Beta Carboline MAOIs - towards a more effective e-liquid

[tceight]

I also find myself wondering if MAOI's wouldn't lessen or negate the effect of SSRIs if anyone knows.

Hi Heather, Like Kinabaloo, I would hesitate to ever make any kind of medical determinations, but I can give you a short synopsis on how they work, why they are bad together, and how far from lessening, they synergize.

SSRI's block the " reuptake", (recycling, storing for later as it were)
so because the serotonin isn't stored, is stays around and levels increase
Serotonin is a 'monoamine neurotransmitter'
MAO, is monoamine oxidase, think of it in this scenario as 'serotonin burner' your body makes
you add MAOI, or MAO'inhibitor', so less serotonin gets burned, and levels rise even more, potentially to dangerous levels, "serotonin syndrome" as Kin said.
I've heard the analogy , the one is turning on the tap full blast, the other is plugging the drain... you don't want to do both.

now, to be very accurate, the MAOI's in tobbaco, are RIMA's (reversable) and most of the stuff you hear about MAOI interactions are from irreversable ones, but the interaction could still be dangerous.

Oh, and interrupt please! this is a collaborative forum, and all ideas are welcome. No innovative discovery or progress is ever made without a variety of perspectives.

 

[tceight]

Biased lurker observation: this must be one of the most intelligent threads on ECF.

kinabaloo (and maybe tceight, too): have you ever found people around you IRL to be amazed that you smoked and yet were simultaneously otherwise so conscientious about your health?

lol, yeah, that subject has come up before.
I was recently 'vindicated' on another health front. I eat eggs daily, alway's have, and this was noted by a few people asking 'what about your cholesterol'? There has never been a shred of scientific evidence that dietary cholesterol levels correlate to blood serum levels. In the past few months, health Canada has switched their stance and are saying to eat eggs daily, they are a wonder food!
mmmm now thinking about that..I'm scared to eat eggs! lol

~~~btw, IMO it's refined high glycemic index foods, and the subsequent inflammation of the arterial walls from insulin response(which is exactly what insulin is designed to do to the cells of muscle) that causes plaque formation...

 

[HeatherC]

Ty for all your insights...and I'm going to talk to my doc about all this anyway....
Its just that for the last 13 yrs or so I've been on SSRIs and have never felt wonderful on them...most of the symptoms that I still experience resemble Serotonin syndrome especially when even on these mood stabilizing drugs I still have what my hubby and I call tantrums (outbursts whatever you want to call them they are really manic in nature and scare me after it's over.) However if I stop taking my meds for a couple weeks it seems to go away
then when I start taking them again...(becuz I need them) Nausea ........ etc on the pristiq and the cymbalta it was projectile vomiting (really bad stuff...didn't want it don't need it LOL) Anyway TY for your advice and insights and as I said i will address this with my doc

 

[kinabaloo]

lol, yeah, that subject has come up before.
I was recently 'vindicated' on another health front. I eat eggs daily, alway's have, and this was noted by a few people asking 'what about your cholesterol'? There has never been a shred of scientific evidence that dietary cholesterol levels correlate to blood serum levels. In the past few months, health Canada has switched their stance and are saying to eat eggs daily, they are a wonder food!
mmmm now thinking about that..I'm scared to eat eggs! lol

~~~btw, IMO it's refined high glycemic index foods, and the subsequent inflammation of the arterial walls from insulin response(which is exactly what insulin is designed to do to the cells of muscle) that causes plaque formation...

I completely agree. Could add more on cholesterol, and refined carbs, but don't want to sidetrack the thread too much.

Tescela - thanks for the thumbs up

 

[tceight]

but don't want to sidetrack the thread too much.

Tescela - thanks for the thumbs up

yeah, sorry about that. It's hard for me to 'stay on track' sometimes.
but that can be a good thing too,
In responding to HeatherC, re: the opposite approach/same result of ssri/maoi it made me think of this.

reverse the steps...
1. keep the alkaloids in salt form, force them to salts with citric acid (easily available in any pharmacy)
water as solvent,

2. instead of distilling, slow freeze!

the salt's are held in solution through ion dipole-dipole forces, but remove the kinetic energy, and the hydrogen bonds of water will be predominant and as the water forms into an orderly crystal, it forces the salt out. ( an old trick to purify drinking water from sea water)

now the popsicle! water and sugar form hydrogen bonds,(same as water water) and the sugars will stay within the crystal structure.

could it be that easy?

 

[tceight]

now we have a concentrated (careful) solution of nicotine citrate, and whatever contaminants fail to get trapped in the ice.

Salts are not "vapable" as in can be vaporized, but if the atomizer works mainly by expelling droplets, then the citrate can be used as is.

Otherwise, we freebase the alkaloids with the addition of ????
and what do we do to separate them from the resulting carbonates etc.?
back to a non-polar solvent again.

 

[kinabaloo]

With the ice approach i just get the feeling that there will be a 'gotya' in there somewhere; but could well be worth a try. The actual separation might be rather fiddly. And then the vape test also (at a guess I'd say no more than half the liquid is ejected out, the majority being vaporised or residued). Interesting thinking in any case. Perhaps there's a potential second stage re freebasing the salts and employing a non-polar once the junk is out of the way ...

At one time household ammonia (ammonia dissolved in water, aka ammonium hydroxide) was easily available but not sure of its strength; the pH can be over 11 but perhaps the household suff is too weak. If usable, could avoid the carbonate issue.

 

[tceight]

With the ice approach i just get the feeling that there will be a 'gotya' in there somewhere; but could well be worth a try. The actual separation might be rather fiddly. And

 

[kinabaloo]

it's available around here too, at about 5 or 10 % strength, but i'm not sure if it doesnt have soaps, and it certainly isn't USP or food grade!

It would eliminate the carbonates, but you would still end up with other salt, ammonium citrate I think. (like I said, I am no chemist)

after basing again with 'whatever' and having naught but salts and alkaloids (we hope), then an anhydrous alcohol should dissolve our alkaloids again.... I think.

I was thinking of the ammonium wrt the original appraoch.

With the freezing approach, could be not add the non-polar before the slow freeze? This would make separation easier and avoid concentration. Then basify, add some water and repeat freeze separation.

 

[kinabaloo]

Was just reading this article (light on scientific details in itself) that is both interesting and enlightening wrt recent posts.

It regards the huge increase in consumption of high fructose corn syrup and that cancer cells are able to proliferate more easily with fructose (in particular) available (while all tumor cells thrive on sugars. Interesting.

What do you imagine the researchers say by way of a conclusion? To educate against high fructose corn syrup use perhaps?

The article concludes: "Now the team hopes to develop a drug that might stop tumour cells from making use of fructose."

Cancer cells slurp up fructose, U.S. study finds - Healthzone.ca

 

[tceight]

I was thinking of the ammonium wrt the original appraoch.

With the freezing approach, could be not add the non-polar before the slow freeze? This would make separation easier and avoid concentration. Then basify, add some water and repeat freeze separation.

I don't think I am following your reasoning.
Are you thinking it doesn't have to be salt in solution, for the freeze separation to occur? Interesting thought. alkaloids are oily, not sure how strong their bonding is with water.

or are you assuming the non polar, just being immiscible would prevent the concentration to dangerous levels. if so, the concentration would still be there, just in one of the layers.

what I had envisioned, was a concentrated salt solution of water and citrates.
add a base to this, and then let crystallize completely, a mixture of free alkaloids and salts/carbonates. Add to this, the anhydrous alcohol to dissolve the alkaloids. Evap, and add glycerol or PG.
there is the danger of concentration here, and it would be great to have a solvent in there that would diffuse the alkaloids, but what can we use that would not also redissolve the rest? Diethyl ether is NOT a kitchen friendly substance, this is was thinking of a way to just use alcohol.

---ammonia if originally basing, great idea, one less thing to remove later.

~~~ my last post messed up.. what it said was, theory only goes so far, out to the garage to grind up some alchemy......
I just ground up 30g of tobacco, and soaking in 300 ml of water with a bit of HCl ( no citric acid in the house)
What a sludge to deal with. ugh.

 

[tceight]

Was just reading this article (light on scientific details in itself) that is both interesting and enlightening wrt recent posts.

It regards the huge increase in consumption of high fructose corn syrup and that cancer cells are able to proliferate more easily with fructose (in particular) available (while all tumor cells thrive on sugars. Interesting.

What do you imagine the researchers say by way of a conclusion? To educate against high fructose corn syrup use perhaps?

The article concludes: "Now the team hopes to develop a drug that might stop tumour cells from making use of fructose."

Cancer cells slurp up fructose, U.S. study finds - Healthzone.ca

interesting, not the article content of course, but your point of where the focus lies. Bread ( or in this case corn) feeds nations.
the content is very misleading, and over simplified as to how cells use glycogen. but this is off topic again. lol

 

[kinabaloo]

Er, I was more throwing out some ideas than elucidating a master plan

So you have started the experiment! Will be very interested to hear how it goes ...

I'm a bit doubtful about the freezing working unless two liquids are involved and even that is rather inefficient. Let's see.

Hmm, after rereading I think you're not planning to do fractional freezing, so I think I confused myself there!

If not in solution the free alkaloids might rapidly oxidise?

 

[tceight]

Er, I was more throwing out some ideas than elucidating a master plan

So you have started the experiment! Will be very interested to hear how it goes ...

I'm a bit doubtful about the freezing working unless two liquids are involved and even that is rather inefficient. Let's see.

Hmm, after rereading I think you're not planning to do fractional freezing, so I think I confused myself there!

If not in solution the free alkaloids might rapidly oxidise?

I have no doubt it will 'work', my concern is it will work too well, and drive the sugars out too.
this is not fractional, but more a technique called zone refining that is used to create some of purest materials we can get. For metals, a rod of contaminated material is passed through a heater, as the molten zone progresses, the recrystalization/solidification behind it forces the impurites into the molten zone. The end result can be as pure as one atom in a billion. I'm starting with the whole thing molten, and freezing from one end. Ever notice the bubbles are in the middle of the icecube? same thing.
I think the rate of freezing and the original concentration would have to be known to try to capture the sugars, and not the salts, unless like I said the hydrogen bonding is 'close enough'.
I've never seen a Mr Freezie with all the colour at one end.

~~~at the very least, it may be an easy way to reduce water, thereby reducing solvent needs. A 'food safe' version of sodium polyacrylate to reduce water without boiling.

~~~ yes, In the freebase form, my understanding is that it is quite volatile and you would not delay in redissolving.

 

[kinabaloo]

"as pure as one atom in a billion" - hmm, ok - I'll settle fo that

sodium polyacrylate - wouldn't this just mop up the whole solution like a sponge (i.e. structurally rather than chemically)?

 

[tceight]

"as pure as one atom in a billion" - hmm, ok - I'll settle fo that

sodium polyacrylate - wouldn't this just mop up the whole solution like a sponge (i.e. structurally rather than chemically)?

thats the problem... I don't want it that pure! I want it to capture the sugar.
would you know what temperature nicotine salts decompose at?
the other option could be to boil down to dry, and heat to 350C and carbonize the organics, if the nicotine salts would survive. I doubt they would.

mop up, maybe. I know they use it in labs for water reducing.

~~~ 30 g, 450ml of water, coffee filter, recovered a whole 50ml so far. its like goo.
Going to need to come up with a better system than gravity.

 

[kinabaloo]

thats the problem... I don't want it that pure! I want it to capture the sugar.
would you know what temperature nicotine salts decompose at?
the other option could be to boil down to dry, and heat to 350C and carbonize the organics, if the nicotine salts would survive. I doubt they would.

mop up, maybe. I know they use it in labs for water reducing.

I found this paper (PM) that suggests that between 135C (acetate) and 200C (malate and tartrate) (97% by 230C) the salts would decompose to release nicotine vapor (and free nic at 135C, well below the BP of 243C). Aided by the presence of ammonia release.

For example, between 195C and 230C, nicotine tartrate decomposes to nicotine, CO2 and acetaldehyde.

This is a very interesting fact (and explains why cigs with low freebase nic still yield nic just fine). Could be useful to us too. Slow heat the tobacco and collect the condensed vapors.

Thermal Transfer of Nicotine and Nicotine Acid Salts to Nicotine in the Gas Phase

 

[tceight]

I found this paper (PM) that suggests that between 130 and 200C the salts would decompose to release nicotine vapor (and free nic at 135C, well below the BP of 243C). Perhaps aided by the presence of ammonia release. Maybe I am misunderstanding it (read it quickly).

Thermal Transfer of Nicotine and Nicotine Acid Salts to Nicotine in the Gas Phase

yeah, you read it right. unfortunately, that's what i figured.
Good find... And it indicates the primary salts are malates and Tartrates, not citrates.

 

[tceight]

with this wad of goo, at this point I feel like setting up a soxhlet extractor and just doing the A/B extraction with some evil petroleum solvent, and getting 'something' to see if this is even worthwhile persuing.
Then if it is, work on simplifying the process for kitchen gear.

 

[kinabaloo]

with this wad of goo, at this point I feel like setting up a soxhlet extractor and just doing the A/B extraction with some evil petroleum solvent, and getting 'something' to see if this is even worthwhile persuing.
Then if it is, work on simplifying the process for kitchen gear.

Are you sure you're not a chemist ??

For example, between 195C and 230C, nicotine tartrate decomposes to nicotine, CO2 and acetaldehyde. I know from else where that some of the acetaldehyde racts with sugars to create some MAOIs.

This is a very interesting fact (and explains why cigs with low freebase nic still yield nic just fine). This fact could be useful to us too. Slow heat the tobacco and collect the condensed vapors; perhaps in water which readily dissolves nicotine.

In the study it didnt seem to matter much whether helium or air was the atmosphere; that's good news.

~~

There are BP liquid parafins available though a more volatile alkane would be easier to remove (but would be potentially explosive if heated).