10 ms·
Tramadol Is Not a Natural Product After All
- s_baby 12y agoHow are the farmers obtaining such large quantities of Tramadol?
- ch4s3 12y agothey buy it. ag drugs are not very heavily regulated.
- danford 12y agoCould you expand or provide a link?
- tedunangst 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroon
- s_baby 12y agoTramadol is a low-grade narcotic, not an AG drug. Unless I'm missing something.
- knd775 12y agoWait, let me make sure I am understanding this. So Tramadol was given to cattle in such large amounts that it made it into the soil and enough got soaked up by trees that it was thought that Tramadol came from those trees. That is just incredible.
- lobotryas 12y agoIt's the circle of life!
- acchow 12y agoI only wish we could get a wikipedia-news-citation cycle in on this story.
- johndavi 12y agoOnce enough is coming up through grassblades then farmers can cease giving it to the cattle directly. The holy grail of Unlimited Tramadol!
- gcb0 12y agoDrugs company hates him! now seriously, where do one find such abundance of opiates to feed cows of?!
- bayesianhorse 12y agoTramadol seems to be relatively cheap to produce, and has all sorts of uses beyond just pain medication.
- ceol 12y agoI'm not sure if you're joking, but opiates are grown from opium poppy plants, so that would be a good place to start if you actually wanted an abundance to feed to animals. Tramadol, however, is an opioid, which is a term that encompasses both opiates and synthetic opiate-like drugs -- of which Tramadol falls in the latter.
- gcb4 12y agothat's the point. synthetic opiates are not cheap. and those farmers are feeding herd with it.
- philosoft 12y agoExacerbated by the animals seeking shade near the trees and then relieving themselves in the shade.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoI didn't even know that Frankie Boyle had taken up farming.
- gwern 12y agoThis may also be a tribute to the sensitivity of modern chemistry's tests.
- robert_tweed 12y agoCan't help but be reminded of the Wikipedia circular citation phenomenon - http://xkcd.com/978/ http://xkcd.com/978/
- Igglyboo 12y agoYou could easily argue that everything that ever was or will be is natural, not really sure why the word is still used to describe products.
- sp332 12y agoHydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are natural. But this arrangement of the atoms does not occur unless humans want it to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol
- spacehome 12y agoEh. If you leave hydrogen alone for long enough, it will turn into tramadol.
- Igglyboo 12y agoYes that's what I'm saying, "unless humans want it to" still qualifies as natural. Humans are natural and a part of nature and so anything they create is as well. If a beehive or beaver dam is considered natural then so is the empire state building, all three were created by animals native to this planet.
- dllthomas 12y agoSure, you can redefine the word in a way that makes it meaningless. Or you can use it the way the rest of the world does - where "natural" means "not the result of human intervention". By that definition, it's obvious why a beehive and beaver dam are "natural" and the Empire State Building is not. There is a degree to which this focus is arbitrary, but given that we are humans, it's sometimes a worthwhile focus to have. That in turn, of course, does not mean it's correct to care about it everywhere we seem to.
- telecuda 12y agoTramadol recently became more regulated as a controlled substance and now requires patients to jump through more hoops (pain management visits, drug tests, etc.) to obtain. Source: Family member on Tramadol and http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20140818/NEWS08/140819860?tags=%7C69%7C79%7C80%7C304%7C92# http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20140818/NEWS08/140...
- rjurney 12y agoI think its stupid they did that, but then I do remember widespread use of "Tromol" in Moscow. People would take it in high doses and veg out for days at a time.
- duncanawoods 12y agoIs this is the same Tramadol that is incredibly addictive and kills people if they taper off too quickly? Why wouldn't you want some hoops for this? I was prescribed it after I broke a leg in judo. I was shocked when I looked it up and found forums rife with addicts in great distress.
- jrapdx3 12y agoTramadol, like several other opioid drugs, e.g., hydrocodone and oxycodone, has been increasingly associated with dependence in recent years, so have been rescheduled to a more highly controlled classification by the DEA/FDA. This is not a new phenomenon. Many opioids, including heroin, when introduced where thought to be "less addicting" than older opium-derived drugs. Of course, this turned out to be mistaken and now it's being played out with several "less addictive" opioids in common use. I certainly wouldn't regard tramadol as innocuous, besides abuse and dependence, it can also have serious interactions with other medications, particularly serotonin overload which can be deadly.
- telecuda 12y agoHoops are good, yes, and I don't disagree with the decision to reclassify it. The extra time and expense of new doctor appointments, urine tests, pill counting, questioning, etc. for someone who has been on the drug responsibly for a long time can just be aggravating.
- linker3000 12y agoSo, no organisation took samples of these trees/seeds to cultivate and study elsewhere and wondered why they weren't getting the same results!?
- wtallis 12y agoCultivating the plants in a lab to study would have been a lot more difficult than what was actually done in this attempt to replicate the results, which was to just take samples from more than one region.
- linker3000 12y agoGuys, that was a genuine question so why the downvote? I'm not a scientist and really can't understand why no-one wouldn't have done a controlled test or comparison in laboratory conditions.
- wtallis 12y agoLaboratory tests are expensive and time consuming and in this case completely unnecessary. Why would anyone do such an experiment?
- linker3000 12y agoGood point - as I said, I am not a scientist, so that's what I wanted to know and your answer helps me understand. In my mind, it seems like declaring that a plant is growing gold, without testing the ground (or doing a lab test), and later finding out that its roots are picking up the gold from a seam near the surface.
- dalke 12y agoAt some point you have to stop. For examples: what was the geological reason for the gold seam? What is the transport mechanism from the roots to the rest of the plant? What is the evolutionary advantage to grow gold? What are the genetic differences between that plant and similar plants? It's impossible to cover everything, so you have to get an idea of what's interesting enough to publish. Then when you do submit it for publication, the reviewers will say "have you tried X?", where X is something which takes a lot more time and funding than you have, and you really just want to be done with the paper.
- pron 12y ago> Natural products chemistry is getting trickier all the time So now there's "natural" chemistry and "plain" chemistry? I thought molecules are molecules, and don't care how they came to be. What if humans were to artificially select some bacteria over a few generations to synthesize a certain molecule. Would that molecule now be "natural" or synthetic? In fact, it can be argued that many "natural" molecules are a result of that exact process, because their synthesizing organism has evolved to survive human effects. EDIT: as pointed out by localhost, natural products chemistry is actually a well defined -- and widely accepted -- term.
- localhost 12y agoNatural products chemistry is a very old branch of synthetic organic chemistry. See wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_product If you do a quick search for Natural Products in Google Scholar, and you'll see that this is a widely accepted term in organic chemistry. Now, what you're saying is something that generally irritates me to no end - differentiating between "synthetic" and "natural". An alkene is an alkene, regardless of whether it was synthesized by a natural process or in a reactor.
- pron 12y agoOh. I stand corrected.
- evincarofautumn 12y agoIn fact I’d half-expect that synthetic products be generally safer, since you know exactly what you’re making and the extent to which it may be adulterated. If I want to eat everything that comes from the vanilla bean, I can buy extract. But if I want just vanillin, I can buy exactly that.
- SAI_Peregrinus 12y agoNatural products can be produced via a wholly synthetic method, they're just compounds which are also produced by non-human bits of nature.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- throwaway_yy2Di 12y ago[off topic] Wow, his last post created some bizarre drama on Reddit: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2014/09/12/thiola_retrophin_martin_shkrell_reddit_and_more.php http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2014/09/12/thiola_retro... His criticism of a biotech CEO provoked a Reddit thread with two thousand comments, and the CEO showing up to write responses. And controversially the whole thing was removed by moderators, and Dr. Lowe briefly banned from the site.
- sillysaurus3 12y agoWould you mind linking to the thread? I know it's been removed, but I'm curious which subreddit that happened in. Also, did anyone ever explain why he was shadowbanned? Only Reddit admins can shadowban someone, and I thought they only issued bans for vote manipulation, not for causing controversy.
- DanBC 12y agoHe used multiple accounts to vote-ring.
- throwaway_yy2Di 12y agoWhat's your source?
- GigabyteCoin 12y agoI highly doubt that a doctor who was receiving massive traction on reddit would stoop so low as to fake-upvote his own article.
- mendelk 12y ago> massive traction For an example of one accused of such see [0] [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidan
- 12y ago
- dbbolton 12y ago>The farmers apparently take the drug themselves, at pretty high dosages, saying that it allows them to work without getting tiree. That's insane. Tramadol is among the worst painkillers to use recreationally, which is why it's often the next line of analgesic therapy after NSAIDs and before hydrocodone. It is a comparatively weak mu-opioid agonist, so the dose a person would have to take to get a prototypical opioid high, likely quadruple a normal prescribed dose at minimum, is pushing the margin of safety. I am not advocating drug use here, but if you're dead set on getting high, please use something else- namely something with a higher mu-affinity that would require a lower dose, and ideally something that's not combined with acetaminophen or other NSAIDs.
- Houshalter 12y agoPresumably they are getting the drug from supplies meant for the cattle. It's not like they have a choice of drugs to use.
- titanomachy 12y agoThe article actually seemed to imply that the farmers started taking it first and thought (for some reason) that the cows might also benefit.
- tedunangst 12y agoIt doesn't sound like they're trying to get high, per se, just work harder without feeling it. A "recreational" dose would probably interfere with getting work done.
- dbbolton 12y agoNot necessarily. Opioids, like other euphoriants, are somewhat "stimulating" (mentally) in small doses. I know they aren't just "trying to get high". The problem is that in order to get any psychotropic effects from Tramadol, the dose is so high that a lot of other really nasty effects will come with it. A 5mg dose of hydrocodone would accomplish the effect they are after with very little negative physical effects. If they were just using it as an analgesic, which the article clearly indicated is not the case, it would be a different story.
- apercu 12y agoI give my aging lab Tramadol. It is easier on his liver than other painkillers. Vets routinely proscribe Tremadol as a painkiller to animals after surgery, as it's not hard on their organs. But that doesn't mean you should take it. Stick to beer.
- bishun 12y agoMy first thought would not have been, "Wow this tree's producing tramadol." It would be, "Wow this tree's contaminated, I wonder how?"
- ck2 12y agowtf are anti-depressants being given to cattle?
- titanomachy 12y agoTramadol is a painkiller, not an anti-depressant... but the question remains.
- markdown 12y agoProbably the same reason chickens are fed anti-biotics... to increase yields. In the case of chickens... antibiotics keeps them disease free and promotes growth. Cows milk production is negatively affected by stress and unhappiness. Painkillers help keep them happy.
- viggity 12y agoTramadol is being investigated as a potential anti-depressant as withdraw symptoms mimic withdraw symptoms of SSRIs
- pdkl95 12y agoIt's both a painkiller (mu-opioid agonist) and an anti-depressant (SSRI, or possibly SNRI style effects). The fact that many people - including many doctors - ignore the latter effects is, in my opinion, criminal negligence. The SSRI effects are NOT trivial, and last days compared to the "hours" of opiate effect you get. Even worse, the "M1" metabolite of tramadol is itself an active drug in similar ways, and metabolized by the same P450 liver enzyme. So the rate the drug leaves your system is a nasty differential equation as it competes with itself for the the same enzymes. That equation gets even more insane if you have anything else in your system that interacts with it, even slightly. Note: I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad drug - the SSRI effects by themselves can be useful for certain types of pain (neurological pain in particular), so it may be a better choice than morphine/{hydro}codine in some cases. People just need to be aware it's not a "trivial" drug, that it can interact with many things, and has more effects than the usual painkillers that may be contraindicated for some people.
- vhost- 12y agoThis drug is absolutely awful. I had an abscessed wisdom tooth and was prescribed Tramadol for pain management while I waited for an appointment to get teeth extracted. Not only did I feel like shit all the time, when I tried to stop taking it, I couldn't sleep at all. It was entire nights of frustration, tossing and turning. I was only taking 100mg a day to just get through work and whatnot too. I decided to do some research and I read about people taking upwards of 700mg to 1000mg a day because of addiction. I can't imagine being addicted to this drug. It makes you feel foggy, your throat burns, you have headaches... I've been sober for most of my life. I've never drank or taken prescriptions recreationally. So this experience was pretty terrible.