Análise de alcaloides e metais pesados presentes no chá de Ayahuasca.

Abstract

Ayahuasca is a tea with hallucinogenic properties emerged in the Amazon, and its preparation is performed by decoction of the bark and liana Banisteriopsis caapi and the leaves of the shrub Psychotria viridis. These plants have active constituents such as N, N - dimethyltryptamine (DMT), harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine (HHT), which are substances that act on the central nervous system responsible for the effects of drink widely used in religious rituals. Plants are always subject to environmental influences, and this can affect them in many ways, bringing benefits of harm to them, such as contamination by heavy metals. Some heavy metals are very toxic when ingested by bringing varied damage and symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, dizziness and even damage to the central nervous system, hallucinations and also encephalopathies and cerebral palsy in more chronic cases, which in the case of tea ayahuasca can be enhanced by the effect of alkaloids present in plants that derive tea. With this, the present study aimed to carry out an analysis of the main alkaloid harmine, harmaline and tetrahydroharmine in tea as well as the presence of heavy metals in it. We conducted a qualitative experimental analytical study to identify the main alkaloids and heavy metals present in Ayahuasca tea, analyzing the presence of alkaloids by chromogenic tests, thin layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Preliminary analyzes with chromogenic reagents indicated dubious and weak positive results, which also presented with different intensities. In the analysis by CCD can perceive some spots with strong blue fluorescence characteristic of β-carboline alkaloids, but in Ayahuasca tea sample can only suggest the presence of HHT. In the analysis by HPLC, from the overlapping spectra, comparison of retention times between samples and standards, the method proved to be efficient, but it was not possible to confirm the presence of the alkaloid in the sample.