Sea Snail Toxin Offers Promise For Pain 206
Khyber writes to tell us about research out of Australia that holds out hope for chronic pain sufferers. The toxin of a sea snail, called conotoxin, has a component that has been shown to directly target pain receptors in experimental animals. Unlike essentially all existing pain relievers, conotoxin seems to suppress pain without side effects. Human trials are a year away.
Toxin...Toxic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Toxin...Toxic? (Score:5, Insightful)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehushtan [wikipedia.org]
Numbers 21:4-9
(Pardon the King James, couldn't find a modern transation in short order)
21.6. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. 7. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. 8. And the Lord said unto
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It's amazing how similar humans are no matter where they are from. Take the swastika for instance. It has turned up, in many different forms, and in many different cultures prior to the Nazi use of it. In fact, they borrowed it from other anti-semitic groups that used it before them.
Back on topic now. I wonder how many other cultures have used a snake on a rod as a symbol of heal
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Not to mention that there were native Americans (well, Siberian immigrants, but anyway) who also used the symbol for issues unrelated to Judaism.
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The Caduceus [wikipedia.org] is the Rod of Asclepius?
Is that like a high-level pally or cleric weapon? Where does it drop? Can it be multi-quested? Mana cost? Come on guys, you give us some technology you can at least provide the stats.
Modern translations (Score:2, Offtopic)
You may want to bookmark http://www.biblegateway.com/ [biblegateway.com] or http://www.blueletterbible.org/ [blueletterbible.org] for future reference.
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Rod of Asclepius. (Score:2)
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The snake on the staff...
As shown here [punkstuff.com].
What is good in life? (Score:2)
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It's all in the dosage. *ANYTHING* (even, say oxygen or water) is toxic if given in a high enough dose.
Including ethanol, nicotine and caffeine to name a few.
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Including ethanol, nicotine and caffeine to name a few.
With the notable exception of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. There has never been a single fatal case of THC poisoning in all of medical history.
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Finding a medical case that involves charcol in the bloodstream but not massive trauma (limiting the study to victims of massive trauma would make survival studies complicated), or in finding a study subject willing to be injected with solid charcol is left as an exercise to the reader.
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(from USENET circa 1985)
Re:Toxin...Toxic? (Score:5, Insightful)
to translate slashdot stories. "Unlike essentially all existing pain relievers,
conotoxin seems to suppress pain without side effects." really means "Like all
existing drugs that haven't been through large scale trials, conotoxin appears
to be free from side-effects. The toxicity is probably dependent on the dose, the
patient, the length of usage and about a million other (currently) unknown
factors.
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Wouldn't be the first time we've used a toxin in non-toxic ways. Botox (botulism toxin), anyone? I'm sure it hurts like hell if you're *stung* with the toxin, but has no such effect when ingested. (or something).
Wow, talk about being completely off-base. Botulinum toxin is never transmitted through bites or stings. You either get it from dirty wounds or from ingesting it in contaminated food. And it doesn't sting. The way it kills is that it paralyzes you, including the muscles you use for breathing.
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Wow, talk about putting works in someone's mouth. At what point did I say botulinum toxin is transmitted through bites or stings? I was referring to the snail toxin (you know, the subject of TFA?)when I used the
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Basically, you need to take a course on written communication and be better able to express your thoughts without causing confusion.
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At what point did I say botulinum toxin is transmitted through bites or stings?
My guess is right here:
You changed the subject to butulism toxin, then used the pro-noun "it". Since you didn't mention a change in subject it's pretty easy to make the assumption that you're still talking about botulinum toxin. I know I was confused. Try to be more specific in your statements to avoid confusion in the future.
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Misleading title (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Misleading title (Score:5, Funny)
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Just like insanity, I don't suffer pain. I enjoy every minute of it.
Re:Misleading title maybe the pain (Score:2)
Then, they'll have to come up with hummingbird-fast anti-toxin, or, maybe an multi-dimensional-gateway/time-shifting olfactory treatment...
This should come in handy for anyone that (Score:2)
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People are complex intertwined systems, you can almost never change something without unintentionally changing something else.
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In the 1950s drugs such as Thalidomide were thought to be safe.
It won't take much "googling" to find current drugs that were once thought to be safe.
What the post above yours was saying is that, in this culture, the promises of drug companies as to the safety
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Bitter Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
The bitter irony is that it's these very industrial and technological advancements that make the discovery, analysis, synthesis, mass production, and world-wide distribution at affordable prices of this painkiller possible in the first place.
It's depressing how many people demand the benefits of civilization, without accepting any of its tradeoffs.
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
That's usually the hyperbolic strawman of the anti-conservationist who extrapolates spending money on better alternatives to current tech and trying to use less of what we do now (e.g. drive more fuel efficient cars) into some crazy luddite back-to-nature wildlife.
Personally I think that point of view is retarded. I'm a conservationist and environmentalist because I like the benefits of civilization, and I would like for myself and as many generations of descendents as possible to be able to keep them.
One of the tradeoffs of civilization is figuring out how to make it sustainable. Our current method is not sustainable. Refusing to change because you want to keep your lifestyle is to guarantee that you lose that lifestyle.
Anyway, I think slug-slime pain killers are awesome.
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John Mccarthy (the father of lisp) believes that our progress is sustainable [stanford.edu] in a form remarkably similar to what we have now.
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Just as a note - it's not slime. It's a toxin injected by a very fast-firing dart the snail uses to hunt. Research on these snails started because every year a few people picked them up on beaches in the Phillipines and dropped dead moments later. Turns out the snails pack a cocktail of toxins that includes the active ingredients in several other well-known venoms. I saw the PriAlt guy speak a few months ago, and it was completely fascinating. Showed video o
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And the work I do now, to keep body and soul together, not only is it easier than the work I would've had to do without civilization, but my quality of life is better, the scope of leisure activities available to me is greater, and the surplus wealth I have accumulated is greater, than anything our primitive cave-dwelling ancestors ever enjoyed. And that's with The Man exploiting me every day.
What does your post-apocalyptic Rockefeller Ce
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Where exactly is this happening?
Where I'm from--a planet called "Earth"--the lack of widely-distributed and affordable drugs is a pretty big problem, which is currently being exacerbated in innumerable ways due to globalization, although the pundits claimed--still claim--that the opposite should be true.
It's depressing how many people demand the benefits of civilization, without accepting any of its tradeoffs.
To me, it's somewhat more depressing how many people fa
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it seems obvious to me that in the long term the expensive-but-clean process is probably better
That might be obvious, but are you willing to pay for it? More accurately, are enough of your like minded bretheren willing to pay for it?
To further derail things, what constitutes 'better'? In the long term is it better to kill all the buffalo to help the natives die so we can drive them off the land we want to develop for the debatable overall improvement of humanity? Better to test snail toxins on rabbits so we can one day keep humans from having to live with pain? Better for that one specific rabb
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Granted! But I think universally, solutions that directly produce fewer new problems are superior to solutions that are going to produce more.
If you know your process is going to be more expensive, you can budget for that. If you know it's going to harm the environment--well, the environment is a pretty delicate toy to be messing around with and there's no warranty. It's like the 360 I got my godson for Christmas--short-term, he might have fun throwing it ar
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In fact, there's hundreds of thousands of widely-distributed, affordably-priced medecins out there.
Please don't confuse the small number of brand-new, cutting-edge drugs, still paying off their extremely expensive R&D efforts, with the vast majority of affordable medications.
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I used to ask people this question:
You've been religiously buying the same Lotto number for 20 years, now God offers you two options:
a. That Lotto number turns out to be the biggest winner in the history, except you forgot to buy it that particular week. At least you know your magic number is a winner, or
b. That Lotto number is never a winner, and you'll n
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1. Cut back on industrial activity and technological innovation, in order to preserve a naturally-occuring medecine that will require industrial activity and technological innovation in order to be useful, OR
2. Continue with industrial activity and technological innovation, to better exploit what natural medicines we encounter, as well as more quickly develop synthetic medicines.
For all we know, we may be six months away from discovering a synthetic painkiller which operates in the
Re:Bitter Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you think global warming is an advancement. Personally I see it as an accounting issue; hidden costs which some people pass on to other people, in particular future generations. Perhaps the reason why the Northeast is considered so 'liberal' is that one doesn't have to go far to find a brown field. A place of dead earth, unfit for human development, left by some long gone business which was unburdened by environmental regulation. The cleanup of someone else's mess is a continuing burden, both on the treasury, and the health of people who have long ago, if ever, benefited from their creation.
At one point cities didn't have sewers or trash collection, they just threw their daily waste into the middle of the street. Often the contents of chamber pots would rain down on the pedestrians below, and the rivers became so choked with human and animal filth, that they caused plague, and misery. Eventually cities, and towns raised taxes for sewers, required trash collection, then sanitary sewers, and eventually waste treatment facilities. Today one doesn't think of these things as unnecessary, or too costly, as the benefits of these requirements obviously far outweigh the costs of not having them, yet when the laws were first developed buffoons such as yourself, fought their implementation as being too costly, and unneeded. History has proven those fools wrong, as it will you.
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Actually, I think global warming is a cyclical phenomenon, of which anthropogenic causes make up an insignificant fraction during this particular cycle; and that the pain and suffering caused by reducing anthropogenic causes will greatly outweigh the benefits (and will not actually have a significant effect on the cycle, since we're still not capable of massive terraforming or weather control).
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Ouch. (Score:5, Funny)
Experimental animals? (Score:5, Funny)
Is that the next step?
Experimental animals -> regular animals -> experimental humans -> regular humans??
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Wow.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Since you're a student, money is probably an issue, but you can most likely find someone who will charge on a sliding scale or otherwise work out a reasonable fee with you.
osteopathic manipulation to release stored trauma (Score:2)
From the original poster:
I suffered a lower-lumbar spinal fracture almost seven months ago. The docto
Re:osteopathic manipulation to release stored trau (Score:2)
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So Let Me Get This Straight (Score:2)
Or I can get the pretty girl sitting next to me to kiss it better [slashdot.org]
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I have a name already (Score:2)
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Before anyone else chimes in.. (Score:5, Informative)
Elan already has a Conotixin on the market (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/creative--media/pain killer-comes-out-of-its-shell/2005/07/24/112214372 8598.html [theage.com.au]
Links to university release & the article in P (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=1104
and if you have the chops to read the study, here is a link to the abstract7 030 [pnas.org]
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/103/45/1
looks like the full text is free (unless my institution's IP range has a subscriptionn and it would otherwise be locked down)
Different from ziconotide? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't understand why nothing in the article even mentions this already-existing drug derived from (probably different) conotoxins.
At least one conotoxin already commercialized. (Score:4, Informative)
Presumably this is a different component of conotoxin.
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Be nice if they could find something better than morphine though. I've been on drips twice in my life. (Yeah, I guess I'm accident prone.) Anyway, 1) it's not so much pain relief as much as "I'm so euphoric that I don't care that my arm hurts like a bitch," especially for something like getting a wound scrubbed out with a Brillo pad, 2) the side effects suck and 3) coming down is like the worst hangover you've ever had, only worse. Even thinking about it right now makes me nause
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Due to the profound side effects or lack of efficacy when delivered through more common routes, such as orally or intravenously, ziconotide must be administered intrathecally (directly into the spine). As this is by far the most expensive and invasive method of drug delivery and involves additional risks of its own,[3] ziconotide therapy is generally considered appropriate (as evidenced by the range of use approved by the FDA
Cone Snail Venom (Score:2, Interesting)
experimental animals (Score:2)
How Soon Before... (Score:2, Funny)
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As usual. . . (Score:2)
I'm a chronic pain sufferer myself - I spend 8 hours a day on a PC and I have RSI in both hands. Yet I wouldn't touch this stuff with a 10-foot pole. The pain is telling you that you're doing yourself damage. Masking the pain so you can do yourself even more damage in complete comfort is the worst thing you could possible do.
For myself, I learned that improving my posture was enough to stop the RSI causing me a tor
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Just because your chronic pain is self-induced, it doesn't mean all people's pain is so caused.
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I'll make it easier for you: Which of these is the more beneficial scenario:
Somebody sustains an injury that causes chronic pain, and millions is spent on developing a new painkiller so the damage won't hurt even though it's still present
-or-
Somebody sustains an injury that causes chronic pain, and millions is spent on developing a way to repair the damage so he doesn't suffer from chronic pain.
I work in the pharmaceutical industry, and I can tell you that far
"Without side effects" (Score:2)
Of all of the times that's been said of a new drug, I wonder just how rarely it was actually true.
Cone shells (Score:3, Interesting)
The proper name for them is not "sea snails" (there are lots of snails in the sea). The are called cone shells or cone snails. See the Wikipedia article on them [wikipedia.org].
I used to see them when snorkeling in the Red Sea. They are one of the few snails that are "clean" since they have a mantle withdrawn over the shell and hence algae and barnacles do not attach to it. The other snail that does that is the cowrie shell. If you find a dirty shell, then it is because the animal inside it has died, and the algae has move on it.
The cone shells are very very toxic and as far as I recall have no antidote. They have a harpoon like needle that injects venom, and a proboscis to swallow prey with.
One true horror story from Sinai in Egypt was about a woman tourist who was found dead under the water after scuba diving. They took the body out and checked the regulator, the air supply,
What kind of animals? (Score:2)
Man, I've got to get me some of those. Here I've been using the traditional, evolved sort. I bet I could get lots better results from my experiments if my animals were experimental too. And then maybe some experimental humans.
Pain medication (Score:3, Informative)
Opiates affect the way the brain perceives pain. They work great and are relatively safe - but addictive. Some people find them pleasurable but most people don't really enjoy the experience. Both groups can become addicted if they use them often enough. The first group is simply more likely to do so for non-medical reasons.
Nobody is really sure how acetaminophen (Tylenol) actually works. It appears to be a variant on anti-inflammatory drugs with fewer side effects but it may also have some direct effect on the brain. It's safe and effective for minor pains but its usefulness is limited for severe pain because larger doses are toxic to the liver. This one also kills many people every year who don't take the warnings seriously. Many of the victims are children.
A new drug that affects the pain receptors directly could be a welcome addition to this arsenal.
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It's not a pain killer (Score:2)
LOL (Score:2)
Well, that puts the issue to rest!
Even NORML's website doesn't reference pain-killing as a reason for it's use. It talks about it's benefits as an anti-inflammatory, anti-convulsant, appetite-stimulant, etc.
So please, put down the doobage.
you are such a govt stooge. (Score:2)
Alcaholics are more failures and tend to ruin others lifes too and families, but hey its legal, because the govt
gets their cut in taxes and thats good.
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gets their cut in taxes and thats good.
Also, the (U.S.) government tried to do away with alcohol use (despite the lucrative taxes it brings in) and the results were even more disastrous than our current War on Drugs.
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Re:Brought to you by the Military Industrial Compl (Score:2)
Problem is, you would want ordinary soldiers to be able to use it without a bunch of gadgets to fumble around with. It should be easy--like swinging an axe! You could call it a bioaxe [planetfortress.com]! (Warning: link has embedded MIDI)
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(BTW, in case you don't get this, you may not be alone. I'm not even sure "Rush Limbaugh" is still on the air - anyone know for sure?)
Scientific American (Score:2, Interesting)
April 2005 issue
INNOVATION
A Toxin against Pain
For years, scientists have promised a new wave of drugs derived from sea life. A recently approved analgesic that is a synthetic version of a snail toxin has become one of the first marine pharmaceuticals