Psychoactive Chemical Constituents of Carissa edulis (Forssk.) Vahl Roots and Its Safety Limits in Folk Treatment: Benzodiazepines Analogous

Carissa edulis Vahl is well known in Sudanese herbal medicine, commonly used for treatment of epilepsy, headache, chest pains, rheumatism, skin lesions, mania and other psychoactive diseases. The investigations of the safety use for psychoactive purposes in Sudanese healing traditions and identifying secondary metabolites of the plant extracts are the key steps towards determination of appropriate medicinal doses. Therefore, one of the chemical constituents was isolated and structurally identified by H-NMR and LC-MS. With the aim of evaluating Carissa edulis folk random uses, the isolated compound was compared with reference artificial drugs Lormetazepam, a potentially toxic compound. Structure investigations confirm that the isolated product was benzodiazepines analogous 7-chloro 1,4-benzodiazepine-2-ones. It is important to know the potential toxicity of certain plant in order to assess the therapeutic effect of it, as these are slight distinctions between the medicinal and toxic doses. In general the results obtained justify the use of the roots of Carissa edulis in traditional medicine for the treatment of some psychiatric diseases.