
How tainted drugs “froze” young people but kickstarted Parkinson’s research - gvb
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/medical-mystery-how-tainted-drugs-froze-young-people-but-kickstarted-parkinsons-research/
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sswaner
I worked in a college neuro research lab in 1991 that had received samples of
MPTP for research purposes. The project had ended before my time, but the drug
was a frequent topic of conversation. We were studying various dopaminergic
conditions using leeches. I still have a copy of a book documenting the
various research "MPTP: A Neurotoxin Producing a Parkinsonian-like Response".

One detail of the story that I still remember: the dealers of the MPTP heroin
realized they had a bad batch and cut the price to get rid of it.

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S_A_P
I thought of the SoftCell song immediately when I saw this headline. "Tainted
Drugs, woo oh oh"

That said, I have often thought there was a link between cocaine use and early
parkinsons. Its interesting to see that bad opiates can also cause similar
symptoms.

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parkovski
There is. Cocaine and most other hard stimulants cause lots of dopamine to be
released in the brain. Generally when you have higher concentrations of a
neurotransmitter than normal for a long time, your brain compensates for the
overstimulation by reducing the number of receptors. It doesn't work in
exactly the same way as this drug but the end result is the same - reduced
number of dopamine neurons, which causes parkinson's symptoms.

The scary thing about this drug is that it doesn't really have anything to do
with the fact that they were trying to make opiates, it just happens that if
you mess up the reaction you get this really toxic byproduct. As governments
keep banning new drugs, chemists (amateur and professional, but it's hard to
know which is which since this is all unregulated) keep coming up with new not
technically illegal ways to achieve the same effects, and it's really just a
matter of time before you create something else toxic. And it's entirely
possible that some designer drugs that seem safe at first can end up having
bad complications later on, since they're not very well researched and
understood. At least we know how toxic meth is - with research drugs,
especially newly discovered ones, no one really knows what kind of damage
they're doing to themselves.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Do you think it's safe to assume most Parkinson's suffers didn't abuse
cocaine, or probably use it much if at all?

Do you think it's possible that long term moderate to heavy caffeine use could
contribute to Parkinson's by the same method of action you have described?

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parkovski
I'm not an expert on any of this, medicine is just a hobby of mine. I don't
think actual Parkinson's is caused by drug abuse though, I think it's a
separate disease (or maybe more than one) that ends up doing the same type of
damage to the brain so the symptoms look similar. Wikipedia seems to agree,
we're not sure how most people affected got it. That seems to be kind of a
theme in medicine.

As far as caffeine goes, I don't think it affects dopamine that much, so it
probably wouldn't have that effect on its own. I can't imagine long term heavy
caffeine use would be good for you though, I just don't think it would be
enough to do the same damage that drugs that directly release dopamine do. Or
at least, it would do different kinds of damage - my guess is memory issues
due to lack of quality sleep and high blood pressure.

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ars
The fact that such a small dose of a toxic chemical could cause parkinsons in
such an indirect way, to me, means that the cause of perkinsons is probably
some environmental toxin that is interacting in some complex and novel way.

i.e. as opposed to some genetic problem.

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parkovski
There are chemicals that can kill you with a couple milligrams or less. I
would bet that Parkinson's and lots of other diseases involving the brain will
eventually be found to be symptoms caused by lots of different things, some
genetic and some environmental, and probably lots of different combinations
and proportions of each.

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ars
> There are chemicals that can kill you with a couple milligrams or less.

Obviously, but they are pretty straightforward things.

This chemical that causes Parkinsons is quite different, it has a complicated
method of actually becoming active, and seems to target a very specific part
of the brain. Unlike those other chemicals, this one is not something you
could predict by simply looking at it.

Which is my point - the straightforward, or easily predicted chemicals we
already are cautious about. The issue is the complicated or unexpected ones,
the ones with very delayed effects.

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parkovski
I think I see what you mean. There's just so much we don't know at this point,
and so many chemicals that we are exposed to even in small amounts, I could
totally see some of these diseases being brought on by something common we've
never considered. Or by some combination of things that may not be that
harmful on their own.

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ikeboy
Headline is a Winograd scheme with Parkinson's replaced with almost any other
name.

