Talk:Barbiturate

Prescribing Protocols section

Not only is this unsourced, most of it is completely off-topic, especially the part about narcotics. Narcotic does not equal barbiturate. Delete this section as it currently stands without mercy.Hipvicar (talk) 06:07, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Statistics

what about statistics?

i'm new to this, but i would like to mention that in the mechanism of action section, there needs to be a total redo. but beyond that, the article implies that barbituates have a similar mechanism of action as benzodiazepines, however it would be important to mention that barbituates increase *duration* of Cl channel opening and benzodiazepines increase *frequency* of opening, this is important because it separates the anxiolytic effects of benzodiazepines versus the sedative effects of barbituates.

Spiritualfade (talk) 16:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Sedative = anxiolytic = tranquilising, means the same thing. Hypnotic is sleep inducing. Benzodiazepines have sedative and hypnotic properties as do barbiturates. Anyway the difference in mechanism of action at the GABA_A receptor is important and is relevant to the increased overdose risk so I added it into the mechanism of action section.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You are mistaken. This nuance is the reason why barbituates are not used for sudden unwanted increases in brain function--such as panic attacks. It's a matter of semantics to differentiate between the words (tranquilizing, sedative, etc.), but it is a matter of pharmacology to differentiate between how each drug effects the GABA receptor vis a vis the brain and body. Frequency versus time is important for this difference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spiritualfade (talk • contribs) 11:28, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I would like to also point out that Barbiturates are less specific then Benzodiazepines. Anxiey (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Headline text

yeah waht about statistics?

It's nice to have a picture

This picture is of non-descript pills, downloaded from http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=18993&. There's no indication from source that they are barbiturates. __meco 09:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

neeed more info

Antidote to overdose?

I understand Megimide and Deptazole have been used but I'm not an expert. Can someone help? Malick78 08:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey this exact article appeared on another site... plagerism!!!! My name is Al Cohal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.212.61.234 (talk) 17:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Famous users

LOL! Leondegrance (talk) 23:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Image

who changed the image, the old one was more attractive, i'm changing it back —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.161.1.166 (talk) 03:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Template Rampage

Wow, someone really went on a template rampage... and the wrong templates were used too. Instead of the one that says 'this section does not cite any sources...' or whatever, the more appropriate template would have been the one about the sources being mentioned but there not being enough citations (because for some of the flagged sections, references are clearly given but just not footnoted) and that template could just be put at the top of the page, instead of being inserted into every section. (Was someone maybe just having a bad day?) Hmm, maybe it's just time Wikipedia started making templates that warn about bad usage of templates. Then we could put even more templates on this page.

For the record, much of the flagged information is accurate--what do you do when you know something off the top of your head but need to prove that some other guy on some other website said that it was true? That's not a good reason for deletion--I mean, when it's accurate but just not cited. Regardless, I found this page pretty amusing. 67.42.233.138 (talk) 15:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Template frenzy indeed! As noted above, much of the information is sourced but not properly referenced. Fixed one section (Truth serum), but more work needed and article would still benefit from consolidation. 84.92.241.186 (talk) 22:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Yea it was very excessive. I have removed the templates as there is no more need for them.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Pharmacology Collaboration of the Month

This article has been selected as the Pharmacology Collaboration of the Month for July. Please help us improve the article towards good or featured status. Dr. Cash (talk) 04:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I dunno about getting it up to a featured or good article, not too many editors joining in. I just spent the past 4 hours clearing out some junk, rearranging the text into more appropriate sections and referencing uncited data and adding in some relevant data. Hopefully more editors will join in.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

We got a couple of useful edits, mostly cleaning up. Though not as much. I think I'll nominate this for peer review and see if we can get additional comments,...

Next month's collaboration of the month ought to be more popular, though. Dr. Cash (talk) 21:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Brallobarbital calcium

I am a man who suffered from cronicle insomnia and a very high metabolism.My insomnia was treated by vesparax (3 per night)and was function wery well with out any sideeffect.I was medicated for over 35 years when the millenium entered and vesparax was out of production.In the beginning of the year of 200 I was founding sekobarbital sodium and to have somehelp to stabilize the doze I have to take thiopental,but it was not good inough.After meny years I get fenemal as my dozestabiliser,but it is far from what brallobarbital calcium can achive.If I had Brallobarbital Calsium I could reduce my intake of the medicine with 200 mg barbiturates,but WHERE CAN I FOUND BRALLOBARBITAL CALCIUM?

Regards Cowboy 378(Cowboy378 (talk) 12:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC))

Therapeutic Uses

"Barbiturates are still widely used in surgical anesthesia, especially to induce anesthesia, though their use during induction of anesthesia has largely been supplanted by Propofol. "

Can someone with the knowledge clarify this sentence? In another part of this section it says that barbiturates have largely been replaced by benzodiazepines, but in another that they are still widely used, for induction of anesthesia, yet there use for induction of anesthesia has been replaced by Propofol?

213.105.243.152 (talk) 21:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I have clarified the sentence.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 18:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

They really blew this article. barbiturates are used daily, such as florecet to treat migraines. Also Butalb and some other drugs!

Silmearendil — Preceding unsigned comment added by Silmearendil (talk • contribs) 05:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

References

Bartiuate "high" is not analogous to an alcohol "high"

If the "high" (for lack of a better word) associated with barbituates is analogous to alcohol, than so is that associated with benzodiazepines. This is a dangerous over-simplification. Just because two CNS depressants both affect GABA does not mean they will affects the mind/body in the same way. "Barbs" can kill you waaaaay easier than alcohol so I hate the comparison (as a personally example, given the choice I would choose "barbs" over alcohol every time when looking to get a "high". I rarely ever drink.71.10.74.4 (talk) 05:11, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, I believe this article is in need of editing by someone more familiar with wikipedia than I, as the comparison of Barbituates to Alcohol is extremely dangerous given the wording -- an inexperienced user will not understand the difference between an ultra-short acting "barb" and a strong alcohol like Everclear. This could easily lead to a very very dead barbituate abuser. Still, there are safe ways to abuse both drugs, and I would like to see this article at least pay minimal attention to harm-reduction. I would do this myself, but again, I am simply not qualified to edit this article.71.10.74.4 (talk) 23:03, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I entered the following headnote, but it was reverted:

"This article refers to the class of drugs derived from barbituric acid, for the conjugate base of that acid which bears the same name, see sodium barbiturate." ... Nagelfar (talk) 00:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

reword

The sentence in the text: "Older adults and pregnant women and babies should consider the risks associated with barbiturate use" should be reworded, but I'm not sure the exact wording. Babies definitely cannot consider the risks of taking barbiturates... but it seems condescending to say "Caregivers of older adults, pregnant women, and babies" because the former two groups of people are able to consider the risks themselves. Saying "Older adults, pregnant women, and caregivers of babies should consider the risks" also isn't great... any ideas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.58.233.115 (talk) 03:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The whole approach in that sentence is poor no matter how it's worded because it's giving medical advice rather than encyclopediac information, especially since it's just an introductory sentence to more specific details that are written more neutrally. Consider instead "There are special risks to consider for older adults, women who are pregnant, and babies."--doesn't instruct who considers it at all. DMacks (talk) 03:32, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done DMacks (talk) 17:21, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Therapeutic uses part 2

This drug is used all the time to treat migraines, ie florecet which wiki clearly states is a barbiturate. The article acts like it has been replaced with the "benzi" drug which is not the case at all. In florecet they call the drug Butalb.

Silmearendil (talk) 05:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)silmearendil

History

From the current version: "Barbituric acid was first synthesized December 6, 1864, by German researcher Adolf von Baeyer. This was done by condensing urea (an animal waste product) with diethyl malonate (an ester derived from the acid of apples)."

The condensation of urea and malonic acid was done by Grimaux in 1879 (Bull. Soc. Chim. Fr. 1879, 31, 146 - only available in prints), not by von Baeyer who followed a more complicated route starting from uric acid (Ann. der Chem. und Pharm. 1864, 131, 291 - available on the Eur. J. Org. Chem. website).

IUPAC names

Because they are/were well-known and mentioned in the article, I added pentobarbital and secobarbital to the examples table. Hopefully, I read the structures correctly in those articles – it's been a long time since organic chemistry in school – resulting in some questions:

1. It seems that the position of the R1 and R2 groups is interchangeable. In the existing examples in the table, the IUPAC names always have the R1 group first, so that's the order I used for the new examples. Is this correct? How is the order decided upon?

2. Why are the "short names" (the first column) of the examples table capitalized? They are generic names and not capitalized (unless in titles or starting sentences) elsewhere within this and their own articles.

No reason I can find, other than the convention of caps to start a 'graph, bullet point, etc. I've changed them to lower-case, since the distinction between generic and brand-name drugs would seem to be more important here. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 18:54, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

3. At pentobarbital, the IUPAC name in the Infobox starts "5-Ethyl..." is this incorrectly capitalized? Aprobarbital similarly starts "5-Propan-2-yl...".

AFAICT, these caps are wrong and I will change them. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 18:54, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

4. According to barbituric acid, its IUPAC name is "pyrimidine-2,4,6(1H,3H,5H)-trione", and this is used as the root at phenobarbital, barbital, and brallobarbital. However, other examples use other names, only some of which are listed as alternative at barbituric acid:

a. In the table, the root names are all "barbiturate", which is not listed as an alt name at barbituric acid. Also, some have a hyphen before them and others do not. What are the hyphenation rules? Is it correct to use this root name at all (instead of the IUPAC name)?

b. At allobarbital, amobarbital, aprobarbital, and alphenal, the IUPAC name is "...-1,3-diazinane-2,4,6-trione", which is not listed as an alt name at barbituric acid.

c. At pentobarbital, the IUPAC name is "2,4,6(1H,3H,5H)-pyrimidinetrione", which is listed as an alt name at barbituric acid (but see #5, below).

5. At barbituric acid, all the "other names" except the last one have the first name capitalized. These should be all lower case, correct?

AFAICT, yes. Fixing. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 18:54, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

6. Is there just one real IUPAC name, do we have it correct, and is that what should be used in the examples table and all the individual articles as the root name? Should there be a leading hyphen?

—[AlanM1(talk)]— 16:31, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

These are common enough compounds that you can easily find the official IUPAC name for each of them. Don't try to derive it yourself, for ALL molecules there will only be one true, correct IUPAC name, but the rules can be a bit arcane and it's easy with large molecules to screw it up. Just find the reference and cite it. --Jayron32 19:00, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. In #1, though, the issue was decoding the R1 and R2 names from the IUPAC name and knowing which one was which. I'd like to describe the criteria in the article. As far as the capitalization/style issues, there are contradictory sources. For #6, I probably saw sources for each name, leading me to want to understand how/if substitution of common names is supposed to work. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 20:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Overdose discussion

"A dose of 1 g orally can be highly poisonous, with dosages from 2 to 10 g generally being fatal depending on the person's tolerance level."

Considering the dosing differences among potency, phenobarbital initiating at 1-3mg, butalbital initiating at 50-100mg, etc., I'd suggest that this portion of the overdose section be removed, or that the specific barbiturate used in this example be identified in the paragraph. Treating a whole category of drugs with such a vast variance in potencies could lead to potentially dangerous confusion regarding dosages. Of course 1 gram of almost all barbiturates would be toxic to the intolerant patient the high-potency and super-potent barbiturate would be toxic at much lower doses in this population and at the very least this should be stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.99.245.126 (talk) 00:57, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Fatal Dosages AND Effect of Mixing Barbiturates WITH OTHER Barbiturates

According to http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/drug-profiles/barbiturates, it is stated that : "The lethal dose varies from 2–3 g for amobarbital and pentobarbital to 6–10 g for phenobarbital. Lethal overdoses are associated with plasma levels of 60 mg/L of phenobarbital but only 10 mg/L of short-acting compounds such as amobarbital and pentobarbital." This would seem to provide reliable ranges for Barbiturate toxicity. HOWEVER, I CANNOT find information on what happens when Barbiturates are MIXED with other Barbiturates. For consideration, I would be interested in mixtures of phenobarbital, pentobarbital, amobarbital and secobarbital. Does mixing Barbiturates make them more or less lethal? Would there be circumstances where a patient would need a mixture of Barbiturates? Googling or searching on Google Scholar yields no clear answers regarding Barbiturate-mixing. ASavantDude (talk) 18:57, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Taste and Smell of Phenobarbital, Pentobarbital, Amobarbital and Secobarbital

Can anyone indicate what the Taste And Smell of these different Barbiturates are? Some sources on the web state that Pentobarbital solution/liquid is very bitter (but I can't see how it would be bitter in the sense of Lemon Juice - so perhaps a different kind of bitter?). Further what is the smell of these different Barbiturates? I will endeavour to scout this information out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ASavantDude (talk • contribs) 19:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Is 'Free Acid' form of Pentobarbital Lethal when ingested?

Is 'Free Acid' form of Pentobarbital Lethal when ingested? ASavantDude (talk) 20:00, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Analgesic properties

From the Lippincott Pharmacology textbook, 6th edition: "Barbiturates do not raise the pain threshold and have no analgesic properties. They may even exacerbate pain."

Whalen, Karen, Richard Finkel, and Thomas A. Panavelil. Pharmacology. 6th ed. N.p.: n.p., n.d. PDF. Unit III, Chapter 9, V. BARBITURATES

--$cammer (talk) 21:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

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Mechanism of action -- potency vs efficacy

"Barbiturates produce their pharmacological effects by increasing the duration of chloride ion channel opening at the GABAA receptor (pharmacodynamics: This increases the efficacy of GABA), whereas benzodiazepines increase the frequency of the chloride ion channel opening at the GABA_A receptor (pharmacodynamics: This increases the potency of GABA)."

Can someone familiar with the topic check the parts in parentheses? As I understand from Potency_(pharmacology), it seems like both substances increase the efficacy and thus the potency, meaning the parts in parentheses are redundant/non-informative. --ZeitPolizei (talk) 10:32, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Sexual story used

Wanted to as about this: "Another story holds that Baeyer synthesized the substance from the collected urine of a Munich waitress named Barbara". Seems very sexual 2001:8003:6A23:2C00:9B1:DCB3:33A6:8141 (talk) 11:39, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Only sexual to people who have a golden showers fetish.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 15:31, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Overdose example math error

"If a benzodiazepine increases the frequency of channel opening by 300%, and a barbiturate increases the duration of their opening by 300%, then the combined effects of the drugs increases the channels' overall function by 900%, not 600%"

An increase by 300% is a multiplication by 4, not 3. Two multiplications by 4 is a multiplication by 16, or an increase of 1500%, not 900%.

Boatman4 (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

"Physical and psychological addiction" in lead

What does this mean, exactly? It doesn't sound like something a medical authority would say. 2603:7081:1603:A300:D02E:367C:7CE4:2B16 (talk) 19:14, 26 January 2023 (UTC)