6 ms·

Amphetamine at low (and even increasingly high) doses has also been shown to be neuroprotective. Kind of a wonder drug as far as neurology goes, aside from the

Amphetamine at low (and even increasingly high) doses has also been shown to be neuroprotective. Kind of a wonder drug as far as neurology goes, aside from the addictive and euphoric properties. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2440058 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2440058

contingencies 10y ago
Ditto nicotine? Here in Asia we also have betel nut. Then there's caffeine and its drink-marketing brethren...
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  I remember Dr. Dean Edell said more than a few times, 'nicotine/tobacco has been so vilified in the U.S., we will never know if it has any medicinal value.'
  - jacobolus 10y ago
    http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine
    - maneesh 10y ago
      Exactly. It has a ton of valuable, useful characteristics. It's a REALLY good hack for fitness--every day, wear a nicotine patch and go to the gym (at the same time/trigger each day). You RAPIDLY get addicted to fitness.
      - tcj_phx 10y ago
        Nicotine has similar effects to Vitamin B3. Niacinamide (a no-flush B3 supplement) has helped my girlfriend reduce her tobacco intake, when she gets it...
      - mej10 10y ago
        You rapidly get addicted to fitness? Sign me up! But seriously do you have more details on this?
- tominous 10y ago
  I'd love to see more research about nicotine and schizophrenia. Something like 80% or schizophrenics smoke, and they do so heavily. This is 3 or 4 times the rate of the general population. The question is: does smoking cause schizophrenia, is it self-medication, or both? Scott Alexander has an interesting summary [1]. For what it's worth, my schizophrenic brother says smoking makes his mind feel much clearer. I think mental hospitals should have a strategy to provide nicotine to patients (in the high dose they need) to minimise the harm of the strong cheap rubbish that schizophrenics inhale all day. Maybe e-cigs should be promoted to smoker patients. [1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoking-gun/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smokin...
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    There is theorized to be some synergistic effects between tobacco smoking and the antipsychotic medications that people such as your brother often require. IIRC it really isn't known why that is, but it seems relatively well accepted among people who routinely work with schizophrenia.
    - tcj_phx 10y ago
      > There is theorized to be some synergistic effects between tobacco smoking and the antipsychotic medications that people such as your brother often require. "Antipsychotics" are palliative medications that do not address the cause of the problematic symptoms. They have repeatedly been shown to cause a very poor long-term prognosis for the unfortunate patients who are put on them. Nicotine is somewhat similar to Vitamin B3 (Niacin), which has been shown to help schizophrenics recover. Niacinamide supplementation helps my girlfriend reduce her tobacco use. ... Here, we propose a model that a subset of schizophrenia can respond to niacin augmentation therapy better than other subsets because these patients have contributions in their psychotic manifestations from the neural degeneration resulting from niacin deficiency. We present a short description of our case report which showed rapid improvement in schizophrenic psychotic symptoms subsequent to administration of niacin as an augmentation therapy. We, thus, propose that niacin deficiency is a contributory factor in schizophrenia development in some patients and symptom alleviation in these patients will benefit from niacin augmentation, especially in some particular psychotic features." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25855923 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25855923
- MicroBerto 10y ago
  Betel nut and arecoline (one of the primary constituents, similar to nicotine) are ridiculously carcinogenic. Bad idea touching that stuff. A contract manufacturing lab in the supplement industry tried to bring it into supplements with celebrity athletes promoting it. I did my research and decided it was a BAD idea outside of hardcore /well-researched circles and went on the attack. https://blog.priceplow.com/betel-nut-arecoline https://blog.priceplow.com/betel-nut-arecoline I had some legal threats but was in communication with toxicologists over the issue and was ready to take it all the way to court to protect my first Amendment rights. One major retailer then also got toxicologists involved. After much tension, the supplements were removed from the market. And interestingly, the owners of the company that tried to bring it to market are now facing serious jail time for other things. Point being? 1. Do not touch that stuff with a ten foot pole. 2. You can make a difference and protect consumers who do not know how to do the research themselves. Sorry for the offtopic rant. I am a huge fan of stimulants but I do not believe in promoting all of them to everybody and urge you all much caution with them. Especially that Betel nut / arecoline poison.
yarou 10y ago
Keep in mind you still have the constraint of the Yerkes–Dodson law [0]. Drugs that are neuroprotective at therapeutic doses can easily become neurotoxic at extremely high supratherapeutic doses. The only exception that comes to mind is memantine, which leads to a clearly disassociative state, but recreational use (again supratherapeutic doses) hasn't been studied thoroughly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law
PragmaticPulp 10y ago
Amphetamine is not neuroprotective in a general sense, nor is that what the study shows. The study shows that gradually increasing the dose apparently allows rats to avoid some of the neurotoxicity effects of the amphetamine doses. Amphetamine is well known to be toxic to rats in high doses, and the study you linked confirms as much. They just identified a dosing scheme which reduced the neurotoxicity through gradual dose increases, perhaps by giving the brains a chance to adapt. It should not be interpreted to suggest that amphetamine is neuroprotective in general.
- aburan28 10y ago
  IMO the jury on these studies is to be determined. There is evidence of neurotoxicity but at the same time there are studies showing some neuroprotective properties. How about we wait to make claims until after more thorough research has been conducted
whamlastxmas 10y ago
I don't believe amphetamine at therapeutic doses is addictive. You definitely have to ween off of it, because cold turkey means you'll sleep for a week straight. And any trace of euphoria goes away after a few months of daily therapeutic doses. Even if you quit for a week+ and get back on, the euphoria only comes back for, at most, a couple days.
- mej10 10y ago
  Even at therapeutic doses it can be psychologically addictive.

contingencies 10y ago

Ditto nicotine? Here in Asia we also have betel nut. Then there's caffeine and its drink-marketing brethren...

icantdrive55 10y ago
I remember Dr. Dean Edell said more than a few times, 'nicotine/tobacco has been so vilified in the U.S., we will never know if it has any medicinal value.'
- jacobolus 10y ago
  http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine
  - maneesh 10y ago
    Exactly. It has a ton of valuable, useful characteristics. It's a REALLY good hack for fitness--every day, wear a nicotine patch and go to the gym (at the same time/trigger each day). You RAPIDLY get addicted to fitness.
    - tcj_phx 10y ago
      Nicotine has similar effects to Vitamin B3. Niacinamide (a no-flush B3 supplement) has helped my girlfriend reduce her tobacco intake, when she gets it...
    - mej10 10y ago
      You rapidly get addicted to fitness? Sign me up! But seriously do you have more details on this?
tominous 10y ago
I'd love to see more research about nicotine and schizophrenia. Something like 80% or schizophrenics smoke, and they do so heavily. This is 3 or 4 times the rate of the general population. The question is: does smoking cause schizophrenia, is it self-medication, or both? Scott Alexander has an interesting summary [1]. For what it's worth, my schizophrenic brother says smoking makes his mind feel much clearer. I think mental hospitals should have a strategy to provide nicotine to patients (in the high dose they need) to minimise the harm of the strong cheap rubbish that schizophrenics inhale all day. Maybe e-cigs should be promoted to smoker patients. [1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smoking-gun/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/11/schizophrenia-no-smokin...
- M_Grey 10y ago
  There is theorized to be some synergistic effects between tobacco smoking and the antipsychotic medications that people such as your brother often require. IIRC it really isn't known why that is, but it seems relatively well accepted among people who routinely work with schizophrenia.
  - tcj_phx 10y ago
    > There is theorized to be some synergistic effects between tobacco smoking and the antipsychotic medications that people such as your brother often require. "Antipsychotics" are palliative medications that do not address the cause of the problematic symptoms. They have repeatedly been shown to cause a very poor long-term prognosis for the unfortunate patients who are put on them. Nicotine is somewhat similar to Vitamin B3 (Niacin), which has been shown to help schizophrenics recover. Niacinamide supplementation helps my girlfriend reduce her tobacco use. ... Here, we propose a model that a subset of schizophrenia can respond to niacin augmentation therapy better than other subsets because these patients have contributions in their psychotic manifestations from the neural degeneration resulting from niacin deficiency. We present a short description of our case report which showed rapid improvement in schizophrenic psychotic symptoms subsequent to administration of niacin as an augmentation therapy. We, thus, propose that niacin deficiency is a contributory factor in schizophrenia development in some patients and symptom alleviation in these patients will benefit from niacin augmentation, especially in some particular psychotic features." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25855923 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25855923
MicroBerto 10y ago
Betel nut and arecoline (one of the primary constituents, similar to nicotine) are ridiculously carcinogenic. Bad idea touching that stuff. A contract manufacturing lab in the supplement industry tried to bring it into supplements with celebrity athletes promoting it. I did my research and decided it was a BAD idea outside of hardcore /well-researched circles and went on the attack. https://blog.priceplow.com/betel-nut-arecoline https://blog.priceplow.com/betel-nut-arecoline I had some legal threats but was in communication with toxicologists over the issue and was ready to take it all the way to court to protect my first Amendment rights. One major retailer then also got toxicologists involved. After much tension, the supplements were removed from the market. And interestingly, the owners of the company that tried to bring it to market are now facing serious jail time for other things. Point being? 1. Do not touch that stuff with a ten foot pole. 2. You can make a difference and protect consumers who do not know how to do the research themselves. Sorry for the offtopic rant. I am a huge fan of stimulants but I do not believe in promoting all of them to everybody and urge you all much caution with them. Especially that Betel nut / arecoline poison.

yarou 10y ago

Keep in mind you still have the constraint of the Yerkes–Dodson law [0]. Drugs that are neuroprotective at therapeutic doses can easily become neurotoxic at extremely high supratherapeutic doses. The only exception that comes to mind is memantine, which leads to a clearly disassociative state, but recreational use (again supratherapeutic doses) hasn't been studied thoroughly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_law

PragmaticPulp 10y ago

Amphetamine is not neuroprotective in a general sense, nor is that what the study shows. The study shows that gradually increasing the dose apparently allows rats to avoid some of the neurotoxicity effects of the amphetamine doses. Amphetamine is well known to be toxic to rats in high doses, and the study you linked confirms as much. They just identified a dosing scheme which reduced the neurotoxicity through gradual dose increases, perhaps by giving the brains a chance to adapt. It should not be interpreted to suggest that amphetamine is neuroprotective in general.

aburan28 10y ago
IMO the jury on these studies is to be determined. There is evidence of neurotoxicity but at the same time there are studies showing some neuroprotective properties. How about we wait to make claims until after more thorough research has been conducted

whamlastxmas 10y ago

I don't believe amphetamine at therapeutic doses is addictive. You definitely have to ween off of it, because cold turkey means you'll sleep for a week straight. And any trace of euphoria goes away after a few months of daily therapeutic doses. Even if you quit for a week+ and get back on, the euphoria only comes back for, at most, a couple days.

mej10 10y ago
Even at therapeutic doses it can be psychologically addictive.