Drug Reverses Effects of Sleep Deprivation 610
Ryan O'Rourke writes "According to a study led by Dr. Sam A. Deadwyler and published by the Public Library of Science Biology, a new drug called CX717 developed by Cortex Pharmaceuticals has been shown to reverse the biological and behavioral effects of sleep deprivation. Tests performed on monkeys that were subjected to 30-36 hours of sleep deprivation revealed an average test performance accuracy drop to 63 percent, but that performance was restored to 84 percent after administering CX717. During normal alert conditions, performance accuracy of the animals was improved from an average of 75 percent to 90 percent after an injection of CX717. It is also believed the drug may help prevent or restore memory loss in Alzheimer's patients."
Coming soon... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Coming soon... (Score:5, Funny)
EA_spouse spontaneously combusts.
Re:Coming soon... (Score:5, Insightful)
So while getting read of sleep deprivation effects might be nice, I really just need a drug that'll push me into the last-mile mindset and get me to actually do the amazing work that gets done under pressure. Caffeine and nicotine just don't cut it anymore.
Heck, like one of the replies to your post mentions, the C in this drug could stand for cocaine and it'd probably have the same effect if it WAS just cocaine, except maybe with the downside of addiction.
Re:Coming soon... (Score:3, Insightful)
Heck, like one of the replies to your post mentions, the C in this drug could stand for cocaine and it'd probably have the same effect if it WAS just cocaine, except maybe with the downside of addiction.
Except that no-body holds the patent on cocaine so its illegal.
But regarding addiction, at least you can make an argument with cocaine against using it. But this - I can see bosses coming along and expecting employees to just pop one of these in order to pull off a 48 hour overtime to meet a deadline.
Why in the world would you say that? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't believe that reasoning.
First: Asprin and Alcohol aren't patented, and aren't illegal.
Second: Lots of patented drugs are VERY illegal. (It takes a lot of money, time, red tape, and testing to get a new patented drug to the point where it is even legal to test on people.)
But then you say:
"We don't need a pill to help us work harder, we just need to adjust our expectations."
Which I totally agree with.
Re:Why in the world would you say that? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hi,
The reasoning wasn't so much that something without a patent must be illegal, but that if it were patented and a big corp could make big bucks from it, then they would find a way of getting it legal. After all, Ritalin is chemically very little different to Speed and it has the same effect. But one is legal and the other is not? Your own hypothesis for that situation would be ?
Anyway, it was more of a sly-dig at the pharmaceuticals industry than a fully-researched argument. Still, I think I hav
Re:Why in the world would you say that? (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen you repeat this several times now - in what way does Ritalin "have the same effects" as speed?
Both Ritalin (called Methylphenidate in its non-brand name) and Speed (phenylisopropylamine) operate in a similar manner - both prevent the reabsorbtion of monoamine transporters for dopamine and norepinephrine which results in increased amounts of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain. This promotes nerve impulse transmission in neurons that have those receptors. The effect is something you're probably familiar with (either through experience or second-hand).
Likewise you can get the same high from snorting ritalin (powder it first unless you have biiig nostrils) as you can from speed, and you can get addicted to it too. Both are also used by students and workers desperate to keep focused on a project in that final night of panic. It's just the same as speed for practical purposes. Ritalin doesn't come in huge dosages (per pill), but then they are prescribing it to children.
Re:Why in the world would you say that? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why in the world would you say that? (Score:4, Insightful)
That the other is prescription drug controlled by medical experts who have the necessary knowledge about it's effects and dosage, and the other is substance of unsure purity and blending sold by random crooks with no medical background whatsoever?
I agree. But the downside has relatively little to do with the drug itself and rather its legality. But that was your point too, so perhaps we're just agreeing with each other loudly.
Regarding this discrepancy between the two drugs' similarity yet their differing legal status, I think it happened something like this:
In the early sixties, Speed was outlawed and the police cracked down on it. This was accompanied by all the usual propaganda and hoo-ha, demonising Speed as a terrible evil. Later however, drug companies saw an opportunity to make money from speed but you can't suddenly turn round and say "You know that terrible stuff that will destroy your children, well it's okay if we give it to them." People would smell a rat.
So something that has a very similar effect is patented, marketed and in comes the money. But you know, Ritalin is spelt differently to Speed, so nobody panics about their children being fed it.
I normally avoid using any personal information in a discussion on
My £0.02.
-H.
Re:Coming soon... (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. Cocaine is illegal because of racism. The fear was that "Negro Cocaine Fiends" have an insatiable need for white women. These "Cocainized Niggers" were ostensibly immune to gun fire. The terms in quotes are actual quotes from newspapers.
Re:Coming soon... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Coming soon... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't you think you're exaggerating just a tad? Do you really expect employers to hand out drugs that they require their employees to take?
No, I don't think I'm exagerating, and I'd also expect employees to have to fork out for this from their own pockets.
Why do I think my scenario is plausible? Firstly, there is nothing in TFA that suggests that this drug will be a prescription only drug, or in fact anything other than an over-the-counter tablet. Indeed, there would be many complaints if it weren
Re:Coming soon... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Coming soon... (Score:5, Insightful)
What I see happening is substances like this coming out and then people will abuse them. They will become addicted to them. Maybe not physically, but psychologically. "I can't be the best at my job if I don't take these so bottoms up!" As soon as abuse is spotted, public outcry will commence, support groups will spring up and tehy will become as popular as caffeine pills and speed. Not to say that caffeine pills aren't a problem, but they aren't mandatory by any employer and any company that doesn't want a lawsuit will not recommend or even offer them to their employees.
Your ideas have some merit to them and the "Look, why don't you just take one of these? You're letting us down." situation will probably occur, but it won't be at the company level. It will strictly be from employee to employee, peer to peer. Does your company have NoDoz (tm) in the break room? I doubt it.
Lastly, you "I crashed my car because they wouldn't sell me this at the garage and I fell asleep at the wheel." situation is not too likely in my mind. I can complain that my doctor didn't give me an adrenaline shot so I couldn't lift the car off of my wife when we got into a wreck. Ok, bad example, but anywho. I don't think you'll ever be able to register a justifiable complaint against someone because they didn't provide you with performance enhancing (because that's essentially what this is) drugs in any situation. You can complain on a medical basis (ie. my doctor wouldn't give me enough insulin and I went into a diabetic coma) but not on a supplemental basis.
Re:Coming soon... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think you'll ever be able to register a justifiable complaint against someone because they didn't provide you with performance enhancing (because that's essentially what this is) drugs in any situation.
This is a performance enhancing drug, no need to qualify it. But people don't have to lodge a successful court case to get it legalised. The situation is a big pharmaceutical company wanting it sold everywhere and a public that will grouse if it isn't. 1 + 1 = 2 much pressure to resist. Short of s
Re:Coming soon... (Score:3, Insightful)
They ARE NOT however, even remotely similar to cocaine, and by making such a statement, you show how little understanding you have of the chemistry involved.
Women everywhere moan (Score:5, Funny)
I'm too tired honey....
It's a trick: (Score:5, Funny)
Something funny from the summary (Score:5, Funny)
Darn'd grandma. Her memory is improving again. Time to restore her memory loss.......
Ok, this is sort of scary....
Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
"It's absolutely fantastic." Buzzeye says as he scrapes away the skin around his eyes with a rusty nail-puller. "I've never felt better, and my productivity is way up." When asked if there were any side-effects, Buzzeye replied "None whatsoever. Since I killed my wife and sold my children to Satan, who happens to live two doors down, things have been great. Now if I could only get the snakes to stop eating my feet, I'd be one hundred percent. Oh, could you get the door, I think it's Napoleon. He's a real bitch, and he likes to steal my aluminum brainguard."
Re:Coming soon... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Is CX717 a.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is CX717 a.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that can be said about medical Marijuana. Do we have to get Merck of Phizer to want to market, and profit from it, to get the Federal government to allow it. For people wanting to expand their consciousness I image LSD is helpful. For people looking to improve their sociability Ecstasy is very helpful.
More links (Score:5, Informative)
Here [npr.org]
Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Insightful)
The body tell us its tired for a reason - it needs good healthy sleep, in order to keep you all in check. People who avoid sleep, people who keep themselves awake with drugs, people who burn the candle at both ends.. they are just setting themselves up for premature death. Just go to sleep!
As Kramer once said in an episode of Seinfeld.. "Well.. I don't argue with the body Jerry. It's an argument you can't win!"
Its a comment I whole heartedly agree with!
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:2)
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Insightful)
Passed out once, and my roomate had 5 guys over working on a CS project and it didn't wake me up until 10:30 at night. They'd been there since about 11:00 and I'd been there, asleep, since the night before. And when I say "roommate" I mean we shared a ROOM. I scared the hell out of him when I woke up because they'd thought the big bump in my bed was just a continuation of all the crap piled on top of it. I got up, ate dinner, went right back to sleep.
I'm still paying for that crap, ten years later. It's totally not worth it.
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've often thought about why we still have certain primal signals.
Pain from obvious sources, for instance.
I skinned my knee. I know I skinned my knee. I can see it. I'm looking right at it. I just cleaned the darn thing. Yet it still smarts like hell.
Why can't I turn off the darn pain receptors?
Why, as a (okay, this next bit is questionable, but just go with it) intelligent being can't I just acknowledge those signals, and snooze them or something?
I know. It hurts. Leave me alone until I get to the hospital.
I know, I'm exhausted. Let me get to a bed without falling over.
I know, I get the picture, send the right chemicals to the right places until I get the right treatment, but until then, just leave me alone!
My knee tells me it hurts for a reason: it needs attention so it won't get infection.
Broken bones hurt so they will get mended.
Neither one know they've been fixed once they've been tended to, so they continue to complain.
"The body tell us its tired for a reason - it needs good healthy sleep, in order to keep you all in check."
If this drug can keep us from actually needing to sleep, then it's just like my knee. I don't really need to sleep, but nobody's actually informed my body yet.
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Informative)
Love your marketing plan for leprosy! (Score:3, Informative)
I know. It hurts. Leave me alone until I get to the hospital.
Because if you can consciously 'snooze' nerves, you will reinjure yourself by trying to do stuff you shouldn't. (My knee hurts, so I think I'll just shut that pain down... Oops, I guess it wasn't good to try to push the accelerator normally on my
Re:Don't ignore the signals-NoDoze. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Don't ignore the signals-NoDoze. (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insom
It's an inherited 'prion' disease, the same type of disease as mad cow disease and it's relatives. Scary stuff.
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:2)
I agree. There are more than enough drugs out there have detrimental effects. Now with this "wonder-drug" we get to skip nature's way of fixing itself. "Just take this other pill to aleviate _________________."
Before long, perfectly healthy people will carry IV backpacks so they will have a constant stream of drugs "correcting" what the previous drug caused to enable us to live without sleep.
One thing I've noticed with all the new drugs announced in the news is that they tie the drug to some ribbon
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Interesting)
My favorite oddball drugs that are heavily advertised are the "prevents that uncomfortable full feeling" and "cures fullness".
We literally live in a time when being full is considered a major problem worthy of heavy advertising to a large chunk of the human population. Consider the fact that the majority of human history is full of people fighting not to starve to death... and now we're worried about being uncomfortably full.
You can look at that with either bitter sarcasm or wonder at the accomplishments of humanity -- I rotate back and forth. But either way, it's durn funny.
--
Evan
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:2)
Nature can take a flying fuck, I'm going to get me a case of these and finish my degree in one year.
I always knew sleep was a poor substitute for coffee, now it's a poor substitue for CX717.
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:2)
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:3, Funny)
Anyhow- I would love to not have to sleep- as long as the workday was still 8 hours. Man, I could get a lot done...
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:3, Interesting)
I forget the name of it- But one of the "street drugs" (Maybe Ketamine?) that used to be used by bodybuilders supposidly (sp) allows you to feel rested fully with a few hours of sleep a night
Do NOT take Ketamine as an aid to health! *LOL*
GHB will send you to sleep when you ordinarily wouldn't and do so in a natural (loose definition of the word) way. And when it wears off, you'll be very fine
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of us are jealous of the relative ease with which the rest of you fall asleep. (The absolute worst is sharing a hotel room after a long trip, where your traveling companion falls asleep right away, but you don't fall asleep for hours) I'd be happy to at least feel as awake as most people seem. The only time I feel that way is when I can sleep in on the weekends. It's mostly just depressing that I can't be that alert the rest of the week -- you know, when it matters most.
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:4, Funny)
The second rule of fight clib, is don't talk about fight club...
Anyhow, I always try and fall asleep first if there is a woman sleeping in my bed with me- If she falls asleep first, you are likely to hear a terrific fart (women don't fart less than us, they just hold them, while we are proud of them, and as such they are much stinkier and louder) and once you hear a woman fart, the magic is gone....
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:3, Interesting)
She would take Melatonin which is aparently a "natural" chemical in the body that is released to make it sleep. I convinced her to
Bah, alcohol is a proven sleep inducer (Score:3, Interesting)
He's talking about not sleeping at all, or an hour or two a night. A lot of insomnia is in your head. He just might need that little something to relax and forget about not being able to sleep.
Not trying something because it's not perfect is a sure way to fail. Alcohol changes the mood, relieves tension, and can make some people very sleepy. The stimulant effect is overrated, about like eating ice cream before bed.
Self-hypnosis also c
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:4, Funny)
Or failing that, Russel & Norvig's "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach"? My university-long insomnia cure - never could get more than four pages in before I dropped off...
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I understand, there's not a clear consensus on why we need sleep. I mean, it does a number of things, and we've figured many of them out, but as far as biology goes none of them seems to be a deal-breaker. I can easily imagine a large mammal that just walks around eating and doing stuff all day. Why is it that we spend a third of our lives in this comatose state?
I mean, it's pretty much taken for granted, but when I stop to think about it, it seems pretty damn weird. Imagine an alien that shows up and we say "we need to go, gotta sleep" and they say "why?" and we say "uhhhh, to recharge." "I thought you ate food for energy." "yeah, it's for . . . maintanence?" "what kind?" "not sure. it's just this powerful compulsion." "what are the leading theories? you mean you aren't even sure why you do this every night?" "zzzzzzz."
Just something interesting that I've given a lot of thought to, especially since I started working unpredicatble night shifts. I wonder if every major mammal needs sleep because we evolved with a light/dark cycle, or if it's just something that it's impossible to construct a complex brain without.
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well it may be as simple as that if you go all the time, things start to wear out. There is some justification for this in injuries. If you keep working the thing that is injured, it won't heal, if however you allow it to rest, your body will fix itself. Well some things, like our heart, can't ever really rest as in do nothing, so perhaps sleep is the next best thing, a perodic low state where essential organs can rest.
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:2)
Re:Don't ignore the signals. (Score:3, Insightful)
We live in a shamelessly corporate age, and you simply cannot trust that the drugs the FDA approves are actually safe. IANAD(octor), but my advice would to take only those drugs which you absolutely need, and give new drugs five or six years on the market unless the benefits are just too important to pass up. Somehow, I don't consider "eliminating sleep from my life" to be a medical necessity.
Heart attack in a pill (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Heart attack in a pill (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like a bunch of quacks to me (Score:4, Informative)
If any medical person was to suggest that I would immediately dismiss him as a total quack. There is NO SUCH THING as an outside environmental influence that affects just one portion of the body. "Cleaning up the clutter" in your brain is only one effect of sleep. Your brain isn't a computer hard drive that needs defragging every night--it is much more complex than that and what affects the brain can affect any and all other parts of the body. There are autonomic responses that change when the brain is asleep vs. awake, changes to hormone levels, etc. that without doubt promote regeneration of the body. Sure, you can rest your skeletal muscles and let them rebuild without actually sleeping, but you cannot consciously control your heartbeat, muscles controlling your GI tract, the levels of hormones in your bloodstream and so on, so how can you expect to simulate the effects of sleep without actually sleeping?
Beyond that, even if sleep was only about the brain, can you imagine the psychological effects of an accumulation of "weak memories" or excessively prolonged conscious brain activity? At best I think you'd end up being an ADD-like basket case. At worst you could go clinically insane.
I think that should such a drug that counteracts the symptoms of sleep deprivation become widely available those who abuse it would reveal to us a whole host of side effects related to lack of sleep never before encountered. Apart from degrading mental health I think that people would physically age faster without sleep. Look at drug addicts today-sometimes they start out as "normal", smart, professional people that fro some reason get caught in an addiction. Early in the addiction they can function amazingly well with little or no sleep, but they slowly degrade as they fry their brains. While they are hooked these addicts age twice as fast as normal--even if they never end up on the street addicts in their 30s look like they are 50.
This drug is like methadone--it is cocaine or speed without the highly addictive properties and some of the other adverse side effects. I believe that further, long-term/multi-year studies would reveal that the test animals might show good performance initially, but in a few years they'd look like junkies--even if they are still more mentally alert. I forsee similar results in humans--they might be very productive and alert compard to heroin addicts, but they'll look just as old and worn out.
Slep deprvaiton .. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slep deprvaiton .. (Score:3, Insightful)
They tested with monkeys... (Score:2, Funny)
Fitzghon
Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a feeling most other computer users would find the same benefits from turning off their computers at 10:00PM.
Re:Slashdot (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
You could go to sleep at 4am and still be refreshed the next morning... Err... Afternoon. Well.. As long as it's after 2pm and you have to get up to go to the bathroom and can't sleep anymore and since you're in the bathroom you might as well take a shower and maybe since you are already up you might as well check your email... Next thing you know it's 3am and you start to think that maybe you should stop playing WoW at
Re:Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
Blasphemy! Everyone knows the really good shit doesn't start happending until 4 am or 3 hours before you have get to work.
Re:Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
I went for a week where I didn't allow myself to stay on the computer later than 10:00PM because of a severely distorted sleeping schedule, and by the end of the week, I had my schedule back to a very sane 11PM-8AM (I'm a teenager, so that might even be a little on the light side compared to some others, haha.) and I felt considerably more alert, as well as just feeling more healthy.
I doubt this drug will become a sleep replacement for the average man, but I can see it being used to help at critical times, such as having an emergency amount of it on-board a space shuttle in the event of a prolonged emergency where maximum alertness is necesary or similar scenarios.
I wouldn't mind having a few doses of this, though, for LAN parties. While everyone else is struggling to drag their mouse across their mousepad, I'll still be zipping around, even long after the Bawls run out.
In the future... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In the future... (Score:2)
Re:In the future... (Score:3, Interesting)
That would work for a while (Score:3, Interesting)
Though I am sure there are many coders who would try it for a week to get that project done(aka MSFT forcing it on longhorn developers?)
Re:That would work for a while (Score:3, Funny)
Which would explain the disappearance of Jiminy Cricket from the MS Labs.
And I'm not sure what you've been up to if you've been taxing your conscience enough that it needs a rest...
Grad students! (Score:3, Funny)
Reversal? (Score:2)
great! now I can work longer... (Score:5, Funny)
Is the trademarked name going to be (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh boy (Score:5, Interesting)
Expect Cortex's IP to be bought the us mil any second now.
Of course the real fun will be when they discover that taking this for months and sleeping 1 hour a night, you go insane and think your a humming bee.
Re:Oh boy (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, when going on extended missions, we also had the option of asking the platoon medics for stimulants. I don't remember what the name of the drug was, but one little white pill kept you up and alert for about two days. You did crash pretty hard after that. Anyway, while there may be some interest in the military for this drug, its use won't be anywhere near as prevalent as you seem to think. The Army likes its combat units to be operationally ready all the time, but also keeps mission durations and objectives as tight as possible to minimize battle fatigue and risk of combat losses. Sometimes you can't avoid a mission that lasts for a week, and in those (relatively rare - I only remember doing maybe a dozen of those two-day-plus missions over a year) situations, a drug to mitigate sleep-dep would be a godsend.
Re:Oh boy (Score:3, Interesting)
Same in the air force. "15 mins until the next aircraft? OK...wake me when he taxis in."
Snoozing while 120db fighter jets are rolling by 25 feet away is definately doable.
Re:Oh boy (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, that beats me, but I did once fall asleep within a couple of metres of a sound system in a night club. That was after taking half a gram or so of speed, too - boy did I get ripped off...
Soon to follow: beverages (Score:5, Insightful)
I have ridden the mighty moon worm! (Score:4, Funny)
So when do I get my sweet glowing blue eyes?
Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
Rather than do the usual slashdot "Science is EViL" thing, why not really think about the potential here...
Yes, they will probably discover that over use of this has some serious side effect, but all that means is that it shouldn't be over used... It does not mean that we all need to run an hide...
For being a site full of geeks this place is remarkably anti science sometimes...
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
The question of why we sleep is still a bit of a mystery to me, but if you're simply looking at it as "defense from predators", you're going to fundamentally misunderstand the phenomenon.
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/arti
Species Average total sleep time per day
Python 18 hrs
Tiger 15.8 hrs
Cat 12.1 hrs
Chimpanzee 9.7 hrs
Sheep 3.8 hrs
African elephant 3.3 hrs
Giraffe 1.9 hr
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
The larger mammals tend to be herbivores simply because carnivores require a huge prey population for a stable population (eg. to support a pack of 20 breeding wolves, you might require a group of 200 breeding caribou). Once large carnivores get over a certain size they couldn't effectively form a stable breeding population because th
side-effects (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahhh.....But... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Your turn smart boy.
EA (Score:5, Funny)
sideeffects (Score:2)
Richie Rich foretold this (Score:3, Funny)
Richie Rich: harbinger of the future.
How much will it cost? (Score:2, Funny)
Sometimes it's good to forget. (Score:5, Interesting)
Your brain already does a pretty good job at figuring out what memories should be stored strongly and which ones should be left to fade away. It's almost certainly possible to override that mechanism, but you'll probably end up with incredibly vivid memories of things that aren't very relevant.
Imagine if I popped these pills before studying for organic chemistry in college. Now I'd be having flashbacks of acid/base interactions and other useless trivia while I try to go about my daily job.
Misleading summary, article (Score:5, Insightful)
This drug also increased test performance in the control group. The increase in test performance was slightly more pronounced in the sleep-deprived group.
Caffeine would likely show similar results, as would nasal decongestants and stimulant diet pills (both of which are amphetamines).
Hell, for that matter, I bet crystal meth, in low doses, would produce the same effect.
Meh, wake me up when the real fix for sleep deprivation is discovered... oh, wait...
Another sleep depriving drug... (Score:2)
Unfortunatly i can't remember the name of the drug and i can't find the article again. Anyone have any idea as t
Three words: (Score:2)
Between a baby/toddler teething and my CIO position, sleep is something I hear about more than actually get.
They should call it the Rick James drug (Score:2)
I am reminded of the famous line from Chappelle:
Cocaine is a helluva drug!
Not trollin', just sayin'...
My Own Research (Score:3, Informative)
I think they just invented meth (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what the world needs! (Score:3, Funny)
New drug makes people smarter! Quick! Ban It! (Score:3, Funny)
That being said, there is a horrible drug plaguing our streets known as 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine [wikipedia.org]. It is lethal in doses as small as 3.2 grams. It is consumed compulsivley by a growing number of American addicts. It can cause psychomoter agitation, rambling flow of though and speech, tachycardia or cardiac arrhythmia. Large evil megacorps are trying to poison our childrens lives with them by getting them addicted to it early and it is even being distributed in schools by their dealers! Some people even say it helps them concentrate and lets them stay up longer but these benefits pale in comparison to the evils of this psychotropic drug. The Deaths [mit.edu] piling up because of this drug should lead us to ban it immediately! We should also ban a substance often taken in conjunction with this awful drug known as DHMO [dhmo.org].
Nothing new (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1462046 8&query_hl=4 [nih.gov]
While they argue that this drug is different because of possibly less abuse potential (yet have no data to back that assertation up with, such as self-reinforcing studies in animals), I think the real reason is because pharmaceutical patents only last 20 years. As far as abuse potential goes, addiction is usually characterized by increased dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens, of which amphetamine activates indirectly; I have seen no evidence as to whether or not CX717 will indirectly raise dopamine levels in that region of the brain as well.
They may claim they're not stimulants, but the action is that of binding to receptors and releasing a neurotransmitter called glutamate. Is that really so different than stimulants binding to a receptor and releasing norepinephrine, another neurotransmitter?
From the journal article, revealed increased activity in prefrontal cortex, dorsal striatum, and medial temporal lobe (including hippocampus) that was significantly enhanced over normal alert conditions following administration of CX717. You would see similar increases in brain activity following the administration of amphetamine as well.
Furthermore, high levels of glutamate have neurotoxic properties: In excess, glutamate causes neuronal damage and eventual cell death, particularly when NMDA receptors are activated.
Somehow though, I think the combination of a pharmaceutical company making $2.00 in profit per pill combined with possibly less of an abuse potential or political incorrectness of usage will make this drug preferred in spite of whatever risks it carries.
Of course, maybe I'm just bitter and skeptical in my old age.
Sleep and Orgasm. (Score:4, Funny)
In this society, we are powerfully encouraged to discharge that energy as quickly as possible through orgasm. According to some, sexual energy, once thus spent, is collected and consumed by etheric beings who exist in a higher level of reality and keep the human race like cattle for this purpose, (among others). True or not, you don't get to use your sexual energy once it's been given up through orgasm.
On the other hand, sexual energy can also be saved up and used in other ways. People who have a lot of regular sex tend to be exhausted and dim behind the eyes because their primary source of 'income' energy is much reduced. One's level of awareness and the availability of energy are directly linked to one another.
This is not to say that having orgasms is 'bad'. Physical sex is part of why we all came to this reality. It's fun, and it can be used to link in very powerful ways to other people, as well as link to otherwise difficult to access knowledge. But for the most part, people are instructed by the media to channel away their sexual energy immediately before it can be effectively used for anything else. In the morning, people often wake up in states of heightened arousal. This has nothing to do with holding back urination as conventional medicine tells us, (you don't get a woody any other time during the day when you need to 'go'. And it happens for women as well, who don't have the same plumbing) Sexual energy is there to be used as you wish.
In any case, sleep is the way this energy finds its way into us from the Universal source. Drugs which prevent sleep are, I assume, accessing stored wells of energy, which cannot last forever. There is a reason why they say, "Speed Kills". --Of course, there are other ways in which to draw energy from the world around us other than sleep, including drawing energy from the earth through grounding meditations and exercises, (good!) Eating food and consuming life force, (standard), energetic vampirism through direct and indirect methods of torturing others, (nasty and ultimately self-destructive.). But above all of these, Sexual energy is potent and pure and freely available to anybody who can catch 40 winks.
-FL
Unfortunate news. (Score:3, Informative)
Although sleep is still mostly a mystery, it is clear that it performs some sort of restorative effect. Does anyone know how this drug works and if it just blocks the symptoms of sleepiness?
Get your 8 hours a night!
This is bad. I give it 2 weeks before recall. (Score:3, Interesting)
1. This doesn't get you high, even if taken at higher doses, like cough medicine.
2. It does't get you high if you combine it with other legal or prescription substances.
3. It's not addictive.
One of the above is probably false. And that's bad. I give it two weeks before the first college kid goes on a 3 day binge the weekend before midterms, and pops 5x the reccomended dosage at 6am Monday morning, with a BAC still over the legal limit where it's been since Thursday.
Granted these could be very useful and I would probably want to use them myself, but people are idiots, and this is going to harm or kill them, I guarantee it. I'm not anti-drug, I believe what you do with your own body is your own business and what I do with mine is mine (if only a single government on the planet agreed). But in the world we live in, this isn't going to fly. There'll be lawsuits all over the place.