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ABSTRACT:
Habitual abuse of the wormwood spirit absinthe was described in the 19th and 20th century as a cause for the mental disorder "absinthism". A controversial discussion is going on if thujone, a characteristic component of the wormwood plant Artemisia absinthium, is responsible for absinthism, or if it was merely caused by chronic alcohol.
To ascertain if thujone may have caused absinthism, absinthes were produced according to historic recipes of the 19th century. Commercial wormwood herbs, as well as self-cultivated ones were used. In addition, an authentic vintage Pernod absinthe (1930), and two absinthes from traditional Swiss small distilleries were evaluated. A validated GC/MS procedure was applied for the analysis of thujone.
All analysed products showed a thujone concentration below the maximum limit of 35 mg/l, including the absinthes produced according to historic recipes, which didn't contain any detectable or relatively low concentrations of thujone (mean: 1.3 ± 1.6 mg/l, range: 0 - 4.3 mg/l). Interestingly, the vintage absinthe also showed a relatively low thujone concentration of 1.3 mg/l. The Val-de-Travers absinthes contained 9.4 and 1.7 mg/l of thujone.
In conclusion, thujone concentrations as high as 260 mg/l, reported in the 19th century, can't be confirmed by our study. With regard to their thujone concentrations, the hallucinogenic potential of vintage absinthes can be assessed being rather low because the historic products also comply to today’s maximum limits derived to exclude such effects. It may be deduced that thujone plays none, or only a minor role in the clinical picture of absinthism.
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