Newsworthy Science
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
- Start date
The issue is the fact that the fructose is metabolized, and causing some... jamming in the system. So if you can take it up (no matter if it's bound to something or not before), then it causes the issue.
Somewhat related: There exist Fructo-Oligosaccharides (one glucose, many fructose), which humans cannot break down (only the gut bacteria), and these are normally seen as beneficial prebiotics. In that case the fructose should be also mostly absorbed by the bacteria. So the simple presence of fructose doesn't do anything, you need to metabolize it.
Narz
keeping it real
Even if your ego isn't caught up in it it's still pretty alarming. The fact that these drugs can so drastically alter the basic functions of life (appetite, sleep, reproduction) should make people more cautious but people are desperate and there's a ****ton of $ to be made (always a dangerous combo).
Both psych meds & birth control can wreck havoc on female sexuality.
My friend is working on a phase 3 study of mdma for PTSD, I think psychedelics have promise in therapy and the treatment of depression and anxiety and they have the benefit (to the customer) of not having to take them daily.
The changes people need to feel better (community support, health & fitness, meaningful work, etc) are not aligned with what makes the most profit the fastest.
I read an article recently about a woman on a daily, very low dose of mescaline to keep her "happy". She was battling anxiety and depression.
AmtrakQuebec
King
MDMA is fantastic for depression/anxiety, which was one of it's early uses... problem was that it worked too well and people quickly started abusing it.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Define abusing.
AmtrakQuebec
King
Well, not what I consider abusing but then again I'm Canadian... basically the legal definition
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Sprawled out on the couch tripping all day every day?
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Hah! In MDMA's case it got really popular in Dallas and some unelected drug war commando at the DEA decided to take it upon himself to ban it, declaring it a schedule 1 drug against all information.Well, not what I consider abusing but then again I'm Canadian... basically the legal definition
MDMA at that time was already shown to be one of the safest party drugs in use, obviously way safer than alcohol but arguably safer than cannabis (and more of a party drug). The uses per "bad incident" rate was basically unheard of. But the drug crusaders have never cared about that.
Narz
keeping it real
Trusting the government's definition of self-abuse is almost never a good thing.Well, not what I consider abusing but then again I'm Canadian... basically the legal definition
Destroying your lungs with cigarettes, your pancreas with soda, your brain and liver with alcohol? All good according to the government.
Regulating the exhaust from vehicles, the endocrine disruptors in children's toys, the power of lobbyists? These are things the government places on a low priority on. But some kids dancing & hugging at a rave on a new substance? You'd better believe they'll roll out some emergency scheduling right quick & forge some fake study about brain damage using a drug that turned out to not even be mdma.
Regarding MDMA it's impossible to "trip" daily, the brain needs time to re-sensitize. Certainly there are people who've taken it weekend after weekend for months on end which is a quite bad/unhealthy idea.
There's been no legitimate demonstration of harm from infrequent use with proper dosage (I've heard thrown around >100 uses over a lifetime, space at least two months apart with dosage kept under 200mg, usually under 150mg and probably lower for females but of course this is also non-scientific & everyone's brain chemistry & risk tolerance varies). Of course proper long term studies have not been done due to it's illegality and of course the purity of the medicine cannot be ensured when it's production and distribution is necessarily controlled by the underworld.
Supposedly Americans are guaranteed life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness but legitimate threats to life are enthusiastically allowed (for a fee) whereas liberty & the pursuit of happiness are restricted willy-nilly if deemed a threat by entity's with power (as a typical American I don't know what the Canadian version of the declaration of independence is
but I'm sure you guys have an equivalent).Short summery of current studies on use, along with therapy, for the treatment of PTSD
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/re-emergence-ecstasy-not-club
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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Faded thin before you need to be is being way too old for your age.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
What's faded thin?
What Makes Us Love the Pain of Hot Peppers?
Eating spicy chilies has the effect of a self-induced chemical attack. The evolutionary puzzle is figuring out why we do it.
BY MATT SIEGEL
Eating spicy chilies has the effect of a self-induced chemical attack. The evolutionary puzzle is figuring out why we do it.
BY MATT SIEGEL
Humans like to eat a lot of strange things— decomposed shark, Namibian warthog rectum, British food—yet among the strangest is our taste for chili peppers: a fruit that, ecologically speaking, specifically evolved to repel us.
Although chilies meet the culinary definition of a spice or vegetable, from a botanical point of view, they are fruits—berries, to be specific. But whereas other berries have thorns to protect against seed-destroying predators, chilies have a defense mechanism in the form of the chemical compound capsaicin, the principal function of which is to cause pain for predators. The scientific term for this is “directed deterrence.”
Birds, which are natural seed dispersers and excrete seeds whole and intact, are immune to capsaicin, a biological reward for helping chilies to spread and propagate. Humans, by contrast, are an ecological threat to chilies, because our mammalian teeth tend to crush and destroy seeds. We can sense capsaicin at a minuscule one part per million (consider that our threshold for sensing salt begins at about 2,000 parts per million and for sugar, around 5,000).
It’s not our sense of taste that’s doing the work here but our trigeminal or chemical sense, which registers sensations of irritation, temperature and touch to alert the body of potential harm. In fact, the same pain sensor that alerts us to capsaicin, TRPV1, also responds to physical heat, specifically temperatures above 109°F. So eating a pepper isn’t unlike, say, being stung by a bee, licking a nine-volt battery or burning your tongue on scalding hot coffee—all sensations intended to warn the body of exposure to harm and if necessary to trigger a series of protective reflexes.
Bite into a habanero pepper or order your food “Thai hot,” and your body essentially thinks it’s being attacked by a chemical weapon. Beyond the burning pain, which is supposed to compel you to reject or eject spicy food, you’ll probably begin to sweat as your body attempts to flush your system; your nose will run to protect your nasal passages; your eyes will water to protect your corneas; you’ll produce excess saliva to purge your mouth; and you might cough or sneeze to protect your airways. These are many of the same defense mechanisms you’d expect if you were to choke on a pretzel or eat something you were allergic to.
This deterrence isn’t limited to humans. Capsaicin is an effective threat deterrent for organisms ranging from predatory insects and rodents to seed-destroying funguses. Some farmers in Africa, to keep elephants away from their crops, plant chilies along the borders of their fields, or mix chili powder with motor oil and smear it on fences, or burn bricks of chilies and dried elephant dung.
Capsaicin has been used underwahood, ter to keep mussels from attaching to boat hulls. Manufacturers have put it in wallpaper adhesive to ward off rats, and some car makers have started wrapping electrical wires with capsaicin-infused tape to keep rodents from chewing them (a problem that may have been exacerbated by a switch to soy-based wiring, which smells similar to vanilla when heated). Chili-flavored birdseed is also a thing, used to prevent squirrels from pilfering bird food. Yet humans are the only animal stubborn enough to seek out this pain by putting hot sauce on our eggs or eating vindaloo curry—and there’s no scientific consensus as to why.
The simplest explanation is to point to food preservation, as chilies also happen to kill bacteria and mask the taste and odor of foods that aren’t the freshest. This would explain why spicy foods tend to be more prevalent in hotter climates, where higher temperatures make food preservation more challenging. In fact, not only might chilies have helped to preserve food before the age of refrigeration, but they also may have provided a primitive form of air conditioning, as the gustatory sweating meant to flush the body of capsaicin also has a cooling effect that helps to regulate body temperature. Another theory is that our habit of eating spicy food evolved as a method of peacocking— that is, showcasing bravado and masculinity in order to attract mates. Indeed, research shows a correlation, particularly among teenage males, between a preference for spicy foods and testosterone levels, as well as personality traits associated with the pursuit of money, sex and social status.
Such hypermasculine display and self-inflicted harm are hallmarks of adolescent coming-of-age rituals going way back. In Aztec times, young men were held over fires to mark their transition from youth to adult- symbolizing their transformation from “raw” youth to “cooked” adulthood. Similarly, some teens today mark this transformation by smoking cigarettes or vape pens, drinking Fireball whisky or posting videos of themselves eating prohibitively hot peppers (or toxic Tide pods) on social media. Eating spicy foods seems mild by comparison.
It’s also possible that humans turned to chilies out of a desire to escape monotonous routine. This would explain why astronauts in orbit tend to crave spicy foods like hot sauce, cocktail sauce and wasabi. Granted, microgravity plays a role here; it causes a swelling of the tongue and nasal passages that blocks a lot of the pathways to taste receptors, mimicking the effects of a head cold and leading astronauts to seek out stronger flavors—or, in the case of chilies, stronger chemical sensations.
But for the military too, spicy foods have become a staple of combat rations, especially for long deployments. Beginning in Iraq in 1990, the U.S. military started issuing miniature glass bottles of Tabasco sauce with meals, later switching from glass to ketchup-style packets to cut down on weight and breakage.
JASON SCHNEIDER
Another benefit of chilies is that they can help us to cope with other types of pain, both physical and emotional, similar to the mechanisms of watching sad movies, running marathons or scratching insect bites to the point of tissue damage. Those forms of self-inflicted torture not only provide tangible distractions from real-world pains (in essence, giving us something else to cry about). They also trigger the release of feel-good chemicals that help to block and suppress pain, one of the reasons distance runners experience a “runner’s high.” This helps to explain why capsaicin is a common ingredient in over-the-counter topical pain treatments for things like arthritis, sore muscles and joint pain—and why the Aztecs used chilies as an anesthetic during childbirth.
Cultural psychologist Paul Rozin, who coined the term “benign masochism” to describe our attraction to chilies and other “initially negative experiences that the body (brain) falsely interprets as threatening,” similarly likens the attraction of chilies to that of roller coasters and horror movies. His idea is that we crave not just varied and complex sensations but the thrill of simulating danger and the rush of pushing ourselves to our limit.
Even though humans long ago reached the top of the food chain, where we hardly have to work for our food let alone hunt for it, that taste for adventure—to push past our comfort level and endure the pain—is still inside us; it’s how we got to the top of the food chain.
Then again, maybe the explanation is simpler. Perhaps we just can’t resist the temptation of forbidden fruit—or, in this case, forbidden berries.
This essay is adapted from Mr. Siegel’s new book, “The Secret History of Food,” which will be published on Sept. 28 by Ecco (which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp).
One theory says the sensation distracts from pains; another says we’re just showing off.
Berzerker
Deity
Greenland sharks can live 500+ years
Joij21
🔥Deny, Defend, Depose!🔥
A simple solution, never fall in love.
That's because shark medicine is incredibly cheap. The people hospital can charge you an arm and a leg, but the shark hospital only costs a fin.
Plus, sharks can often get an arm and a leg on short notice, so if they need to be airlifted, they can usually afford it.
Berzerker
Deity
Exercise reduces the amount of calories burned at rest in people with obesity
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-calories-rest-individuals-obesity.html
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-calories-rest-individuals-obesity.html
Isn't it all about endorphins? Make your own smack with curry.
