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Pardon my ignorance and zero background in this, but, taking advantage of this fresh thread ... could someone explain What is the degree of relevance of mice t

Pardon my ignorance and zero background in this, but, taking advantage of this fresh thread ... could someone explain What is the degree of relevance of mice testing and humans gaining insight from such tests? Almost all threads of this nature revolve around mice. As a layman and the "HN effect" I seem to be drawing enlightenment for self-improvement from such threads. How wrong am I?

crdrost 5y ago
So it is the standard preliminary test subject. Preliminary being a key word, things get tested in them first for plausibility but those findings usually need to be reconfirmed in an actual human study. The first thing is that they're mammals. You might be able to get cheap chickens for example, do experiments on them, but they're birds, they're not mammals. In terms of how similar to us they are, the most similar thing is he could find would be chimpanzees or so, and great apes in that general category, dogs and cows would be more similar to us than mice, mice and rats are probably about the same, and then there are things that are older like opossums, they would be a worse fit than mice. And they are social animals like we are. Mice are cheap because they are good at making more of themselves, and at this point you can buy them fantastically inbred—genetically nearly uniform, a bunch of them all the same age. The short life span is the third killer feature, obviously when you do human studies you have to follow us around for 40 years if you want us to get old, free mouse you just follow him for 2 years. Other than that, it's mostly just that they're mostly domesticated, so you don't have to worry about them biting you or anything. They are small and easy to handle and when you need a larger creature there are rats available. You will notice that they are less used for certain other things, so for example if you wanted to test biomedical devices that you insert into a body, maybe something that you clamp around an artery, for those sorts of things the smallness really gets in the way... Then you might see cow or horse studies or whatever, something with bigger arteries that you can clamp this thing on. It would be irresponsible to decide what supplements you are supplementing with based only on mouse studies. It would not be extremely irresponsible—there is a decent chance that if it were actively going to kill you then that would have appeared in the mouse studies—but it's still generally irresponsible in a milder fashion. In the sense that you are kind of throwing the dice with your health rather than making an informed decision. But I mean it's a better habit than smoking I guess so do whatever floats your boat?
- kibibu 5y ago
  We often see therapies that work on mice but that don't translate to humans, but I wonder how many treatments that would be super effective for humans were discarded because they didn't work in mice.
  - ianai 5y ago
    It’s very unlikely for something to work in humans that doesn’t in mice. It’s a bit like a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition.
    - girafffe_i 5y ago
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    We would probably see some effect on the mice even if it was not a strong one. When we say that something worked on mice but not humans, it usually means that the effect on humans was insufficient to be worthwhile, but we can see it. It may be worthwhile exploring further. If we saw even a small effect in mice, it might suggest an area to do further research.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
You need to know what type of mice they are just like other lab animals like rats. You also need to know what their diet was. Strains of rats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_rat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_rat Gene knockout rats https://www.genoway.com/service/aw/knockout-rats.htm https://www.genoway.com/service/aw/knockout-rats.htm For example in a rat experiment. Aged rats with osteoporosis. 2 groups, control and vitamin K2-MK4 group. Deliberate fracture to one of the limbs. 1st 3 days k2-mk4 group receive 119mg/k/d then nothing. Control group got no K2-MK4. 12 weeks later, fracture is still visible on xray in control group. 12 days later, fracture is not visible on xray in k2-mk4 group. What most people dont know is rats have a gene different to other mammals so they can repair their bones more quickly. If you dont know that last sentence, you could be forgiven for rushing out and consuming 119mg/kg/d of k2-mk4 when a bone fracture occurs, even though K2-MK4 hardens bones, and Jap gp's have been prescribing between 45-90mg of K2-mk4 to post menopausal women with osteoporosis for years now. Its like creatine, its got a pain killing effect comparable to the horse drug Bute, and a metabolised form of creatine is creatinine hydrochloride which kills both gram positive and gram negative bacteria in a dose dependent manner. Meat eaters consume the most amount of creatine compared to vegetarians, and this dietary difference shows the brain concentrates creatine when short supply which then leads credence to Prof Bruce Ames Triage Theory. With certain injuries muscles catabolise to release creatine like with burns. Cooking meat can reduce creatine by 30% which explains why husky owners see about a 20% increase in performance when their dogs are fed a raw diet of meat. Govt legislation also limits the health claims someone selling supplements can make, even if they have scientific studies like this to back up a claim. One could argue Govt legislation makes it illegal to have rude health and would suggest health is used to control people. Human experiments are expensive, a cheap one in the UK will cost upwards of £250,000, its big business, so pfizer, moderna, Astra Zeneca etc hit the jackpot with Covid for a revenue increase! Edit: I'm not qualified in anything because I refuse to adhere to university teaching programs, which are just opinions of some people who have control over what we get taught, irrespective of its relevance because to date noone can truly be classed as an expert as noone currently can live for ever!

crdrost 5y ago

So it is the standard preliminary test subject. Preliminary being a key word, things get tested in them first for plausibility but those findings usually need to be reconfirmed in an actual human study. The first thing is that they're mammals. You might be able to get cheap chickens for example, do experiments on them, but they're birds, they're not mammals. In terms of how similar to us they are, the most similar thing is he could find would be chimpanzees or so, and great apes in that general category, dogs and cows would be more similar to us than mice, mice and rats are probably about the same, and then there are things that are older like opossums, they would be a worse fit than mice. And they are social animals like we are. Mice are cheap because they are good at making more of themselves, and at this point you can buy them fantastically inbred—genetically nearly uniform, a bunch of them all the same age. The short life span is the third killer feature, obviously when you do human studies you have to follow us around for 40 years if you want us to get old, free mouse you just follow him for 2 years. Other than that, it's mostly just that they're mostly domesticated, so you don't have to worry about them biting you or anything. They are small and easy to handle and when you need a larger creature there are rats available. You will notice that they are less used for certain other things, so for example if you wanted to test biomedical devices that you insert into a body, maybe something that you clamp around an artery, for those sorts of things the smallness really gets in the way... Then you might see cow or horse studies or whatever, something with bigger arteries that you can clamp this thing on. It would be irresponsible to decide what supplements you are supplementing with based only on mouse studies. It would not be extremely irresponsible—there is a decent chance that if it were actively going to kill you then that would have appeared in the mouse studies—but it's still generally irresponsible in a milder fashion. In the sense that you are kind of throwing the dice with your health rather than making an informed decision. But I mean it's a better habit than smoking I guess so do whatever floats your boat?

kibibu 5y ago
We often see therapies that work on mice but that don't translate to humans, but I wonder how many treatments that would be super effective for humans were discarded because they didn't work in mice.
- ianai 5y ago
  It’s very unlikely for something to work in humans that doesn’t in mice. It’s a bit like a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition.
  - girafffe_i 5y ago
- Tagbert 5y ago
  We would probably see some effect on the mice even if it was not a strong one. When we say that something worked on mice but not humans, it usually means that the effect on humans was insufficient to be worthwhile, but we can see it. It may be worthwhile exploring further. If we saw even a small effect in mice, it might suggest an area to do further research.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

You need to know what type of mice they are just like other lab animals like rats. You also need to know what their diet was. Strains of rats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_rat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_rat Gene knockout rats https://www.genoway.com/service/aw/knockout-rats.htm https://www.genoway.com/service/aw/knockout-rats.htm For example in a rat experiment. Aged rats with osteoporosis. 2 groups, control and vitamin K2-MK4 group. Deliberate fracture to one of the limbs. 1st 3 days k2-mk4 group receive 119mg/k/d then nothing. Control group got no K2-MK4. 12 weeks later, fracture is still visible on xray in control group. 12 days later, fracture is not visible on xray in k2-mk4 group. What most people dont know is rats have a gene different to other mammals so they can repair their bones more quickly. If you dont know that last sentence, you could be forgiven for rushing out and consuming 119mg/kg/d of k2-mk4 when a bone fracture occurs, even though K2-MK4 hardens bones, and Jap gp's have been prescribing between 45-90mg of K2-mk4 to post menopausal women with osteoporosis for years now. Its like creatine, its got a pain killing effect comparable to the horse drug Bute, and a metabolised form of creatine is creatinine hydrochloride which kills both gram positive and gram negative bacteria in a dose dependent manner. Meat eaters consume the most amount of creatine compared to vegetarians, and this dietary difference shows the brain concentrates creatine when short supply which then leads credence to Prof Bruce Ames Triage Theory. With certain injuries muscles catabolise to release creatine like with burns. Cooking meat can reduce creatine by 30% which explains why husky owners see about a 20% increase in performance when their dogs are fed a raw diet of meat. Govt legislation also limits the health claims someone selling supplements can make, even if they have scientific studies like this to back up a claim. One could argue Govt legislation makes it illegal to have rude health and would suggest health is used to control people. Human experiments are expensive, a cheap one in the UK will cost upwards of £250,000, its big business, so pfizer, moderna, Astra Zeneca etc hit the jackpot with Covid for a revenue increase! Edit: I'm not qualified in anything because I refuse to adhere to university teaching programs, which are just opinions of some people who have control over what we get taught, irrespective of its relevance because to date noone can truly be classed as an expert as noone currently can live for ever!