Topic: Antidepressants actually make you depressed? (Read 6759 times)

JMM · « **on:** June 16, 2004, 11:25:17 am »

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040616/hl_nm/health_glaxosmithkline_dc_1

Having been diagnosed by the military and VA as having "major depressive episodes disorder," I take an interest in this stuff. A few months ago, Wellbutrin, a multi-billion dollar a year antidepressant (As well as smoking cessation drug) was shown to make people want to commit suicide. Now it seems that Paxil does not work that good either, and Glaxo has been lying all this time just for the almighty dollar profit!

Aside from that though, even with our advances in medicine and technology, it just shows how very little we know about the human brain and it's processes and abilities. Don't forget that most scientists that know about this stuff still stick by their guns in that we only use about 10 percent of the capacity that our brain actually has. Wow!

Bonk · « **Reply #1 on:** June 16, 2004, 08:50:00 pm »

Most pharmaceuticals are bad. If it's synthetic don't eat it. (or smoke it) Look at the sulfa drugs we took for years - paba, I could go on. I guarantee you that the synthetic drugs we take today will reveal their true effects only in our death statistics. I mean have you noticed the side effects warnings on most modern drug ads? (with the careful staging of semi-legal advertising) Most of them are listing hideous side effects for some kind of silly and trivial relief. I still don't trust any antibiotic but penicillin. (and its a last resort at that)

Life is painful. (How else would you know you are alive?)

Srictly cannabinoids, caffeine and naturally sourced alkaloids for me! Anything else is not natural and has an inherent risk.

It's not so much that we don't use the other 90% of our intellect - we deny and fear it.

I'd take a depressive diagnosis with a grain of salt, the fact is the world today is depressing - way I figure if you're not depressed these days there's something wrong with you or you are in heavy denial.

Artificial happiness is just that. Once we address the societal ills we all deny, the imagined need for such drugs will disappear.

(I hope I haven't offended you, I just felt like a good rant on the topic!

)

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #2 on:** June 16, 2004, 08:57:16 pm »

So what you're saying is that the drugs you use are ok....but everything else is bad?

Bonk · « **Reply #3 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:03:38 pm »

No, I'm saying I think synthetic drugs are bad and natural drugs are much safer. It seems you misinterpreted my point. We are well aquainted with the dangers of natural drugs - we have no idea what something that was first synthesised last year will do... but the fda will let er rip with a cheesy set of misguided regulations in less than five years in most cases...

I hope that clarifies it for you.

(edited for spelling)

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #4 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:18:52 pm »

So tobacco is better than booze?

Isn't safety really a matter of justifing ones own actions...it's safe because I say so? Sure one can pull out all sorts of studies as proof or evidence...but usually people do that after they use thatever substance. Which means that in the long run we choose to act, and then justify that action later.

Bonk · « **Reply #5 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:24:27 pm »

Ethanol and nicotine are both naturally sourced and we know pretty much exactly what they do to us.

Do you know what Zoloft is and what it does? I don't. Humans have been consuming both alcohol and tobacco for centuries. I still think you missed the point.

I suspect you are offended by marijuana use and are saying so in a veiled fashion?

JMM · « **Reply #6 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:28:14 pm »

Not at all Bonk, I think social ills and greed and corruption have a very severe impact on one's mental health. I see hopelessness and despair in Mexico EVERY DAY, unless you are rich or powerful, but even then they are fake.

Bonk · « **Reply #7 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:32:43 pm »

I hear ya, I hear ya... I hold out hope - I have to believe that other 90% will break through eventually.

edit:Though I suspect that a good 40% of it is redundant circuitry.

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #8 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:41:41 pm »

You missed my point. You saw a personal attack were there was none. Perhaps I missed your point and addressed another issue...and like two blind archers seem to be hitting everything but the target

What I am addressing here is this: People know smoking is bad, yet they do it. They know drugs are bad, yet they take them. The decision involved in each of these cases is not made on a logical evaluation of their advantages and disadvantages...otherwise there wouldn't be any drug users or smokers. Education has made little ultimate difference in drug use.

We make the choice, and then attept to rationalise that choice. That is how we work and a decision process that isn't confined to drug use.

You used the word "safe" in a way that I didn't agree with. Now I'm not saying your wrong, which is different from saying I don't agree....only that my perspective is different on such things.

Oh and I don't have a problem with Pot smoking

J. Carney · « **Reply #9 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:42:31 pm »

Quote:

No, I'm saying I think synthetic drugs are bad and natural drugs are much safer.

Acetominiphine (God, I hope I spelled it close) is a great pain releiver, but too much of it will lead to liver problems.

Alcohol is a great 'pain reliever,' but too much of it will lead to liver problems.

Asprin is a great pain reliever, but too much of it can lead to stomach problems.

Ambien is a good sleep aid, but too much of it can lead to addiction.

Alcohol is a good sleep aid, but too much of it can lead to addiction.

Nicotine (speaking as both an ex-smoker and ex-dipper) has no real medicinal purposes and causes a myriad of health problems.

Natural drugs are just as dangerous as artificial ones. Now certianly, there are a lot of new drugs that are coming out that make you have a long list of (sometimes) serious side effects, but that is because the human body is a great big chemical equation that doesn't like to be tampered with. You throw something forigen into that mix, something that ain't supposed to happen is going to happen. The more complex and specific the desired effect, generally the more serious the side effects are- because there are more things going on to mess up the variables in the equation.

Bonk · « **Reply #10 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:44:03 pm »

Ah, I see what you are saying and I cannot really disagree. (Sorry if I "knee-jerked" on ya there.)

J. Carney · « **Reply #12 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:49:38 pm »

NP

I saw the side effect list on some of the AD meds that my Mom takes and almost [bleep]ed a gold brick.

They do look scary, but you have to think that the serious side effects usually only occur in less than 1%-5% of the instances of prescriptions. Most of the time, the side effects are negligable or manageable for the effects that the drugs have.

The only kind of drug I would never take is Propita and it's ilk..." I got hair!!! I now look sexy, even though the drug giving me hair has taken away my manhood!!!"

In the words of Han Solo... "No reward is worth this."

Clark Kent · « **Reply #13 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:53:00 pm »

First of all, depression is more than a depresssed mood. You need several symptoms lasting over a period of time persistantly just to be diagnosed witha mild temporary depression. And yes, the drugs prescribed are flawed. They often can exxaggerate symptoms that got you the diagnosis of depression in the first place. The reason you take them isn't to fix your symptoms, or to make depression go away. It's just something that's supposed to give you a net improvement mentally and emotionally so you can function more in society. Persoanlly, I think that anyone that doesn't constantly think about whether the drugs they are on for depression are good for them is a fool. Sometimes it's worth it, but not always. Psychiatrists can often lose sight of what it's like from the perspective of someone on these drugs, thoguh,

CK

P.S. I like Latinas...
....And apparently Asian ladies as well...

Bonk · « **Reply #15 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:07:14 pm »

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/thalidomide/start.html
http://www.fda.gov/cder/news/thalidomide.htm

Oddly enough, Thalidomide is being used in AIDS therapy now - kind of interesting... maybe the synthetics aren't all bad - we just need to be very careful and take the time to do it right - but some things we just have to learn the hard way I guess.

Prepare yourself well for pharmacy - I made the dean's list in science in my first year but did not get in to pharmacy when I applied due to competition from rural high school students with artificially high averages. 50% of that class failed second year organic chemistry - I checked their section - I coasted through with a B+ no problem... now advanced organic gave me a bit more trouble... all this was 12 years ago now though.

P.S. my father owns a pharmacy and I'm a chemist...

Bonk · « **Reply #16 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:08:56 pm »

" nicotine or tobacco tars"

The worst component in tobacco smoke is benzo[a]anthracene (potent carcinogen - probably due to xenoestrogenic effects). You'll get the same dose by smoking sawdust however. Thalidomide is another class of toxin altogether. (It's not planar, there will free rotation around that central bond with little to no stearic hinderance)

Also be aware that many of the toxins present in tobacco smoke are only there because it is grown on land banned for food agriculture by the fda. I guess it's ok to poison smokers.

The pesticides of the past are to blame - many containing arsenic or organophospates similar to those used in nerve gas weapons... ironically tobacco produces it's own natural insecticide - nicotine.

Organically grown tobacco is free of many of these contaminants.

I even got Health Canada to pull an anti-smoking TV ad that quoted many of these toxins - using this logic to reveal the disinformation .

J. Carney · « **Reply #17 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:51:05 pm »

Thanks... interesting. Sounds like if they had studied the drug a little more effectively than they apparently did (thoughi'm not citing this as the only problem here by any means) a lot of the problems couldhave been prevented. It sounds like, from the tone of this article, the doc in question seriously skimped on his research- if he did any at all.. Today, testing to discover side effects on fetal growth is a real high priority- I imagine that is in no small part to this little screw up you just pointed out!

I see no real reason to discount it for AIDS treatment. An AIDS patient would not be too concerned with side effects relating to pregnancy. Too bad it looks like it didn't work out too well; the article says that it did help with the 'waisting disease' symptom of AIDS, but it failed in the hoped-for result of lowering the TNF count in HIV cases (I'm guessing that this treatment is prior to onset of full-blown AIDS).

My cousin and his wife are both pharmicists and my best friend gets her doctorate in Medicinal Chemistry this fall if all goes well. They are going to help me through Organic... even though I know it will be quite a pull to get through it even with all the help. I've been out of school for a while (3 years), so i'm going to spend this fall remediating myself on math and chemistry as prep for getting myself into this mess.

PS- I know about tobacco making it's won insecticide- we use dry snuff as an insecticide/pesticide on our garden; it even works on animals like deer, though goats don't seem to mind it.

Bonk · « **Reply #18 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:53:59 pm »

I'm not saying smoking is a good thing here... take this example:

The cancer sticks I smoke deliver on average 20mg of carbon monoxide and 0.2mg of hydrogen cyanide, the partial pressure of both of these compounds is effectively zero in clean blood - so generaly all that is inhaled is taken into the blood. (depending on how emphesemic the lungs already are)

The molecular mass of Carbon monoxide is ~28g/mol and hydrogen cyanide is ~27g/mol
there are 6.022x10^23 molecules per mole (Avogadro's number)
so
20mg CO >> 0.020g/28g = 7.14x10^-4 moles = 4.30x10^20 molecules of CO
0.2mg HCN >> 0.0002g/27g = 7.41x10^-6 moles = 4.46x10^18 molecules of HCN
~= 4.34x10^20 molecules of CO and HCN in total

Both CN- and CO are irreversibly adsorbed by hemoglobin.
Hemoglobin has four heme planes with each site binding more easily than the last.
The average red blood cell contains roughly 150 000 hemoglobin molecules.

So one of my cigarettes will kill (4.34x10^20/4)/150000 = 7.24x10^18 blood cells

That's 7.24 trillion blood cells dead from one cigarette - its no wonder two flights of stairs leaves me winded.

(now this assumes that each red blood cell takes up four CO or CN- but of course not all will, but will be reduced in function. This is an overestimate or worst case scenario. I'm not 100% on these calculations but I think they're roughly correct - feel free to find an error!)

Undoubtedly the bilirubin will be much higher in the stool of smokers. It's gotta wear on the liver removing all that dead weight in blood.

Best of luck with your studies, you've got some good support there. Work hard and stay away from the campus pub!

J. Carney · « **Reply #19 on:** June 16, 2004, 11:05:23 pm »

*is slightly pleased that he understood enough of that last post to follow you*

Thanks for the well wishes... I do have a good crew backing me. And I am definately going to have to stay away from the bars... that's what messed me up the last time I went to school. Lessons learned the hard way are seldom forgotten.

Yeah... sorry I fell into common 'anti-tobacco' terms in my first post. I didn't know the excat name of the substance in question. I do know that the reason that it is so hard on smokers is that only the most hard-working professional firefighters inhale enough wood smoke to even begin to compete with the lightest of smokers in the amount of damage that the 'tar' does to the lungs.

In fact, there is a new trend in Alabama to require fire fighters to cease and desist the smoking not related to their hair catching on fire while at work because of a claim (definately related) of intensified cases of emphesema and heart disease/arterial hardening and (probably related) cases of accelerated development of cancerous growths in the lungs.

The overworking of the liver you mentioned is something that I have never though of before, but I see it now that you point it out. Guess it doesn't help out that a lot of heavy drinkers are also smokers!

JMM · « **Reply #23 on:** June 16, 2004, 11:25:17 am »

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040616/hl_nm/health_glaxosmithkline_dc_1

Having been diagnosed by the military and VA as having "major depressive episodes disorder," I take an interest in this stuff. A few months ago, Wellbutrin, a multi-billion dollar a year antidepressant (As well as smoking cessation drug) was shown to make people want to commit suicide. Now it seems that Paxil does not work that good either, and Glaxo has been lying all this time just for the almighty dollar profit!

Aside from that though, even with our advances in medicine and technology, it just shows how very little we know about the human brain and it's processes and abilities. Don't forget that most scientists that know about this stuff still stick by their guns in that we only use about 10 percent of the capacity that our brain actually has. Wow!

Bonk · « **Reply #24 on:** June 16, 2004, 08:50:00 pm »

Most pharmaceuticals are bad. If it's synthetic don't eat it. (or smoke it) Look at the sulfa drugs we took for years - paba, I could go on. I guarantee you that the synthetic drugs we take today will reveal their true effects only in our death statistics. I mean have you noticed the side effects warnings on most modern drug ads? (with the careful staging of semi-legal advertising) Most of them are listing hideous side effects for some kind of silly and trivial relief. I still don't trust any antibiotic but penicillin. (and its a last resort at that)

Life is painful. (How else would you know you are alive?)

Srictly cannabinoids, caffeine and naturally sourced alkaloids for me! Anything else is not natural and has an inherent risk.

It's not so much that we don't use the other 90% of our intellect - we deny and fear it.

I'd take a depressive diagnosis with a grain of salt, the fact is the world today is depressing - way I figure if you're not depressed these days there's something wrong with you or you are in heavy denial.

Artificial happiness is just that. Once we address the societal ills we all deny, the imagined need for such drugs will disappear.

(I hope I haven't offended you, I just felt like a good rant on the topic!

)

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #25 on:** June 16, 2004, 08:57:16 pm »

So what you're saying is that the drugs you use are ok....but everything else is bad?

Bonk · « **Reply #26 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:03:38 pm »

No, I'm saying I think synthetic drugs are bad and natural drugs are much safer. It seems you misinterpreted my point. We are well aquainted with the dangers of natural drugs - we have no idea what something that was first synthesised last year will do... but the fda will let er rip with a cheesy set of misguided regulations in less than five years in most cases...

I hope that clarifies it for you.

(edited for spelling)

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #27 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:18:52 pm »

So tobacco is better than booze?

Isn't safety really a matter of justifing ones own actions...it's safe because I say so? Sure one can pull out all sorts of studies as proof or evidence...but usually people do that after they use thatever substance. Which means that in the long run we choose to act, and then justify that action later.

Bonk · « **Reply #28 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:24:27 pm »

Ethanol and nicotine are both naturally sourced and we know pretty much exactly what they do to us.

Do you know what Zoloft is and what it does? I don't. Humans have been consuming both alcohol and tobacco for centuries. I still think you missed the point.

I suspect you are offended by marijuana use and are saying so in a veiled fashion?

JMM · « **Reply #29 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:28:14 pm »

Not at all Bonk, I think social ills and greed and corruption have a very severe impact on one's mental health. I see hopelessness and despair in Mexico EVERY DAY, unless you are rich or powerful, but even then they are fake.

Bonk · « **Reply #30 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:32:43 pm »

I hear ya, I hear ya... I hold out hope - I have to believe that other 90% will break through eventually.

edit:Though I suspect that a good 40% of it is redundant circuitry.

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #31 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:41:41 pm »

You missed my point. You saw a personal attack were there was none. Perhaps I missed your point and addressed another issue...and like two blind archers seem to be hitting everything but the target

What I am addressing here is this: People know smoking is bad, yet they do it. They know drugs are bad, yet they take them. The decision involved in each of these cases is not made on a logical evaluation of their advantages and disadvantages...otherwise there wouldn't be any drug users or smokers. Education has made little ultimate difference in drug use.

We make the choice, and then attept to rationalise that choice. That is how we work and a decision process that isn't confined to drug use.

You used the word "safe" in a way that I didn't agree with. Now I'm not saying your wrong, which is different from saying I don't agree....only that my perspective is different on such things.

Oh and I don't have a problem with Pot smoking

Bonk · « **Reply #33 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:44:03 pm »

Ah, I see what you are saying and I cannot really disagree. (Sorry if I "knee-jerked" on ya there.)

J. Carney · « **Reply #35 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:49:38 pm »

NP

I saw the side effect list on some of the AD meds that my Mom takes and almost [bleep]ed a gold brick.

They do look scary, but you have to think that the serious side effects usually only occur in less than 1%-5% of the instances of prescriptions. Most of the time, the side effects are negligable or manageable for the effects that the drugs have.

The only kind of drug I would never take is Propita and it's ilk..." I got hair!!! I now look sexy, even though the drug giving me hair has taken away my manhood!!!"

In the words of Han Solo... "No reward is worth this."

Clark Kent · « **Reply #36 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:53:00 pm »

First of all, depression is more than a depresssed mood. You need several symptoms lasting over a period of time persistantly just to be diagnosed witha mild temporary depression. And yes, the drugs prescribed are flawed. They often can exxaggerate symptoms that got you the diagnosis of depression in the first place. The reason you take them isn't to fix your symptoms, or to make depression go away. It's just something that's supposed to give you a net improvement mentally and emotionally so you can function more in society. Persoanlly, I think that anyone that doesn't constantly think about whether the drugs they are on for depression are good for them is a fool. Sometimes it's worth it, but not always. Psychiatrists can often lose sight of what it's like from the perspective of someone on these drugs, thoguh,

CK

P.S. I like Latinas...
....And apparently Asian ladies as well...

Bonk · « **Reply #38 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:07:14 pm »

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/thalidomide/start.html
http://www.fda.gov/cder/news/thalidomide.htm

Oddly enough, Thalidomide is being used in AIDS therapy now - kind of interesting... maybe the synthetics aren't all bad - we just need to be very careful and take the time to do it right - but some things we just have to learn the hard way I guess.

Prepare yourself well for pharmacy - I made the dean's list in science in my first year but did not get in to pharmacy when I applied due to competition from rural high school students with artificially high averages. 50% of that class failed second year organic chemistry - I checked their section - I coasted through with a B+ no problem... now advanced organic gave me a bit more trouble... all this was 12 years ago now though.

P.S. my father owns a pharmacy and I'm a chemist...

Bonk · « **Reply #39 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:08:56 pm »

" nicotine or tobacco tars"

The worst component in tobacco smoke is benzo[a]anthracene (potent carcinogen - probably due to xenoestrogenic effects). You'll get the same dose by smoking sawdust however. Thalidomide is another class of toxin altogether. (It's not planar, there will free rotation around that central bond with little to no stearic hinderance)

Also be aware that many of the toxins present in tobacco smoke are only there because it is grown on land banned for food agriculture by the fda. I guess it's ok to poison smokers.

The pesticides of the past are to blame - many containing arsenic or organophospates similar to those used in nerve gas weapons... ironically tobacco produces it's own natural insecticide - nicotine.

Organically grown tobacco is free of many of these contaminants.

I even got Health Canada to pull an anti-smoking TV ad that quoted many of these toxins - using this logic to reveal the disinformation .

J. Carney · « **Reply #40 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:51:05 pm »

Thanks... interesting. Sounds like if they had studied the drug a little more effectively than they apparently did (thoughi'm not citing this as the only problem here by any means) a lot of the problems couldhave been prevented. It sounds like, from the tone of this article, the doc in question seriously skimped on his research- if he did any at all.. Today, testing to discover side effects on fetal growth is a real high priority- I imagine that is in no small part to this little screw up you just pointed out!

I see no real reason to discount it for AIDS treatment. An AIDS patient would not be too concerned with side effects relating to pregnancy. Too bad it looks like it didn't work out too well; the article says that it did help with the 'waisting disease' symptom of AIDS, but it failed in the hoped-for result of lowering the TNF count in HIV cases (I'm guessing that this treatment is prior to onset of full-blown AIDS).

My cousin and his wife are both pharmicists and my best friend gets her doctorate in Medicinal Chemistry this fall if all goes well. They are going to help me through Organic... even though I know it will be quite a pull to get through it even with all the help. I've been out of school for a while (3 years), so i'm going to spend this fall remediating myself on math and chemistry as prep for getting myself into this mess.

PS- I know about tobacco making it's won insecticide- we use dry snuff as an insecticide/pesticide on our garden; it even works on animals like deer, though goats don't seem to mind it.

Bonk · « **Reply #41 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:53:59 pm »

I'm not saying smoking is a good thing here... take this example:

The cancer sticks I smoke deliver on average 20mg of carbon monoxide and 0.2mg of hydrogen cyanide, the partial pressure of both of these compounds is effectively zero in clean blood - so generaly all that is inhaled is taken into the blood. (depending on how emphesemic the lungs already are)

The molecular mass of Carbon monoxide is ~28g/mol and hydrogen cyanide is ~27g/mol
there are 6.022x10^23 molecules per mole (Avogadro's number)
so
20mg CO >> 0.020g/28g = 7.14x10^-4 moles = 4.30x10^20 molecules of CO
0.2mg HCN >> 0.0002g/27g = 7.41x10^-6 moles = 4.46x10^18 molecules of HCN
~= 4.34x10^20 molecules of CO and HCN in total

Both CN- and CO are irreversibly adsorbed by hemoglobin.
Hemoglobin has four heme planes with each site binding more easily than the last.
The average red blood cell contains roughly 150 000 hemoglobin molecules.

So one of my cigarettes will kill (4.34x10^20/4)/150000 = 7.24x10^18 blood cells

That's 7.24 trillion blood cells dead from one cigarette - its no wonder two flights of stairs leaves me winded.

(now this assumes that each red blood cell takes up four CO or CN- but of course not all will, but will be reduced in function. This is an overestimate or worst case scenario. I'm not 100% on these calculations but I think they're roughly correct - feel free to find an error!)

Undoubtedly the bilirubin will be much higher in the stool of smokers. It's gotta wear on the liver removing all that dead weight in blood.

Best of luck with your studies, you've got some good support there. Work hard and stay away from the campus pub!

J. Carney · « **Reply #42 on:** June 16, 2004, 11:05:23 pm »

*is slightly pleased that he understood enough of that last post to follow you*

Thanks for the well wishes... I do have a good crew backing me. And I am definately going to have to stay away from the bars... that's what messed me up the last time I went to school. Lessons learned the hard way are seldom forgotten.

Yeah... sorry I fell into common 'anti-tobacco' terms in my first post. I didn't know the excat name of the substance in question. I do know that the reason that it is so hard on smokers is that only the most hard-working professional firefighters inhale enough wood smoke to even begin to compete with the lightest of smokers in the amount of damage that the 'tar' does to the lungs.

In fact, there is a new trend in Alabama to require fire fighters to cease and desist the smoking not related to their hair catching on fire while at work because of a claim (definately related) of intensified cases of emphesema and heart disease/arterial hardening and (probably related) cases of accelerated development of cancerous growths in the lungs.

The overworking of the liver you mentioned is something that I have never though of before, but I see it now that you point it out. Guess it doesn't help out that a lot of heavy drinkers are also smokers!

JMM · « **Reply #46 on:** June 16, 2004, 11:25:17 am »

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040616/hl_nm/health_glaxosmithkline_dc_1

Having been diagnosed by the military and VA as having "major depressive episodes disorder," I take an interest in this stuff. A few months ago, Wellbutrin, a multi-billion dollar a year antidepressant (As well as smoking cessation drug) was shown to make people want to commit suicide. Now it seems that Paxil does not work that good either, and Glaxo has been lying all this time just for the almighty dollar profit!

Aside from that though, even with our advances in medicine and technology, it just shows how very little we know about the human brain and it's processes and abilities. Don't forget that most scientists that know about this stuff still stick by their guns in that we only use about 10 percent of the capacity that our brain actually has. Wow!

Bonk · « **Reply #47 on:** June 16, 2004, 08:50:00 pm »

Most pharmaceuticals are bad. If it's synthetic don't eat it. (or smoke it) Look at the sulfa drugs we took for years - paba, I could go on. I guarantee you that the synthetic drugs we take today will reveal their true effects only in our death statistics. I mean have you noticed the side effects warnings on most modern drug ads? (with the careful staging of semi-legal advertising) Most of them are listing hideous side effects for some kind of silly and trivial relief. I still don't trust any antibiotic but penicillin. (and its a last resort at that)

Life is painful. (How else would you know you are alive?)

Srictly cannabinoids, caffeine and naturally sourced alkaloids for me! Anything else is not natural and has an inherent risk.

It's not so much that we don't use the other 90% of our intellect - we deny and fear it.

I'd take a depressive diagnosis with a grain of salt, the fact is the world today is depressing - way I figure if you're not depressed these days there's something wrong with you or you are in heavy denial.

Artificial happiness is just that. Once we address the societal ills we all deny, the imagined need for such drugs will disappear.

(I hope I haven't offended you, I just felt like a good rant on the topic!

)

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #48 on:** June 16, 2004, 08:57:16 pm »

So what you're saying is that the drugs you use are ok....but everything else is bad?

Bonk · « **Reply #49 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:03:38 pm »

No, I'm saying I think synthetic drugs are bad and natural drugs are much safer. It seems you misinterpreted my point. We are well aquainted with the dangers of natural drugs - we have no idea what something that was first synthesised last year will do... but the fda will let er rip with a cheesy set of misguided regulations in less than five years in most cases...

I hope that clarifies it for you.

(edited for spelling)

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #50 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:18:52 pm »

So tobacco is better than booze?

Isn't safety really a matter of justifing ones own actions...it's safe because I say so? Sure one can pull out all sorts of studies as proof or evidence...but usually people do that after they use thatever substance. Which means that in the long run we choose to act, and then justify that action later.

Bonk · « **Reply #51 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:24:27 pm »

Ethanol and nicotine are both naturally sourced and we know pretty much exactly what they do to us.

Do you know what Zoloft is and what it does? I don't. Humans have been consuming both alcohol and tobacco for centuries. I still think you missed the point.

I suspect you are offended by marijuana use and are saying so in a veiled fashion?

JMM · « **Reply #52 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:28:14 pm »

Not at all Bonk, I think social ills and greed and corruption have a very severe impact on one's mental health. I see hopelessness and despair in Mexico EVERY DAY, unless you are rich or powerful, but even then they are fake.

Bonk · « **Reply #53 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:32:43 pm »

I hear ya, I hear ya... I hold out hope - I have to believe that other 90% will break through eventually.

edit:Though I suspect that a good 40% of it is redundant circuitry.

SL-Punisher · « **Reply #54 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:41:41 pm »

You missed my point. You saw a personal attack were there was none. Perhaps I missed your point and addressed another issue...and like two blind archers seem to be hitting everything but the target

What I am addressing here is this: People know smoking is bad, yet they do it. They know drugs are bad, yet they take them. The decision involved in each of these cases is not made on a logical evaluation of their advantages and disadvantages...otherwise there wouldn't be any drug users or smokers. Education has made little ultimate difference in drug use.

We make the choice, and then attept to rationalise that choice. That is how we work and a decision process that isn't confined to drug use.

You used the word "safe" in a way that I didn't agree with. Now I'm not saying your wrong, which is different from saying I don't agree....only that my perspective is different on such things.

Oh and I don't have a problem with Pot smoking

Bonk · « **Reply #56 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:44:03 pm »

Ah, I see what you are saying and I cannot really disagree. (Sorry if I "knee-jerked" on ya there.)

J. Carney · « **Reply #58 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:49:38 pm »

NP

I saw the side effect list on some of the AD meds that my Mom takes and almost [bleep]ed a gold brick.

They do look scary, but you have to think that the serious side effects usually only occur in less than 1%-5% of the instances of prescriptions. Most of the time, the side effects are negligable or manageable for the effects that the drugs have.

The only kind of drug I would never take is Propita and it's ilk..." I got hair!!! I now look sexy, even though the drug giving me hair has taken away my manhood!!!"

In the words of Han Solo... "No reward is worth this."

Clark Kent · « **Reply #59 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:53:00 pm »

First of all, depression is more than a depresssed mood. You need several symptoms lasting over a period of time persistantly just to be diagnosed witha mild temporary depression. And yes, the drugs prescribed are flawed. They often can exxaggerate symptoms that got you the diagnosis of depression in the first place. The reason you take them isn't to fix your symptoms, or to make depression go away. It's just something that's supposed to give you a net improvement mentally and emotionally so you can function more in society. Persoanlly, I think that anyone that doesn't constantly think about whether the drugs they are on for depression are good for them is a fool. Sometimes it's worth it, but not always. Psychiatrists can often lose sight of what it's like from the perspective of someone on these drugs, thoguh,

CK

P.S. I like Latinas...
....And apparently Asian ladies as well...

Bonk · « **Reply #61 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:07:14 pm »

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/thalidomide/start.html
http://www.fda.gov/cder/news/thalidomide.htm

Oddly enough, Thalidomide is being used in AIDS therapy now - kind of interesting... maybe the synthetics aren't all bad - we just need to be very careful and take the time to do it right - but some things we just have to learn the hard way I guess.

Prepare yourself well for pharmacy - I made the dean's list in science in my first year but did not get in to pharmacy when I applied due to competition from rural high school students with artificially high averages. 50% of that class failed second year organic chemistry - I checked their section - I coasted through with a B+ no problem... now advanced organic gave me a bit more trouble... all this was 12 years ago now though.

P.S. my father owns a pharmacy and I'm a chemist...

Bonk · « **Reply #62 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:08:56 pm »

" nicotine or tobacco tars"

The worst component in tobacco smoke is benzo[a]anthracene (potent carcinogen - probably due to xenoestrogenic effects). You'll get the same dose by smoking sawdust however. Thalidomide is another class of toxin altogether. (It's not planar, there will free rotation around that central bond with little to no stearic hinderance)

Also be aware that many of the toxins present in tobacco smoke are only there because it is grown on land banned for food agriculture by the fda. I guess it's ok to poison smokers.

The pesticides of the past are to blame - many containing arsenic or organophospates similar to those used in nerve gas weapons... ironically tobacco produces it's own natural insecticide - nicotine.

Organically grown tobacco is free of many of these contaminants.

I even got Health Canada to pull an anti-smoking TV ad that quoted many of these toxins - using this logic to reveal the disinformation .

J. Carney · « **Reply #63 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:51:05 pm »

Thanks... interesting. Sounds like if they had studied the drug a little more effectively than they apparently did (thoughi'm not citing this as the only problem here by any means) a lot of the problems couldhave been prevented. It sounds like, from the tone of this article, the doc in question seriously skimped on his research- if he did any at all.. Today, testing to discover side effects on fetal growth is a real high priority- I imagine that is in no small part to this little screw up you just pointed out!

I see no real reason to discount it for AIDS treatment. An AIDS patient would not be too concerned with side effects relating to pregnancy. Too bad it looks like it didn't work out too well; the article says that it did help with the 'waisting disease' symptom of AIDS, but it failed in the hoped-for result of lowering the TNF count in HIV cases (I'm guessing that this treatment is prior to onset of full-blown AIDS).

My cousin and his wife are both pharmicists and my best friend gets her doctorate in Medicinal Chemistry this fall if all goes well. They are going to help me through Organic... even though I know it will be quite a pull to get through it even with all the help. I've been out of school for a while (3 years), so i'm going to spend this fall remediating myself on math and chemistry as prep for getting myself into this mess.

PS- I know about tobacco making it's won insecticide- we use dry snuff as an insecticide/pesticide on our garden; it even works on animals like deer, though goats don't seem to mind it.

Bonk · « **Reply #64 on:** June 16, 2004, 10:53:59 pm »

I'm not saying smoking is a good thing here... take this example:

The cancer sticks I smoke deliver on average 20mg of carbon monoxide and 0.2mg of hydrogen cyanide, the partial pressure of both of these compounds is effectively zero in clean blood - so generaly all that is inhaled is taken into the blood. (depending on how emphesemic the lungs already are)

The molecular mass of Carbon monoxide is ~28g/mol and hydrogen cyanide is ~27g/mol
there are 6.022x10^23 molecules per mole (Avogadro's number)
so
20mg CO >> 0.020g/28g = 7.14x10^-4 moles = 4.30x10^20 molecules of CO
0.2mg HCN >> 0.0002g/27g = 7.41x10^-6 moles = 4.46x10^18 molecules of HCN
~= 4.34x10^20 molecules of CO and HCN in total

Both CN- and CO are irreversibly adsorbed by hemoglobin.
Hemoglobin has four heme planes with each site binding more easily than the last.
The average red blood cell contains roughly 150 000 hemoglobin molecules.

So one of my cigarettes will kill (4.34x10^20/4)/150000 = 7.24x10^18 blood cells

That's 7.24 trillion blood cells dead from one cigarette - its no wonder two flights of stairs leaves me winded.

(now this assumes that each red blood cell takes up four CO or CN- but of course not all will, but will be reduced in function. This is an overestimate or worst case scenario. I'm not 100% on these calculations but I think they're roughly correct - feel free to find an error!)

Undoubtedly the bilirubin will be much higher in the stool of smokers. It's gotta wear on the liver removing all that dead weight in blood.

Best of luck with your studies, you've got some good support there. Work hard and stay away from the campus pub!

J. Carney · « **Reply #65 on:** June 16, 2004, 11:05:23 pm »

*is slightly pleased that he understood enough of that last post to follow you*

Thanks for the well wishes... I do have a good crew backing me. And I am definately going to have to stay away from the bars... that's what messed me up the last time I went to school. Lessons learned the hard way are seldom forgotten.

Yeah... sorry I fell into common 'anti-tobacco' terms in my first post. I didn't know the excat name of the substance in question. I do know that the reason that it is so hard on smokers is that only the most hard-working professional firefighters inhale enough wood smoke to even begin to compete with the lightest of smokers in the amount of damage that the 'tar' does to the lungs.

In fact, there is a new trend in Alabama to require fire fighters to cease and desist the smoking not related to their hair catching on fire while at work because of a claim (definately related) of intensified cases of emphesema and heart disease/arterial hardening and (probably related) cases of accelerated development of cancerous growths in the lungs.

The overworking of the liver you mentioned is something that I have never though of before, but I see it now that you point it out. Guess it doesn't help out that a lot of heavy drinkers are also smokers!

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Topic: Antidepressants actually make you depressed? (Read 6759 times)