Psilocybin, a compound discovered in lots of kinds of mushrooms, is an antidepressant with potential use in treating anxiousness. Sadly, unscrupulous distributors have used these scientific outcomes to promote merchandise created from an unrelated and considerably poisonous mushroom: Amanita muscaria.
In a current examine, researchers on the College of California, San Diego, discovered a big enhance in curiosity on this mushroom – noting a 114% rise in Google searches from 2022 to 2023.
So what is that this mushroom and why is there trigger for concern?
A muscaria or “fly agaric” is present in temperate and sub-Arctic zones throughout the northern hemisphere. For millennia, shamans from numerous areas – from Lapland to Siberia – have used the mushroom of their rituals, serving to them obtain a psychological state much like that achieved with different psychedelics.
The lively elements in these mushrooms are muscimol and ibotenic acid, that are completely completely different compounds to psilocybin. Right this moment, merchandise containing muscimol, similar to gummies, tinctures and capsules, are being bought with imprecise guarantees of higher well being.
The mind comprises chemical messengers referred to as neurotransmitters, and muscimol acts on certainly one of these transmitter “receptors” (Gaba-A) to dampen mind exercise. Gaba is the mind’s brakes – or within the jargon “inhibitory neurotransmitter”. Consequently, medication that act on Gaba-A receptors have been used for anxiousness, epilepsy and ache – situations related to an over-stimulated mind.
Muscimol may be thought-about to have an identical impact as anti-anxiety medication often known as benzodiazepines (Valium, being an instance).
There have been comparatively few reported circumstances of muscimol poisoning from fly agaric mushrooms. Most circumstances report gastrointestinal upset, however not demise.
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The opposite compound present in fly agaric, ibotenic acid, is structurally much like the neurotransmitter glutamate. If Gaba is the mind’s brakes, you may consider glutamate as its accelerator.
Like glutamate, ibotenic acid may be poisonous in excessive concentrations. Actually, ibotenic acid is used to kill mind cells in rodent experiments the place small elements of the mind are destroyed in an try to grasp what that mind space does.
It’s extremely unlikely that ibotenic acid has any well being advantages. Nevertheless, it’s uncertain whether or not consuming these mushrooms will kill mind cells as a result of, inside about an hour of ingestion, many of the ibotenic acid is excreted within the urine.
Muscimol and ibotenic acid have been discovered to have a comparatively low deadly dose. Testing in mice discovered the LD50 (“deadly dose, 50%”), the place half the mice are lifeless when given these substances orally, to be 22mg and 38mg per kilogram of physique weight, respectively. The LD50 is way decrease than for a lot of different generally taken substances: cocaine (99mg/kg), morphine (524mg/kg) and ethanol (alcohol, 3,450mg/kg).
Whereas few deaths from fly agaric have been reported, a current case described the demise of a 44-year-old man after consuming these mushrooms. The person had a coronary heart assault about ten hours after consuming 4 to 5 mushroom caps. Though he was resuscitated, he remained unresponsive and died 9 days later.
Comparability with psilocybin
Psilocybin is a compound present in a big number of “magic mushrooms”, however not in fly agaric. After consumption, the physique converts psilocybin to psilocin. Psilocin prompts the neurotransmitter serotonin’s 5-HT2A receptors in an identical method to LSD. Meta-analyses, the place the information from a number of scientific trials are mixed and re-analysed, discover psilocybin to be an efficient antidepressant.
Harms of therapeutic doses of psilocybin have been reviewed and the commonest are headache, nausea, anxiousness, dizziness and hypertension. They are usually well-tolerated and resolve inside a few days.
Taken collectively then, we will see that fly agaric is under no circumstances much like psilocybin-containing mushrooms.
Whereas psilocybin has now been proven to have good scientific use, there isn’t any such proof for fly agaric. Though muscimol has been proven to have some optimistic results in animal research of stroke and another neurological diseases, these findings haven’t but been replicated in people.
In most international locations, fly agaric, muscimol and ibotenic acid are usually not managed substances and persons are allowed to develop, decide, purchase, promote and devour them. Though consumption is never deadly, there are risks related to consuming them. The apply of promoting these merchandise to unwitting customers, who anticipate well being advantages much like psilocybin, must be addressed.
