Newsworthy Science

Birdjaguar

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Some science has immediate currency and value.
Some science worthy of long discussion.
Some science has it own thread.

Here is a place for science that is interesting but may not have another home.


To begin: Anti-depressants and sexuality

Lust, Romance, Attachment: Do The Side Effects Of Serotonin-Enhancing Antidepressants Jeopardize Romantic Love, Marriage & Fertility?


Helen Fisher and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr.

Abstract:

Today millions of people take serotonin-enhancing antidepressants. These medications cause emotional blunting and dysfunction in sexual desire, arousal and orgasm in both men and women. We propose that these antidepressants have other side effects, due to their impact on several related neural mechanisms. Homo sapiens has evolved three distinct brain systems for courtship, reproduction and parenting. The sex drive evolved to motivate men and women to initiate sexual contact with a range of partners; romantic love evolved to motivate them to focus their courtship energy on specific individuals, thereby conserving mating time and energy; partner attachment evolved to motivate our forebears to maintain a stable mateship long enough to rear a child through infancy together. Studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) indicate that romantic love is associated with dopaminergic pathways in the brain’s reward system, pathways that are suppressed by elevated central serotonin. Hence we hypothesize that serotonin-enhancing antidepressants can jeopardize one’s ability to fall in love. Due to their impact on the sex drive, these medications can also jeopardize other brain/body mechanisms that enhance mate assessment, mate choice, pair formation and partner attachment. This paper discusses the biological relationships between the sex drive, romantic love and attachment, as well as other evolved reproductive mechanisms, to illustrate how serotonin-enhancing antidepressants can jeopardize feelings of romance, attachment and fertility.


The paper is long and detailed. It is not paywalled.

https://helenfisher.com/lust-romanc...-jeopardize-romantic-love-marriage-fertility/
 
Well, if the medication is supposed to help even out the most painful and destabilizing mental states, doesn't it make sense that it'd have to hit love or it wouldn't have been working in the first place?
 
Yes, and if you want to dig deeper, the brain science behind what happens is in the paper.

IMG_2325.jpg
 
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I guess I'm annoyed I didn't draw that as an observation already. Studies are neat.
 
Great thread. High fructose corn syrup makes your guts better at absorbing food, and so makes you fat (possibly)

Although fat-rich diets have taken much of the blame for the rise in obesity, excess consumption of processed sugars, and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in particular, is strongly implicated in diet-induced obesity.

Taylor and colleagues’ study reveals that fructose has a previously unknown effect on the structure of the intestine (Fig. 1). Previous work had shown that HFCS promotes metabolic pathways that support the formation of colon tumours, so the authors wondered what consequences a HFCS-rich diet might have for non-cancerous intestinal cells. Taylor et al. found that HFCS-fed mice had longer intestinal protrusions — structures known as villi — and absorbed more dietary nutrients compared with mice that did not receive HFCS in their diet. Furthermore, fatty diets caused an even greater weight gain in mice if such diets also contained fructose than if they did not.
d41586-021-02195-1_19576254.png

Figure 1 | Fructose-mediated gut changes. Nutrients in the gut enter the bloodstream after passing through cells in an intestinal protrusion called a villus. Cells at the tip of a villus have limited access to oxygen (a state called hypoxia), and they die for reasons such as energy depletion and oxidative stress. Taylor et al. report that, if mice received high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in their diet, they had longer villi and higher levels of lipids in their blood compared with animals that did not receive HFCS.

Write up Paper (paywalled)
 
I wonder if the fructose in sucrose has that effect or if it stays bound with the glucose in a way that negates it.
 
I wonder if the fructose in sucrose has that effect or if it stays bound with the glucose in a way that negates it.
My guess would be that it is much the same. I was taught that the enzyme that splits sucrose into fructose and glucose is so well integrated into the absorption system that you cannot detect the rate difference between absorption of sucrose and glucose.
 
Some science has immediate currency and value.
Some science worthy of long discussion.
Some science has it own thread.

Here is a place for science that is interesting but may not have another home.


To begin: Anti-depressants and sexuality

Lust, Romance, Attachment: Do The Side Effects Of Serotonin-Enhancing Antidepressants Jeopardize Romantic Love, Marriage & Fertility?


Helen Fisher and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr.

Abstract:

Today millions of people take serotonin-enhancing antidepressants. These medications cause emotional blunting and dysfunction in sexual desire, arousal and orgasm in both men and women. We propose that these antidepressants have other side effects, due to their impact on several related neural mechanisms. Homo sapiens has evolved three distinct brain systems for courtship, reproduction and parenting. The sex drive evolved to motivate men and women to initiate sexual contact with a range of partners; romantic love evolved to motivate them to focus their courtship energy on specific individuals, thereby conserving mating time and energy; partner attachment evolved to motivate our forebears to maintain a stable mateship long enough to rear a child through infancy together. Studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) indicate that romantic love is associated with dopaminergic pathways in the brain’s reward system, pathways that are suppressed by elevated central serotonin. Hence we hypothesize that serotonin-enhancing antidepressants can jeopardize one’s ability to fall in love. Due to their impact on the sex drive, these medications can also jeopardize other brain/body mechanisms that enhance mate assessment, mate choice, pair formation and partner attachment. This paper discusses the biological relationships between the sex drive, romantic love and attachment, as well as other evolved reproductive mechanisms, to illustrate how serotonin-enhancing antidepressants can jeopardize feelings of romance, attachment and fertility.


The paper is long and detailed. It is not paywalled.

https://helenfisher.com/lust-romanc...-jeopardize-romantic-love-marriage-fertility/
It's been know SSRI meds caused serious sexual side effects for many decades. The attachment issues shown are unsurprising.

When I was thrown on Prozac @ 13 (in 1992, the first year I played Civilization) I remember watching TV and realizing "damn I haven't gotten a boner for three days". I quit taking Prozac although I was quickly put back on many other worse meds.

I actually had inorgasmia until I was 19 and I quit all pharmacuticals (this wouldn't have been part of any statistics of course as I never would've been caught dead admitting this to any doctor as a teenager).

It's also pretty obvious that SSRI's can lead to problems with attachments & relationships since school shooters are almost on them. Masses & masses of people in the modern 1st world are depressed for a reason (often lack of purpose & social isolation), if you give them drugs rather than fixing the reasons they're depressed they may temporarily feel better (long term results aren't promising as rising rates of being medicated are in tandem with rising rates of mental illness) but will likely still continue to act like non-well-adjusted people (including not being keen to marry & bring new humans into the sick world they inhabit).

In 50 years people will look @ the medicalization of human emotional suffering and the massive overprescription of ssris as an abuse that far exceeds how we look at how big tobacco pretended cigarettes were harmless.

Ssris can be harder to withdraw from than tobacco. It's hard to go from numb to looking at your life again without artificially propped up serotonin levels, people often become more depressed than before they even took those drugs which again should be common sense.
 
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This isn't news. It's been know SSRI meds caused serious sexual side effects for many decades.

When I was thrown on Prozac @ 13 (in 1992, the first year I played Civilization) I remember watching TV and realizing "damn I haven't gotten a boner for three days". I quit taking Prozac although I was quickly put back on many other worse meds.

I actually had inorgasmia until I was 19 and I quit all pharmacuticals (this wouldn't have been part of any statistics of course as I never would've been caught dead admitting this to any doctor as a teenager).

It's also pretty obvious that SSRI's can lead to problems with attachments & relationships since school shooters are almost on them. Masses & masses of people in the modern 1st world are depressed for a reason (often lack of purpose & social isolation), if you give them drugs rather than fixing the reasons they're depressed they may temporarily feel better (long term results aren't promising as rising rates of being medicated are in tandem with rising rates of mental illness) but will likely still continue to act like non-well-adjusted people (including not being keen to marry & bring new humans into the sick world they inhabit)
What is not news to you, may be news to others. In addition, that paper features a lot of the actual science behind what you know. In addition, the thread title is Newsworthy; it is not Breaking news. :)
 
It's been know SSRI meds caused serious sexual side effects for many decades.
Many psychiatric meds can cause sexual dysfunction. Unfortunately, it seems to be part and parcel of the therapy. It can cause an already depressed patient to become even more depressed as they often don't realize that it is the meds that cause the sexual side effects and blame themselves for the dysfunction. There are some commonly prescribed drugs that, in effect, pretty much chemically neuter males. With males of our species basing a lot of their sense of masculinity on their sexual prowess, I can certainly see how taking some of these medications would be problematic for some men. Women have their issues with them too, of course (lack of libido, lack of vaginal lubrication), so they aren't immune to the issues faced by people on medication. I just wish that we could come up with something good, that would help people facing severe depression and didn't affect them in this way.
 
I wonder if the fructose in sucrose has that effect or if it stays bound with the glucose in a way that negates it.

Still hoping for that differentiation, like everyone else, eh? ;)

It's the sweet.
 
Still hoping for that differentiation, like everyone else, eh? ;)

It's the sweet.
Diet sodas get people too, which always brought me a twisted pleasure, if for no other reason than I want sugared sodas on the menu.
 
On the one hand, I read somewhere that the growth in global demand for electricity in 2019 outstripped the growth of "green" energy generation. For all of the talk and all of the natural disasters, we're still sliding backwards when it comes to carbon emissions.

On the other hand, I heard on the radio this morning that there's been a promising development in wireless charging for electric vehicles while they're on the go: A strip embedded in the road or highway that operates kind of like the charging pad for your phone (at least, that's the analogy the guy on the radio used). I think they said it's being live-tested in Germany and Indiana. (Of course, if the power plants that generate that electricity are burning carbon, I'm not sure that powering cars with electricity is a net reduction in emissions. I guess it only would be if the power plant were magnificently more efficient than your typical internal combustion engine. Still, this sounds like a promising step.)
 
On the other hand, I heard on the radio this morning that there's been a promising development in wireless charging for electric vehicles while they're on the go: A strip embedded in the road or highway that operates kind of like the charging pad for your phone (at least, that's the analogy the guy on the radio used). I think they said it's being live-tested in Germany and Indiana. (Of course, if the power plants that generate that electricity are burning carbon, I'm not sure that powering cars with electricity is a net reduction in emissions. I guess it only would be if the power plant were magnificently more efficient than your typical internal combustion engine. Still, this sounds like a promising step.)
I think this is a mad idea, but quite possibly because I know nothing. Devices with significant charge inducing RF are lethal for those with pacemakers (microwaves without perfect shielding, induction cookers, airport scanners). Putting these all over roads sounds dodgy. There is enough people worried about RF from phone masts and power lines, this would be many orders of magnitude more intense than that.
 
I think this is a mad idea, but quite possibly because I know nothing. Devices with significant charge inducing RF are lethal for those with pacemakers (microwaves without perfect shielding, induction cookers, airport scanners). Putting these all over roads sounds dodgy. There is enough people worried about RF from phone masts and power lines, this would be many orders of magnitude more intense than that.
If it was combined with driverless vehicle tech, maybe each car could have a little foot or wire trailing underneath that would make direct contact with the wire in the road, kind of like how subway trains get power from the "third rail"? Just thinking out loud now.
 
If it was combined with driverless vehicle tech, maybe each car could have a little foot or wire trailing underneath that would make direct contact with the wire in the road, kind of like how subway trains get power from the "third rail"? Just thinking out loud now.
A "third rail" on every road? Again, I can see dangers.
 
A "third rail" on every road? Again, I can see dangers.
I don't have a charging pad for my phone, and I don't know how those work. I think I've seen them embedded in countertops at Starbucks. Are they risky?
 
I don't have a charging pad for my phone, and I don't know how those work. I think I've seen them embedded in countertops at Starbucks. Are they risky?
So you mean the "foot" is the antenna for the charging? I thought you mean direct contact. I reckon you would need that to still be very powerful to charge a car.

It is all about the field strength at the pacemaker lead. I think those pads can be dangerous, but only if you get really close. Do they really build them into things the public uses? I bet they are really low power, but as I say, I do not really know.
 
So you mean the "foot" is the antenna for the charging? I thought you mean direct contact. I reckon you would need that to still be very powerful to charge a car.

It is all about the field strength at the pacemaker lead. I think those pads can be dangerous, but only if you get really close. Do they really build them into things the public uses? I bet they are really low power, but as I say, I do not really know.
I'd imagine the power required to charge a phone is a lot less than for a car, yeah, but maybe a continuous charge at close range wouldn't emit as much power as cell towers do? I guess I'm assuming the wires that could charge electric cars while they're driving couldn't be that powerful. As for whether a trailing foot or wire needs to make direct contact, I don't know. The way it was described on the radio, which was very briefly, made it sound like direct contact wouldn't be necessary, that your car would just drive over it. It made think of subway and trolley cars, but those do make direct contact with either the third rail or the overhead wire.
 
I'd imagine the power required to charge a phone is a lot less than for a car, yeah, but maybe a continuous charge at close range wouldn't emit as much power as cell towers do? I guess I'm assuming the wires that could charge electric cars while they're driving couldn't be that powerful. As for whether a trailing foot or wire needs to make direct contact, I don't know. The way it was described on the radio, which was very briefly, made it sound like direct contact wouldn't be necessary, that your car would just drive over it. It made think of subway and trolley cars, but those do make direct contact with either the third rail or the overhead wire.
They are definitely working on the tech. I guess they must know what they are doing, but I have not heard discussion of these issues.
 
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