Posted by SLS on January 23, 2005, at 10:33:05
In reply to Re: Preventing amphetamine neurotoxicity » SLS, posted by ed_uk on January 23, 2005, at 9:19:29
Hi Ed.
> Thank you for the suggestion :-)
You're velcome.
> How are you doing? Still on nort?
I had a few weeks where I felt enough energy to go out and run a bunch of errands. This past week hasn't been so good, though, and I'm not sure why. One suspicion I have is that my pharmacy changed the generic supplier of nortriptyline, and that the preparation is different enough so that it is of less efficacy than the preparation I had used up until that point.
> > How concerned are you that neurotoxicity occurs at therapeutic dosages?
> I would be very concerned if I was taking an amphetamine daily over a long period of time. It's very unlikely that I'll ever get the opportunity to try an amphetamine though.
I really haven't been keeping up. A few years ago, there was little, if any, concern over the potential for amhetamine to produce neurotoxicity. I can see that more recent literature is considering this to be fact. I wonder how much debate remains whether this toxicity occurs at all at therapeutically relevant dosages. I guess you are convinced that it does. Most everything is toxic in extreme amounts. There is always a specific set of mechanisms by which these toxicities occurs with each substance. Is the damage produced by amphetamine to DA terminals the mechanism by which it becomes harmful only at supratherapeutic toxic dosages, or does it occur at every dosage? The mitochondrial thing does seem possible. I wonder if there is some minimal concentration of intracellular DA, below which neurotoxicity does not occur. I guess I am still holding out hope that amphetamine is not harmful at therapeutic dosages, despite the proposition by some that it is. In any event, it seems that the damage produced to rat brains by exposure to high dosages of amphetamine for short periods of time is in some way reversible.
What a silly ramble.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:442246
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050119/msgs/446171.html