Posted by utopizen on April 24, 2004, at 15:45:34
In reply to Re: got a question, posted by 1980Monroe on April 24, 2004, at 10:49:41
Well, that's impossible to prove. Any research is reliant upon animal testing. Do you think you're going to find a study of any methamphetamine, most of which are funded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse, to conclude that "methamphetamine does not pose any risk of neurotoxicity"?
Rule #1 for researchers: You only continue making money if your study is either inconclusive or suggests more validity is needed. Doing otherwise is like firing yourself.
Desoxyn (methamphetamine) has been out since 1944 by Abbott Labs. The FDA isn't going to approve neurotoxic doses to you.
The reason why methamphetamine is neurotoxic is simple:
1) people inject or snort it, which doesn't allow their bodies to have enough time to adjust to the changes that is causes in their brain.
2) You are killing brain cells as you write this. That's why you sleep. Brain cells regenerate themselves. Prolonged sleep deprivation-- several days-- is the norm with meth addicts, or monkeys who are dosed meth in a lab.
3) Meth causes your brain to increase in its cellular activity, which helps you to focus. Too much activity, or too high a dose, that is, and you are burning your nerves like rubber tires on the Indy 500. Sleep slows down brain activity for when you're awake, so this effect is negated by a healthy amount of sleep each day.
4) If you're taking an amphetamine, you're taking all of these potential risks.
Meth happens to have fewer peripherial side effects-- meaning your heart, proportional to an equivolent dose of an amphetamine, will be less affected, as well as all other parts of the peripherial nervous system.
Instead, meth is more potent where you want it targeted at: your Central Nervous System.
So it's more likely to be neurotoxic at the equivolently higher doses than amphetamine because it's more potently acting on the brain than regular amphetamine. So yeah, of course, a lower dose is needed for neurotoxicity to occur, but you're talking about doses I would vomit over if you mentioned them, we're talking triple digit doses here. And there's been a great deal of history, especially in the 60's, with Desoxyn back when it was commonly prescribed with a barbitutate in a combonation pill formulation.
Summary: all amphetamines are neurotoxic, but it's not neurotoxic at the doses you're taking therapeutically because you aren't going to kill more brain cells than you can regenerate through sleep in a given day's dose. And amphetamines are more likely to be cardiotoxic, so it's not exactly like they're some convervative alternative.
Basically, use whatever stimulant works best for you, and ignore the word "neurotoxic." It's not possible to even measure or determine neurotoxicity if you ever had it and saw a neurologist because brain scans aren't that good yet. And you have to remember, you're a huge step away from a meth addict, who barely ever eats food, doesn't sleep for days, and injects or snorts the stuff.
99.999% of any study you read referring to methamphetamine is assuming it's injected, or at least snorted, and that the animal used received it continiously without sleep for several days at a time. Gosh, if it wasn't neurotoxic under those conditions, it would be some antibiotic or something!
poster:utopizen
thread:339004
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040423/msgs/339585.html