cytokine production - possibly with the notable exception of peyote. Inhibition of the cytokine response plays an important part in how SARS-CoV-2 takes over and kills the cells it infects.

Nichols reported 'preliminary results' involving 'a psychedelic'; until we see these results published and find out which psychedelic was tested the statement has a scientific value of an anecdote. Once we are able to place this result into its proper context - especially the relative efficacy of cytokine inhibition of the psychedelic that was used - things will become clearer.

However: Nichols' warning not to use psychedelics if you're infected with SARS-CoV-2 is most definitely prudent and should be heeded!
*It would also be reckless to assume that peyote represented an exception to this warning.*

Quite reasonably, Nichols must have felt a responsibility to notify here - especially in light of the regret he feels regarding the fatalities that occurred once the N-BOMe compounds escaped the lab.

 

[endlessness]

Who has contact with Nichols? I would REALLY like to know what psychedelics were tested, at what amounts, what kind of cells.. Also would be interesting to ask about harmalas, and if there's any potential benefit as discussed here

downwardsfromzero, (EDIT ) can you please talk more about your reasoning for cytokine inhibition being negative?

For example, take this: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30628-0/fulltext

it says

in hyperinflammation, immunosuppression is likely to be beneficial. Re-analysis of data from a phase 3 randomised controlled trial of IL-1 blockade (anakinra) in sepsis, showed significant survival benefit in patients with hyperinflammation, without increased adverse events.8
A multicentre, randomised controlled trial of tocilizumab (IL-6 receptor blockade, licensed for cytokine release syndrome), has been approved in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and elevated IL-6 in China (ChiCTR2000029765)

so wouldnt it be beneficial in hyperinflamation to have a cytokine inhibitor? Or maybe it would be beneficial only in later stages of the disease if the hyperinflamation becomes an issue?

Seems harmala also inhibit cytokines:

Harmine activates intrinsic and extrinsic pathways of apoptosis in B16F-10 melanoma - Chinese Medicine

Background Harmine is a beta-carboline alkaloid from the plant Peganum harmala. Previous studies found that harmine inhibited metastasis of B16F-10 melanoma cells. This study aims to elucidate the role of harmine in apoptosis of B16F-10 cells. Methods B16F-10 melanoma cells were treated in the...

cmjournal.biomedcentral.com

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Homa_Davoodi/publication/278029549_Anti-mycobacterial_and_anti-inflammatory_activity_of_Peganum_harmala/links/557a5db108aeacff2003d359/Anti-mycobacterial-and-anti-inflammatory-activity-of-Peganum-harmala.pdf

 

[downwardsfromzero]

do you know anything about harmalas efect on cytokine production?

No, but I'm looking into the literature. There must exist further work on the mechanism behind the reported antiviral properties of harmalas.


If anyone knows anything about the mechanism of peyote' reported cytokine induction, I'd be delighted to hear. There's a fair possibility that isoquinolines might be responsible for this, seeing how isoquinolines are to phenethylamines as betacarbolines are to tryptamines. Just as a thought.


Edit: I see you've updated your post.

Tbh, I'm feeling a bit out of my depth now! The factors that this subject hinges on have become highly technical, and also I would point you back to my first post in this thread, where the diversity of the group loosely called cytokines was noted. Not all cytokines are inflammatory.

I'm just attempting to interpret and share information that appears important but am considering now just not saying anything at all instead. Maybe I should reduce the font size in the middle of that last post?

Really, we need to know which substance was used in the in vitro test Nichols was referring to, and what exactly was meant by "ramps up the virus". To answer your question about my reasoning, it applies to the initial stages of infection that inflammatory cytokine supression would weaken the immune response to the virus. Once a patient reached the stage where cytokine storm it seems unlikely they'd be in a position to consider being administered a classical psychedelic.

When it comes to the latter stages of a severe case, ramping down the inflammatory cytokines could prove to be a lifesaver. This appears to be the rationale behind the use of tocilizumab that you mentioned. However, tocilizumab is a monoclonal antibody and as such treatment would be fairly expensive. This would be quite advantageous to those who produce the stuff, to have it pushed as the lifesaver for severe CoVID19 cases. Thus, I can quite understand the appeal of a potential cheap, orally active alternative such as harmalas, especially given that "no randomized prospective trial has provided direct evidence of IL-6R blockade reducing incidence or severity of CRS."

(This is also making me wonder how the observed age-related decline in cytokine production correlates with the age-related increase in mortality rate. Such a lot of reading to do now!)

 

[nen888]

downwardsfromzero wrote:

Really, we need to know which substance was used in the in vitro test Nichols was referring to, and what exactly was meant by "ramps up the virus".

..yes..while I appreciate Nichols may have concern, i find lack of clarification troublesome..
why has he not shared the data? ..or at least what 'pyschedelic'..this is surely not the time for clutching at academic confidentiality prior to publishing, at a time when virus sequences etc are rapidly being shared..i can't see any justification for witholding more detail..and the mechanisms between for instance mescaline and dmt are very different..this lack of forthcoming further information concerns me..what kind of cell? etc
..this is not a time to generate yet more fear through confusion and lack of clarity

on another note, in plants like species of acacia which have been found to have anti viral activity, and also potentially 'psychedelics', like dmt, the anti viral action is most likely not related to the tryptamines, but other compounds present (eg terpines, phenols, flavonoids, beta carbolines etc), so we cannot extrapolate findings with single compounds to whole plants, or whole plant brews..there is a lot of action and counter action to whatever 'psychedelic' is present..

also, as others mentioned, the anti viral activity of harmalas will hopefully get more attention in research

..safety and caution are paramount..but so is clear information

 

[RhythmSpring]

I tripped on mushrooms this morning. I live in an area that most definitely has Covid-19 floating in the air.

I coughed. I got worried. So I drank a bunch of water and moved around (recommendations from a friend who had it and got through it).

It passed. I meditated.

Drinking water may not directly kill the virus but it sure does help the body do what it needs to do.

We're all (or at least 70% of us) going to carry this virus at one point or another. Viruses are in us all the time. We need to stop being afraid of the air we breathe due to some purification narrative (Holocaust, anyone?) and embrace the responsibility of keeping ourselves resilient in an ultimately uncontrollable landscape.

My two cents.

 

[Loveall]

Anyone else trip under COVID-19 or COVID-19 suspicion? The info so far on the warning is incredibly cryptic, so maybe some user data can help (not scientific but we have nothing else to go on at this time).

 

[DeeMenTalist]

Loveall, I took 250µ of LSD 2 weeks ago(also same amount in February). I`m alive and feel great. :d

 

[antares]

While I can't comment on psychedelics and Covid, I certainly think it's not a good idea to take anything by the inhalational route when Covid is spreading like wild fire. Most inhaled foreign substances regardless of origin or type provoke an inflammatory reaction which might normally be a minor issue but in the current situation could potentially hamper your lung's defence mechanisms from dealing with the invading pathogen appropriately.

Best to play it safe and avoid smoking or vaping if you do feel the need to take a trip into your mind during the quarantine period.

 

[ms_manic_minxx]

I didn't go to med school, but you can search for pubmed studies on covid, IL-6, and cytokine storms if this is a subject that interests you. (*r/covid19 is a peer-reviewed studies-only sub if you need some quick and dirty reading.) Some people have cautioned that not all herbal antivirals are appropriate for attempting to treat covid, if they upregulate IL-6, which is linked to cytokine storm fatalities.

Elderberry is cautioned against as a treatment for covid because of this. There is speculation as to whether or not curcumin supplementation would do this, too. There have even been conflicting recommendations on the use of ibuprofen out of caution because we don't yet understand why some people go into fatal cytokine storms and others do not.

Anecdotally: lucky me, I have covid. I thought I was in the clear 18 days after the onset of my symptoms. I indulged in a wee 4mg of oral THC. I was fucked up royally all night, felt very, very badwrong and ill. The only other time I felt so awful taking something was when I misplaced a decimal point when smoking harmalas (whoops :!: ).

After a brutal night of tripping on basically nothing, I relapsed and was sick all over again (10 days later and still going). It's possible I would have relapsed anyway and that it had nothing to do with tripping, but my experience was that even a small amount of something benign was just WAY too much for my body to handle and I should have invested 100% of that energy in resting and healing. My body was not ready for that at ALL.

On the bright side, covid might make you trip anyway. When the chills started, I had hallucinations of fruit rotting, my cat decomposing, bodies covered in exploding pustles, turning into black ash and decaying. Heard weird nintendo sounds pinging around my head. I would have been way more alarmed by all of this if I hadn't done drugs. Thank god all of my training paid off. :thumb_up:

Before I got sick, I said to myself that if I were on my deathbed, I would pull some Caapi out of the freezer as a last resort.

After my personal experience with how horrible this virus is, and reading about all of the unknown aspects of interplay between body & virus, it's really not an experiment worth dying for. Cytokine storms just don't happen in the lungs, they can happen in the heart, the kidneys, and the brain. I had to go on corticosteroids for probable heart inflammation. (And you know what else was interesting about the steroids? Anti-inflammatories stopped my hallucinations.)

There's a lot of emerging information that covid may affect the brainstem/brain in a subset of patients. There are similarities between acute mountain sickness (which can include cerebral edema) and covid. There was the first confirmed case of encephalitis with covid recently, and lots of medical professionals in NYC are making social media noise about patients presenting with neurological symptoms. tl;dr? Probably not a good idea to see if tripping balls will ease a potential inflammation of the brain.

Other coronaviruses have crossed the blood brain barrier.

Yet something else to consider: drugs that depress breathing can be fatal with pneumonia. Caapi sounds like not a good idea in this situation to me.

I just don't see any potential benefit in taking a maverick risk when there are so many unknowns, and many proposed pathways for things to go horribly awry.

Stay safe, my friends.

 

[dragonrider]

I'm sorry to hear about your covid-19 infection miss m.m.

It is also my experience that cannabis that is high in THC can weaken the immunesystem. But this is not realy surprising, given that cannabis supresses cytokines. This is even one of the mechanisms behind it's anti-inflammatory effects and effectivity against auto-immune related illnesses.

Another thing about psychedelics: some psychedelics, such as DMT, increase levels of cortisol. Another immuno suppressing mechanism.

 

[Jagube]

I don't know about harmine, but:

The in vitro exposure to either ibogaine or harmaline resulted in a dose-related suppression of all immune functions examined except macrophage function. This suppression was noted at various concentrations in different assays, but was generally only associated with high concentrations (10-100 mumol/l).

Comparison of the hallucinogenic indole alkaloids ibogaine and harmaline for potential immunomodulatory activity - PubMed

The immunomodulatory potential of the indole alkaloids ibogaine and harmaline was examined in a panel of in vitro immune function assays. These assays were chosen to assess T-cell regulatory and effector function, B-cell function, macrophage function, and natural killer-cell function. The in...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[EphemeralTruth]

Anyone else trip under COVID-19 or COVID-19 suspicion? The info so far on the warning is incredibly cryptic, so maybe some user data can help (not scientific but we have nothing else to go on at this time).

I did a 4.5g mushroom trip on Sunday. As I was coming down, someone on the first floor of my 3 floor apartment got taken away in an ambulence... I didn't even know they were sick. We share the same front door, unfortunately.

Anyway, by that evening I started feeling fatigue, flush, a noticeably constricting throat, and some bronchial pain. It got slightly worse through yesterday with some noticeable chest constriction. Today it's feeling slightly better... but it kind of comes in waves of feeling better and then worse again in the evenings.

I'm in my 30's and very healthy and in strong physical shape. I don't know if it's COVID or not, but it's a strange kind of deep fatigue that feels like my body is fighting something serious in the background. Maybe it's totally coincidental that it started the same day as my mushroom trip, but I would be semi-careful if you think you've been exposed. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known about the person downstairs beforehand.

Also anecdotally, oral THC has mostly masked these symptoms and hasn't made anything worse. I haven't done any vaping since I started feeling lung symptoms. I'm also a big believer in Curcumin and am taking 4 tablets a day, as well as 4g vitamin C and Umcka tablets... I normally think of Curcumin as a very powerful supplement against illness, but the cytokine storm warning is concerning. :|

Stay safe everyone.

 

[universecannon]

Curcumin seems to lower IL-6 in some studies, so I'm hoping it turns out to be useful. Harmine as well but I haven't dug deep into it yet "Harmine markedly averted inflammatory damage of the lung, and decreased serum TNF-α, interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and IL-6 levels. Our data indicate that harmine may exert the anti-inflammatory effect by inhibition of the NF-κB signaling pathway" Harmine is an inflammatory inhibitor through the suppression of NF-κB signaling - PubMed

Don't take this as medical advice, of course, but we have some great minds here to bounce info around with

I hope you get better soon minxx!

I too would recommend the COVID19 subreddit. Very informative. The most recent antibody data indicating a pessimistic IFR of 0.37% was hopeful if accurate

 

[nen888]

universecannon's post points to rich fields of study, hope and minds..
(and i also wish you a speedy recovery ms_manic_minxx)

i again want to caution against extrapolating single compound studies with whole plants, due to the range of actions and counter actions of compounds in plants..i agree caution should be exercised, but we need to be careful not to over generalise with terms like 'psychedelics'..from ms minxx's post we can probably assume those very ill with covid are unlikely to seek 'tripping' anyway..

on the topic of cytokine storms, and IL-6 - among the plant originating suppressors of IL-6 are catechins (flavonoids found in acacia catechu/spp and tea/camellia, and others)..

but what strikes me as potentially very relevant in these covid times is the link between IL-6 activation/increase and stress/depression..it would seem good health advice, if around covid-19, to try not to stress..

stay well all, and keep on with the good information and reports

 

[The Traveler]

Thank you both ms_manic_minxx and universecannon for the good amount of new data and research.

And a hopefully speedy recovery for you ms_manic_minxx.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

 

[The Traveler]

but what strikes me as potentially very relevant in these covid times is the link between IL-6 activation/increase and stress/depression..it would seem good health advice, if around covid-19, to try not to stress..

The Netherlands seems to have done quite well for such a crowded country.

One of the side-effects of working at home I found is that the people you get on the phone are generally more relaxed since they are at their own comfortable home when you call them, and they have no pressure from their manager and other colleagues breathing in their neck.

So the generic stress factor that people got from work seems to have been dramatically lowered in NL due to this mandatory working from home policy.

So if this is also stress related then I think NL made a very wide choice with it's relatively relaxed COVID-19 policy.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

 

[doubledog]

One of the side-effects of working at home I found is that the people you get on the phone are generally more relaxed since they are at their own comfortable home when you call them, and they have no pressure from their manager and other colleagues breathing in their neck.

I can confirm this, all my colleagues from NL are much more relaxed. I was not sure what could be the reason, but noticed that work and communication with them are smoother than before.

 

[universecannon]

To tangent off of this, medcram (informative MD channel on youtube giving daily covid updates) brought to my attention research on how the Finnish sauna method of cycling back and forth from a hot sauna to a cool down period appears to boost the innate immune system, and may be partly why their numbers are so low compared to neighboring countries without this widespread tradition. It seems that the period between infection and the more severe respiratory symptoms is crucial in getting through the virus relatively unscathed, so this among other things might be a useful tool.

Finnish sauna - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

unfortunately this is just deepening my life long desire of owning a hot tub

 

[Jees]

...the Finnish sauna method of cycling back and forth from a hot sauna to a cool down period appears to boost the innate immune system,...(

Too bad my local saunas are closed due corona, wish I was is Finland lol. The cycling is my go to, this can easily take up to 2 hours for me. After few cycles you one starts to feel kind of softly drugged, a natural high and pink skinned as a little piggy. If one can do it daily like having one at the house, I suppose 1 cycle a day would do wonders.

At the moment my showering ends with a firm cold water rinse, has a miniature effect of the above, the best obtainable in these circumstances. Highly recommended. If you do it daily the cold shock becomes less and less dramatic. Just do it