4 ms·

Tangent to this, I've always wondered whether stimulant drugs like ADHD meds, also stimulate the metabolisms (incl. reproduction rate) of bacteria and/or parasi

by derefr 3y ago

Tangent to this, I've always wondered whether stimulant drugs like ADHD meds, also stimulate the metabolisms (incl. reproduction rate) of bacteria and/or parasites living in your body. (Dopamine and its receptors are really, really old, evolutionarily; at least some prokaryotes produce dopamine and have dopamine receptors. All eukaryotes definitely do — which includes all parasites.)

polishdude20 3y ago
Is reproduction rate of regular cells changed from using stimulant drugs?
- derefr 3y ago
  Presuming by "regular cells", you mean non-gamete diploid cells in a multicellular organism, I don't think so. Outside of the CNS (which does its own special things with dopamine), dopaminergic compounds generally just increase cellular metabolic rate — which basically translates to any given cell (that has a dopamine receptor) doing "its job" faster: consuming resources and producing waste faster, and thereby doing more of whatever chemistry those resources are consumed to drive. (If you think of a cell as a control system seeking equilibrium, dopaminergic-receptor activation forces the cell to take in, through endocytosis, more input chemicals to some of its key internal reactions than it's "ready" for, throwing it out of equilibrium — so it then tries to quickly react those chemicals away to get back to equilibrium.) IIRC, independent of CNS signalling, liver cells exposed to dopaminergic compounds produce more bile per second; muscle cells gain more contractile tone (which is why digestive peristalsis speeds up, and also why you might start stressing your jaw muscles); and a number of other things. Replication (i.e. cellular division) isn't the inherent "job" of any single cell within a multicellular organism. Cells do divide, but they don't inherently divide — they do it in response to specific chemical messengers from the greater organism letting them know that it is in need of more of that kind of cell within the tissue that cell is located in. (Cells not waiting for these signals to divide, is in part what cancer is!) So I wouldn't think that there's any (diploid) cell in a multicellular organism that reproduces more when prodded with stimulants. Haploid cells (gametes), maybe — but even those only divide on command, IIRC. Bacteria, on the other hand, aren't just cells, they're single-celled organisms — where they use their metabolism not to passively obey orders "from on high", but to actively attempt to grow and distribute their genetic material. So it would be intuitive to me if making them metabolize faster, made them do organism-level things like reproduction faster. But I don't know for sure. I do know, though, that most parasites, e.g. tapeworms, are complex enough that they respond to dopamine pretty much exactly the same way humans do: dopamine triggers CNS signalling within them, which increases their level of behavioral arousal, which in turn motivates them to use more of their organism-level resource stores over the short term in seeking to eat, seeking to reproduce, and in doing anything else they care about doing.
  - mjan22640 3y ago
    Cancer is when a cell disconnects from the body and starts behaving like an independent organism https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5_12k&pp=ygUUbWljaGFlbCBsZXZpbiBjYW5jZXI%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5_12k&pp=ygUUbWljaGFlbCB...
JoshTko 3y ago
Those super focused bacteria and parasites are the worst!
jareklupinski 3y ago
"i'm not addicted to alcohol, but my gut flora are real party animals and start secreteing poison when they dont get their 'medicine'"
- derefr 3y ago
  Anecdote: something exactly like this seems to have been true for me until recently — but with sugar. I recently had a very strong course of antibiotics for a resistant infection. Completely destroyed my gut flora. Had two weeks of terrible, Chron's-like digestive issues afterward, before things settled down. Whatever grew back is very likely brand-new colonization, not regrowth. Before I got sick, if I didn't have at least a certain amount of sugar per day, I'd start to feel inflamed all over my body—especially in my face and my joints. I drank a lot of soda throughout the day; ate chocolate to "feel better" each night before bed; etc. Any time I was travelling away from access to these foods, and so eating "better", I felt worse. After getting sick + taking the antibiotics + re-seeding my gut, the "demand" my body had for sugar seems to have completely evaporated. Coke/Pepsi, which just tasted "good" to me before, now tastes horribly saccharine-sweet, to the point that I can barely stand it. Less-sweet stuff still tastes fine — sugar isn't inherently gross to me now, it's just suddenly gross in large amounts. And so I find myself consuming a lot less sugar now, to seemingly absolutely no ill effect.
  - jareklupinski 3y ago
    thanks for posting that! i had a wild ride after a course of antibiotics as a kid too, and it definitely showed me the level of agency you can truly have when half of your cellular structures are 'foreign bodies' :) > re-seeding my gut hope to see more research around this: metabolic pathways are getting well understood, and we may find some more interesting interactions/shortcuts we can offload to bacteria already present in our body
  - kridsdale3 3y ago
    I suspect a lot of people would benefit from "nuke it all and start over" treatments. Get a bunch of kimchi, leafy fibrous veggies, etc, in for the new seeding. Natto, soy sauce. Basically re-make yourself in to a Japanese or Korean person, diet wise. You may end up much thinner and healthier as a result.

by derefr 3y ago

polishdude20 3y ago

Is reproduction rate of regular cells changed from using stimulant drugs?

derefr 3y ago
Presuming by "regular cells", you mean non-gamete diploid cells in a multicellular organism, I don't think so. Outside of the CNS (which does its own special things with dopamine), dopaminergic compounds generally just increase cellular metabolic rate — which basically translates to any given cell (that has a dopamine receptor) doing "its job" faster: consuming resources and producing waste faster, and thereby doing more of whatever chemistry those resources are consumed to drive. (If you think of a cell as a control system seeking equilibrium, dopaminergic-receptor activation forces the cell to take in, through endocytosis, more input chemicals to some of its key internal reactions than it's "ready" for, throwing it out of equilibrium — so it then tries to quickly react those chemicals away to get back to equilibrium.) IIRC, independent of CNS signalling, liver cells exposed to dopaminergic compounds produce more bile per second; muscle cells gain more contractile tone (which is why digestive peristalsis speeds up, and also why you might start stressing your jaw muscles); and a number of other things. Replication (i.e. cellular division) isn't the inherent "job" of any single cell within a multicellular organism. Cells do divide, but they don't inherently divide — they do it in response to specific chemical messengers from the greater organism letting them know that it is in need of more of that kind of cell within the tissue that cell is located in. (Cells not waiting for these signals to divide, is in part what cancer is!) So I wouldn't think that there's any (diploid) cell in a multicellular organism that reproduces more when prodded with stimulants. Haploid cells (gametes), maybe — but even those only divide on command, IIRC. Bacteria, on the other hand, aren't just cells, they're single-celled organisms — where they use their metabolism not to passively obey orders "from on high", but to actively attempt to grow and distribute their genetic material. So it would be intuitive to me if making them metabolize faster, made them do organism-level things like reproduction faster. But I don't know for sure. I do know, though, that most parasites, e.g. tapeworms, are complex enough that they respond to dopamine pretty much exactly the same way humans do: dopamine triggers CNS signalling within them, which increases their level of behavioral arousal, which in turn motivates them to use more of their organism-level resource stores over the short term in seeking to eat, seeking to reproduce, and in doing anything else they care about doing.
- mjan22640 3y ago
  Cancer is when a cell disconnects from the body and starts behaving like an independent organism https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5_12k&pp=ygUUbWljaGFlbCBsZXZpbiBjYW5jZXI%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VI0u5_12k&pp=ygUUbWljaGFlbCB...

JoshTko 3y ago

Those super focused bacteria and parasites are the worst!

jareklupinski 3y ago

"i'm not addicted to alcohol, but my gut flora are real party animals and start secreteing poison when they dont get their 'medicine'"

derefr 3y ago
Anecdote: something exactly like this seems to have been true for me until recently — but with sugar. I recently had a very strong course of antibiotics for a resistant infection. Completely destroyed my gut flora. Had two weeks of terrible, Chron's-like digestive issues afterward, before things settled down. Whatever grew back is very likely brand-new colonization, not regrowth. Before I got sick, if I didn't have at least a certain amount of sugar per day, I'd start to feel inflamed all over my body—especially in my face and my joints. I drank a lot of soda throughout the day; ate chocolate to "feel better" each night before bed; etc. Any time I was travelling away from access to these foods, and so eating "better", I felt worse. After getting sick + taking the antibiotics + re-seeding my gut, the "demand" my body had for sugar seems to have completely evaporated. Coke/Pepsi, which just tasted "good" to me before, now tastes horribly saccharine-sweet, to the point that I can barely stand it. Less-sweet stuff still tastes fine — sugar isn't inherently gross to me now, it's just suddenly gross in large amounts. And so I find myself consuming a lot less sugar now, to seemingly absolutely no ill effect.
- jareklupinski 3y ago
  thanks for posting that! i had a wild ride after a course of antibiotics as a kid too, and it definitely showed me the level of agency you can truly have when half of your cellular structures are 'foreign bodies' :) > re-seeding my gut hope to see more research around this: metabolic pathways are getting well understood, and we may find some more interesting interactions/shortcuts we can offload to bacteria already present in our body
- kridsdale3 3y ago
  I suspect a lot of people would benefit from "nuke it all and start over" treatments. Get a bunch of kimchi, leafy fibrous veggies, etc, in for the new seeding. Natto, soy sauce. Basically re-make yourself in to a Japanese or Korean person, diet wise. You may end up much thinner and healthier as a result.