Posted by steve on February 28, 2001, at 22:03:45
In reply to Re: Which is least bad: Zyprexa or Risperdal » steve, posted by SLS on February 28, 2001, at 19:26:25
I thought I had.
1) Schizophrenia does involve neuroanatomical changes.
I have heard of hippocampal shrinkage which I doubt is due to the meds.
But it does seem that at least some if not * many * of the changes that are reported, and used as a justification to use neuroleptics could be caused by neuroleptics, especially in light of the fact that these changes weren't observed before the 1950s.
Just because you see changes in schizophrenia doesn't mean, that taking a neurotoxin is a good idea. If you have a thorn caught in your foot cutting your foot off, or starting to take heroin would both plaster over the problem, but that doesn't make them good ideas.
2) That the tardive syndromes are caused by the free radicals that neuroleptics cause to linger around in greater concentrations is pretty well accepted. In any case, there's no denying that neuroleptics do cause damage. As for being biased and only finding articles that suggest that brain damage does happen, that doesn't have to show that there's a bias. As far as I understand it, there are no articles of long-term comparisons that fail to show serious changes. Your logic seems to imply that because the compendium doesn't list sources to the contrary, there must be such sources. I don't see why.
3) I know that I did address the hypertrophy issue. If cerebral hypertrophy was a good thing, we'd all be getting on our knees every night and praying for massive brain tumors. To make a crude quip, I don't know of anyone who fervidly wants elephantiasis either, even though it also involves hypertrophy. Any unncessary changes to the brain are bad IMO.
> ** Why don't YOU address my follow-up points **
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> Three problems:
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> #1 These studies are of patients suffering from schizophrenia, a disorder for which the natural course involves a loss of brain tissue.
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> #2 You are using a "bibliography" that seems biased in its selection of annotations to support the claim stated in its title. The author found what he was looking for. The author shows his transparant agenda with his somewhat passionate use of the term "brain damage". By the way, the ONLY appearance of the word "damage" is that of the author's in his paraphrasing with the following exceptions:
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> - Previous brain INJURY and how such might impact upon subsequent neuroleptic treatment.
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> - PROPOSED oxidative free-radical damage and the accumulation of glutamatergic exitotoxic substances in an attempt to explain tardive dyskinisia. NO DATA was offered. Both of these things can occur with a multitude of drugs.
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> #3 The results of a thorough literature search will demonstrate equivocal and contradictory data and conclusions regarding this issue.
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> FROM THE BIBLIOGRAPHY YOU CITED !
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> I capitalized the words or phrases I thought were particular salient with regard to your supposition.
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> This review cites AN INCREASE AND NOT A SHRINKAGE in the size of VARIOUS STRUCTURES of the brain due to exposure to neuroleptics.
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> HYPERTROPHY: Growth or increase in size
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> 1998 MRI Studies demonstrate structural BRAIN CHANGES in schizophrenia patients treated with both standard and "atypical" neuroleptic drugs:
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> Non-industry sponsored researchers are coming to realize that this rebound reaction to antipsychotic drugs-both standard and the newer atypicals-- may be so great, it could be causing structural brain changes such as swelling of the brain. Gur, et al., (abstract below) conducted an NIMH-funded MRI imaging study to monitor changes in the size of the basal ganglia and thalamic regions of the brain in schizophrenia patients treated with neuroleptic drugs. They compared them to a group of patients who were never exposed to neuroleptic drugs, and to a group of healthy comparison subjects: As they put it: "Differences between groups and correlations between subcortical volumes and dose of medication indicate that exposure to neuroleptics is associated with HYPERTROPHY...it appears that patients treated with neuroleptics show HYPERTROPHY relative to their neuroleptic-naive counterparts and to healthy comparison subjects."
poster:steve
thread:55031
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010221/msgs/55181.html