Pharmacology
terrasig | March 1, 2008DrugMonkey just had an interesting post about the potential influence of cocaine use trends following the 1986 death of Maryland college basketball player, Len Bias, just days after his being selected in the NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. DM's post and the ensuing discussion got me thinking tonight about a variety of issues in substance abuse, realistic assessment of risk and, ultimately, parenting.
In the comments, I mentioned that Heath Ledger's recent death might be a trigger for pop culture to pay more attention to the risks of recreational use of prescription and over-the-counter…
terrasig | February 6, 2008I'll leave my neuropharmacology and neuroscience colleagues to comment in greater detail on this story (see earlier DrugMonkey post), but this report is just in from AP on Heath Ledger's toxicology report:
The cause of death was "acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine," spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a statement.
I haven't seen a copy of the report itself (maybe Smoking Gun will have it soon) but plasma concentrations of each were not noted. However, this was the statement from the family:
In a statement…
terrasig | January 29, 2008. . .that's the message from Dr Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, to heroin and morphine users whose lives might be saved in the overdose situation by public distribution of "overdose rescue kits" comprised of a $9.50 nasal spray containing Narcan.
Narcan is the brand name for naloxone, an antagonist (blocker) of these drugs at μ opioid receptors. When an overdose of opioid drugs binds to these receptors in the respiratory control center of a primitive part of our brain, one stops breathing, a situation that pathologists say is "…
terrasig | January 10, 2008This question, posed by Michigan Tech professor Dr Seth W Donahue while hiking in the Sierra Nevada, has led to the discovery of an extremely potent form of parathyroid hormone produced by black bears (Ursus americanus). In an unusual take on my usual topic of natural product therapeutics, Donahue's hope is that the ursine form of the hormone might serve as the basis for novel drugs to treat osteoporosis in humans, hibernating (on the couch) or otherwise.
Dr. Donahue's research on bears has advanced far enough toward a treatment for humans to capture commercial interest. Apjohn Group, a…
terrasig | December 30, 2007In rats, though. But still very interesting.
So says yesterday's New York Times Op-Ed by psychiatrist, Paul Steinberg, entitled, "The Hangover That Lasts." This timely piece follows our discussion on Friday about champagne choices for New Year's Eve, the premier event for binge-drinking.
While I'm not a neuropharmacologist, Steinberg's article piqued my interest because it focuses on the work of Dr Fulton T Crews and his former student Dr Jennifer Obernier (now with the National Academy of Sciences) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr Crews is director of the UNC Bowles…
neurophilosophy | November 27, 2007A lengthy article in last weekend's Washington Post Magazine discusses the work of Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) who has almost completed the first phase of a clinical study into the use of ecstasy as a therapeutic tool for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Ecstasy (MDMA, or 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine) is a psychedelic and a stimulant which acts by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin, and, to a lesser extent, of dopamine and noradrenaline. It is illegal in most countries (it is classified as a Class A drug in the U.K. and a…
terrasig | November 19, 2007As we approach 100,000 visitors since joining ScienceBlogs I am amazed to still be getting 500-700 visits per month at the old home of Terra Sigillata, all without any promotion or new posts. The most-visited of the old posts is the following which appeared originally on 21 February 2006.
Much of humankind's experience with pharmacologically-active natural products has been through the mind-altering effects of plants used in religious ceremonies.
Today [21 Feb 2006], the US Supreme Court upheld a decision to permit a New Mexico sect of a Brazilian religious order to continue using an…
neurophilosophy | November 15, 2007From KMBC:
Clay County sheriff's deputies said David Theiss, of Kansas City, possessed a Colorado River toad with the intention of using it as a hallucinogenic.
Experts said it's possible to lick the toad's venom glands to achieve psychedelic effects.
Most pet stores don't sell the Colorado River toad because the venom can sicken humans and kill household animals.
"People used to do it all the time, but it got faded out awhile, but came back as a fad. Not a smart one," animal expert Danny Snyder told KMBC's Dion Lim. "The toxins in it can kill a lot of stuff."
Authorities said this is the…
terrasig | November 7, 2007Orac's recent post, A Real Death By Homeopathy, led me to dig through the archives at my old blog and reprint one of my first posts, this one from 6 January 2006. As a natural products researcher, I often see homeopathy associated with herbal medicines, the latter of which has often been the source of beneficial pharmaceuticals. In sharp contrast, homeopathy is based on a faulty 19th century principle that is the direct opposite of dose-response pharmacology and I intended to comment briefly on the distinction, as stimulated by a misleading picture on the cover of one of my favorite print…
terrasig | October 31, 2007Welcome, Reader: This post was updated on Halloween 2009 to remedy linkrot and add an interesting tidbit on the famous Macbeth passage. As it is likely you ended up here via a search engine, click here to go to the updated post.
Have you ever wondered, perhaps on 31 October, why witches are depicted as riding brooms?
The answer is alluded to by Karmen Franklin at Chaotic Utopia in her post as to why witches need to know their plant biology.
The excerpts I'm about to give you come from a superb and accessible pharmacology text entitled, "Murder, Magic, and Medicine," by John Mann, host of the…
terrasig | October 16, 2007As we discussed here yesterday, ixabepilone, a semi-synthetic anticancer drug derived from a soil bacterium was up for review by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Just over a half hour ago the manufacturer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, announced that the drug has indeed been approved for the treatment of advanced breast cancer. The drug will be sold under the trade name, Ixempra.
"Previously, patients with aggressive metastatic or locally advanced breast cancer no longer responding to currently available chemotherapies had limited treatment options," said Linda Vahdat, M.D., Associate…
terrasig | October 15, 2007Perhaps not a cure but certainly another critical tool in the anticancer armamentarium.
If you've ever read our introduction to the left in my profile as to why this blog is called Terra Sigillata, you'd know that the first trademarked drug was dirt itself (or soil to be exact). Terra Sigillata was a special fatty clay harvested from the Greek isle of Lemnos and then punched into planchets with a special seal. Because it contained kaolin, a component of Kaopectate, it was useful for treating gastrointestinal disorders, and its high mineral content was useful for treating deficiencies that…
terrasig | September 16, 2007Leukemia Drug Adulteration
Chinese generic versions of the anticancer drugs, methotrexate and cytarabine hydrochloride, have been reported to be contaminated with an undisclosed substance according to several wire reports this morning.
Several children in a Shanghai hospital were reported to suffer leg pain and difficulty walking after being injected with methotrexate. A common drug used in many chemotherapy regimens for leukemia, methotrexate is not normally associated with these side effects.
The Xinhua news agency reported that the drugs had been traced to one manufacturer, Shanghai…
terrasig | September 15, 2007[This post appeared originally at my Blogspot site on 20 December 2005 to describe my rationale for the name of this blog. With today's traffic from the Daily Kos, I thought it would be useful to new readers to know our story here. FYFI, here is why I chose the pseudonym Abel Pharmboy. - APB]
If you Google, "Terra Sigillata," you'll get a number of hits for various clay pottery recipes. Very complicated stuff, requiring the use of a deflocculant to separate out large clay particles from the small ones. Terra sig, as it is known among pottery hipsters, is then used to coat finished pieces…
neurophilosophy | September 13, 2007The word "zombie" usually brings to mind the creatures depicted in numerous horror films - the mindless, rotting "living dead" who shuffle with their arms stretched out in front of them, devouring the flesh of their victims.
Zombies feature widely in popular culture, but the idea of the zombie originates in the Vodun religion. Popularly known as voodoo, this religion has been misrepresented and sensationalized, particularly in Hollywood films, according to which its followers practice bizarre rituals involving voodoo dolls and cannibalism.
In reality, Vodun is a complex belief system…
terrasig | August 19, 2007Late last week saw two announcements from the US FDA on genetic issues in drug safety. The first of these addresses the prescribing guidelines for Coumadin, or warfarin. Coumadin is a "blood-thinner" (or anticoagulant) prescribed for conditions from heart valve and hip/knee joint replacements to pulmonary hypertension and following strokes due to inappropriate blood clotting.
The reasons for this warning relate to data that has accumulated whereby individual patients respond quite differently to the same dose of Coumadin. Two genetic markers have been identified to account for much of…
terrasig | July 8, 2007Have you ever wondered how well-pressurized airlines keep the cabin of the average commercial flight? I have. So, in my gadget days, I once took my altimeter on a flight and learned that on my particular flight the cabin was pressurized to the equivalent of an altitude of 7200 ft (2195 m) above sea level. At the time, I was living at about 8000 ft (2438 m) so I never gave thought to the fact that a prolonged flight might produce symptoms of acute mountain sickness in otherwise unacclimatized individuals predisposed to the disorder.
Now, in research supported by Boeing and published in last…
terrasig | May 26, 2007Seventy-nine years ago today marked the passing of Dr John Jacob Abel, known as the American father of Pharmacology. Beyond his work on epinephrine, insulin, and devising a dialysis machine, Abel founded the departments of pharmacology at the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University.
The American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) is celebrating their 100th anniversary by marking the scientific pedigree of its members back to Dr Abel.
terrasig | May 7, 2007My namesake and North American father of pharmacology, John Jacob Abel, was a celebrity in absentia at the recent Experimental Biology meeting of the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET). In Nature, Jill Adams reported on an effort to mark the 100th anniversary of the society next year by having members determine their "Abel number" - their degrees of removal from having published with the man who discovered epinephrine, first crystallized insulin, and founded departments of pharmacology at both Michigan and Johns Hopkins.
Now, of course, Abel is not the…
terrasig | March 20, 2007So say the American elder statesmen of natural products in the 2007 update of their periodic review of the subject to be published in the 23 March issue of the Journal of Natural Products. (Details are in this Reuters article with by Julie Steenhuysen). I will post more about the article when I get my hands on it, but it comes from NCI's Dr David Newman and recently-retired Dr Gordon Cragg. Cragg had led the NCI Natural Products Branch, a position that Newman now holds.
Newman and colleague Gordon Cragg reviewed the origins of new drugs developed in the past quarter-century and found that…