The Anti-Addiction Drug Ibogaine and the Heart: A Delicate Relation
Molecules – January 29, 2015
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Ibogaine, an indole alkaloid, effectively curbs drug craving and prevents relapse, leading to its use in dozens of alternative medicine clinics for addiction. While promising for medicine, this powerful hallucinogen's pharmacology poses severe risks. Reports link its influence on neurotransmitter receptors to life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias and sudden death, highlighting critical concerns about its cardiac electrophysiology. Understanding these pharmacological receptor mechanisms is crucial. A less toxic drug, 18-methoxycoronaridine, offers a safer anti-addiction alternative, mitigating these dangerous effects on behavior.
Abstract
The plant indole alkaloid ibogaine has shown promising anti-addictive properties in animal studies. Ibogaine is also anti-addictive in humans as the drug alleviates drug craving and impedes relapse of drug use. Although not licensed as therapeutic drug and despite safety concerns, ibogaine is currently used as an anti-addiction medication in alternative medicine in dozens of clinics worldwide. In recent years, alarming reports of life-threatening complications and sudden death cases, temporally associated with the administration of ibogaine, have been accumulating. These adverse reactions were hypothesised to be associated with ibogaine’s propensity to induce cardiac arrhythmias. The aim of this review is to recapitulate the current knowledge about ibogaine’s effects on the heart and the cardiovascular system, and to assess the cardiac risks associated with the use of this drug in anti- addiction therapy. The actions of 18-methoxycoronaridine (18-MC), a less toxic ibogaine congener with anti-addictive properties, are also considered.