Comment · Thu, September 10, 2015
Magic doesn't get old
Original post in this thread
sergethylamine · 0 points
Hi folks!
As first post, here's my trip report. My 4th roll. Last one was on friday night.
After having some drinks in the evening with pals, I got home and fell asleep.
Then around 3am, I woke up and felt like in the mood to get wasted.
Then, straight to the club, alone, followed by vit C + EGCG, then vodka + grapefruit juice + 0.1g parachute + vit C and EGCG again.
Tldr: great trip, till the club closed... 5 days after previous, magic isn't dissipating. Best trip ever!
Coffee time now!
Just wanted to share my experience.
What they were answering
MBaggott · 7 points
This is, to my knowledge, a series of false or misleading statements. Maybe we can get u/MisterYouAreSoDumb to provide references. I really wish people would stop citing that posting; it's half speculations.
The evidence that EGCG is an antioxidant in people is mixed in my reading. There is good evidence that both black tea and green tea act as antioxidants. It is unclear how responsible is EGCG is for this. EGCG does show antioxidant activity in some tests, but it also has potential prooxidant and pro-apoptotic (programmed cell death) effects. Because EGCG has been suggested helpful against cancer, there is a fair sized literature on the mechanisms, with papers arguing about whether it is doing it by increasing oxidative stress inside cells. This paper gives an overview from 2011. (If you're not a scientist just read the abstract.) The big question is whether EGCG would be an effective antioxidant in the context of MDMA. There are no studies on this.
Even if they have antioxidant activity in the body, EGCG and catechins do not appear to have a sparing effect on endogenous antioxidants -- they seemingly don't regenerate (reduce) your vitamin E, glutathione, or vitamin C. Which, to me, makes them worse than vitamin C when taken with MDMA.
I looked for and ca…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
You're right about EGCG not being a diuretic. It's a vasodilator, which can help with urinary retention arising from the vasoconstriction caused by MDMA. However, I was incorrect in calling it a diuretic. It still seems to help with urinating while on MDMA. It is just probably doing that from a vasodilation mechanism, rather than affecting vasopressin. Me calling it a diuretic was just incorrect.
You are also correct to point out that EGCG can be pro-oxidant in some instances; like in the presence of Iron^III. It also has a lot of favorable actions, like improving mitochondrial function, preventing lipid peroxidation, regulating DNA methylation, and preventing damage from ischemia. But you are right, there are no studies with it regarding MDMA. So perhaps it should be removed in lieu of other more studied antioxidants.
That post I made almost 3 years ago was never meant to be taken as gospel. It was meant to generate a larger discussion about the risks of MDMA use, and give ways to prevent them. It has succeeded in that immensely. Thousands of people have written me now about it, telling me how it got them to realize the risks of MDMA, and got them more interested in ways to protect themselves. Many people even have told me that it got them to drastically reduce the amount they were taking, or the times per year they do it. Nobody writes me saying it got them to be more risky with MDMA, or to do it more often. It's always the opposite. A lot of people were under the impression that MDMA was not risky at all. I think the tone of people's impressions of MDMA has really changed in the past few years to more of a cautionary one.
I would really like the constructive discussion about how to protect yourself from MDMA to continue. That post should have been the start of the discussion, not the end. By all means, pick apart the individual substances and mechanisms, to try and improve the regimen. I simply put out my research for people to pick apart, and put out a regimen that I found worked well. I would certainly change the regimen now, with the knowledge I have gained over the past few years. That post should not be used as the end all and be all of MDMA supplementation.