Effects - Sinchuichi (Heimia Salicifolia)

[HorseBucket]

Swim just drank about 10 cups of this horrible tasting sinchuichi tea and all it did to him was make him feel like puking. Is there a better way to take sinchuichi? It tastes fuckin horrible swim thinks capsules would be the way to take it.

[Gradient]

HorseBucket,

A few close friends of mine have smoked this herb, reporting very similar effects. Everything was threshold, to say the least; perhaps there may have been some general background RGB stimulation, but that was debatable. I'm curious as to whether actually ingesting the plant would produce better methods, but I'd be surprised. Smoking compounds is generally one of the most (if not THE most) effective ways of getting them to the brain, so please update if the capsules prove to be more effective!

[Gradient]

Thought some members might be interested in a study on the alkaloid content of sinicuichi. Attached is a study from 2008 that gets at the question. Here's the abstract:

A 26-year-old male came to hospital around midnight complaining about muscle pain of the extremities as well as the tongue and slightly raised temperature. He reported the intake of an unknown amount of sinicuichi tea he had fermented over 24h by adding yeast and sugar. The patient was treated with Vomex A® (dimenhydrinate) and released from hospital the following afternoon. A blood sample taken shortly after submission and a small amount of the used plant material were available for analysis.

Herbal drugs are widely used as stimulants as a legal alternative to illegal psychoactive drugs or in traditional context. Among many others like Sassafras officinalis, Salvia divinorum [1] or Ephedra [2], Heimia salicifolia (“sinicuichi”), a species of the lythraceae family, is available via several online shops. Brewed up or fermented and consumed, the so-called sinicuichi tea may cause exhilarating feelings and an alteration of awareness accompanied by bradycardia, relaxation of the muscles and a pleasant faintness. Therefore Sinicuichi brew and heimia leaves are widely used for medication by the natives of Central and South America.

After liquid extraction with acetone five different alkaloids were detected in the plant material by LC–MS/MS operated in the Q1 scan mode applying a TurboIonSpray source. Subsequently, Product Ion Spectra were recorded and after confirming the molecular formula by determining the accurate masses, possible structures of H. salicifolia alkaloids were assigned. The information of the Product Ion Spectra was then used to set up a sensitive multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) method. Applying the MRM method to the patient's serum sample after alkaline liquid–liquid extraction all of the five heimia alkaloids detected in the plant material were also detected qualitatively in the serum extract, confirming the ingestion.

-G

[Synchronium]

Gradient: Ingesting material is often the best way to go about things. Take kratom for instance. The only time you'd ever want to smoke kratom is as an adjunct to kratom taken orally, but a tea or capsules can be extremely powerful indeed.

Thanks for the study.

[geezaman]

Originally Posted by Gradient

.... Smoking compounds is generally one of the most (if not THE most) effective ways of getting them to the brain, so please update if the capsules prove to be more effective!

Originally Posted by Synchronium

Gradient: Ingesting material is often the best way to go about things. Take kratom for instance. The only time you'd ever want to smoke kratom is as an adjunct to kratom taken orally, but a tea or capsules can be extremely powerful indeed.....

As Snuffkin see's it the "best" or "most effective" way of using a drug is different for each drug, and the specific form the drug is in. Saying there is a generally accepted best methods for 'all drugs' seems a bit silly... Although to throw his two cents into the pond, extracting the psycho-actives from the plant, refining to a very pure form and then injecting them, would for *most drugs be the most efficient method.


Snuffkin can report that a friend of his smoked (what seemed like) a large amount of sinchuich extract (5x or 7x from memory) and although the smoke was spicy and unpleasant, the friend reported effects, mainly sedation similar to being stoned on cannabis but to a much greater extent, along with other psychedelic, hallucination like aspects (although no audio hallucination). Snuffkin wishes he could remember more details but sadly he cannot.

Peace
Geezaman

[Gradient]

Originally Posted by Synchronium

Gradient: Ingesting material is often the best way to go about things. Take kratom for instance. The only time you'd ever want to smoke kratom is as an adjunct to kratom taken orally, but a tea or capsules can be extremely powerful indeed.

Thanks for the study.

Synchronium,

Is there any chance that you might have some data to back up the claim that the alkaloids in sinicuichi might be more effectively absorbed through the digestive track? Of course I'm not so naive as to believe that smoking is the most effective form of ingestion for all compounds. That's silly. However, pharmacologically speaking, when ingesting a compound by means of inhalation (or handful of compounds, in this case), the compounds actually experience an extremely direct pathway to the brain. When one breathes in, the blood exposed (in bronchi) to compounds inhaled, and present in the lungs (bronchi), goes first to the heart, and then directly to the brain - one doesn't have to wait for body circulation etc... There are, therefore, fewer membranes in the body that the compounds must traverse in order to reach the brain - therefore, this presents an extremely direct method of ingestion for many compounds. Essentially, my question is: are you familiar with the chemistry of the compounds present in this plant to determine which route of administration would generate the least inactivation of compounds due to ionization?

geezaman,

You're absolutely right; the most effective method of ingestion will vary from compound to compound. However, there are certain components of our physiology that are consistent for every ingested compound. For example - many (lower dose) benzodiazepines can be rendered almost entirely biologically inactive by a low enough pH environment found in the stomach through a process known as ionization; this is how the body renders compounds inactive. When the pKa/pKb of a particular compound is quite disparate to that of the pH environment in a particular part of the body - a higher level of ionization will occur. A compound that is most stable at a pH of around 7-8 will encounter some serious depression of efficacy due to ionization in the stomach at pHs from 1-3 from free H ions. Therefore, smoking some substances presents a completely realistic alternative (smoking DMT, for example) to eating. If you read the study, then It would be apparent that there isn't just one kind of compound present in the plant; the effects are likely due to the presence of a variety of compounds. If someone at home were endeavoring to preform the 'most effective' manner of ingesting the active substances at home, an extraction would likely prove quite enigmatic. What solvent to use, when there are such a wide variety of active compounds in each sample of plant matter? What is the actual chemical nature of those active compounds? Are we even sure that we've nailed down all of the active compounds...etc...

Check out this thread in the pharmacology forum by our very own pharmapsyche: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15983
Nice concise discussion of the different methods of ingestion.

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Regardless - I don't really understand why this was even brought up. I appreciate the concern, but I don't think the points raised conferred much information - sure, methods of ingestion will modulate the effects of any compound. No one will argue with you on that. The reason that I posted that study was to underscore the fact that we really don't have a great handle on what is in those plants. Therefore - smoking the plant might produce wholly different results from drinking it in a tea. For example, when ingested orally, delta-9-THC is converted to delta-11-THC by the body - a slightly different compound which is capable of eliciting different (and stronger!) effects than delta-9-THC smoked. My statement -

"Smoking compounds is generally one of the most (if not THE most) effective ways of getting them to the brain, so please update if the capsules prove to be more effective!"

- was therefore in light of this dynamic. If you read again, I'm curious to read about what the effects of a whole-plant ingestion might be. I didn't say it wouldn't work, merely that I was curious and that I wouldn't get my hopes up! I would never, and have never, advise someone to smoke any compound that they're interested in - that's asinine.

Well, now that that's over with - have any members heard of experiences of ingesting a full-plant preparation?

[Synchronium]

Gradient: I'm aware of the pros and cons for each method of ingestion, particularly the bypassing of first-pass metabolism when smoking (which I assume you were getting at). I never actually said eating/drinking these alkaloids would be the most effective way to get them into your system. Of course that's not the case. What I was suggesting is that eating/drinking a dosage of several grams of leaf is often much easier than smoking a similar amount.

Sinicuichi was traditionally brewed as a tea, so my guess is that hundreds if not thousands of years worth of wisdom is probably going to have arrived at the most effective way to get a worthwhile dosage into your system (not including extracts). In fact, that abstract you quoted above also mentions a tea:

Therefore Sinicuichi brew and hemia leaves are widely used for medication by the natives of Central and South America.

Why do we (as a population, not us specifically) smoke cannabis? Because these same thousands of years have taught us that it's the most practical way of getting this stuff inside us. Cannabis tea is pretty ineffective, but we can safely assume that in these thousands of years a few people have tried it and decided smoking is the way to go.

I think my point is you don't necessarily need to be familiar with the pharmacokinetics of a compound when you've got a mountain of traditional usage data backing you up.

[Gradient]

Originally Posted by Synchronium

I think my point is you don't necessarily need to be familiar with the pharmacokinetics of a compound when you've got a mountain of tradition usage data backing you up.

No, one most certainly doesn't. But it sure helps to know!
For example, just the superficial knowledge that cannabinoids are non-polar would help one to realize that throwing a nice generous amount of milk/cream into that tea would make it quite the potent elixir!

I think we're actually agreeing here, Synchronium. My point is - no one has really done any research regarding the most effective method of ingestion regarding this substance, and yours is that one might feel confident, therefore, that the tea-preparation is likely the most reliable - given frequently the preparation has been historically. No argument there. Found this lovely thread on our own Drugs Forum describing many of the issues discussed in this thread:
http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/sho...ing_Sinicuichi

Hope this helps!

[Bajeda]

Thread moved to the Ethnobotanicals Forum.

The TS is no longer around, but anyone interested in the topic of Sinicuichi Effects might want to peruse the Sinicuichi experiences thread.

My Zebra won't be attempting any further bioassays of Sinicuichi for the foreseeable future, but he is still interested in learning more about the plant. He is particularly interested in learning about how the alkaloids act pharmacologically and whether desirable effects can be consistently obtained. Right now I'm not even sure whether the overall effects being reported are a combination of placebo and mild contributions from pharmacologically active alkaloids in the plant itself, or if the somewhat contradictory experience reports are a consequence of highly variable quality levels dependent on how fresh the Sinicuichi is, how it was grown, etc.

Any thoughts on the matter, or have there been any recent contributions to the exceedingly slim scholarly literature on Heimia Salicifolia?