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Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

aktuelles.uni-frankfurt.de

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Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#61

Post by laplacesdemon48 »

Benjammer wrote: post #23
wittyreference wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical doctor.

Just curious, how does an MD end up on Hacker News? Edit: I don't mean this in a gatekeeping way, I honestly was just curious to hear an example of how this happens. Do people outside tech have someone in tech mention the site to them? Do they browse and just read the fraction of articles that aren't about something software related?

I'm on a path to becoming a MD. Was in finance before and discovered HN probably 4 years ago.

I can't speak for the original poster but I think HN users are attracted to complexity and raw truth. Medicine and programming have a lot in common in that regard.

An example is the discovery and isolation of insulin [0]. Banting barely convinced somebody to give him lab space for 2 measly months. He then experimented with tying off the ducts of dog pancreases or removing the pancreases altogether. He realized he could keep a severely diabetic dog alive with injections from another dog's pancreatic juices. There was some drama around the subsequent purification of insulin and the Nobel Prize.

The full story almost sounds like software hacking and startup drama.

[0] https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/frederick-...

Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#62

Post by rmac »

wittyreference wrote: post #6

Several classes of opioids have been shown to cause neuronal degeneration via ATF4 activation. So, key points: 1. Loperamide is not unique. I don't know why these researchers have singled it out. Is it because they heard there's an opioid that doesn't get you high? It only avoids getting you high because it doesn't get into the brain. IF you deliver it to the brain to treat a brain tumor, it will get you high. 2. Pat…

Loperamide (imodium-ad in USA) is a godsend for tapering off opiates. It prevents all withdrawal symptoms (aside from actually getting high).

Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#63

Post by wittyreference »

curious_fella1 wrote: post #57
wittyreference wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an excellent question, and an area of active research. It differs a lot by drug, though, because of their affect on different signaling systems, different neurons, and due to indirect damage to the brain from effects elsewhere in the body: 1. E.g., cocaine as a strong vasoconstrictor can directly cause cerebral ischemia, causing hypoxic damage to the brain. Acute hypoxic damage is relatively uncommon, but atro…

Thank you for the comprehensive response! That was very interesting :) I took a Biopsychology of Drugs class in college and found it fascinating. Do you know of any good (text)books on the subject?

I'm a big fan of Stahl's Psychopharmacology. Since pretty much every illicit drug has a legal equivalent, but the legals are better studied, you'll probably find that a good source. If your primary interest is illicit drugs, though, I don't have a good suggestion - it's not the sort of book too many careers are built on.

Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#65

Post by notjulianjaynes »

wittyreference wrote: post #49
notjulianjaynes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loperamide can also be cardiotoxic at high dosages [1] which is, I believe, rare among opiods but I am not a doctor. (Googling "morphine cardiotoxicity" is showing me an almost equal amount of articles claiming it causes and protects against. Again, not a doctor.) [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S07356...

I haven't heard of morphine being generally cardioprotective, but I'm no cardiologist. It's routinely given during heart attacks because it reduces cardiac demand, so it reduces the heart tissue that dies due to lack of oxygen during the heart attack. But that's all I really know on that one.

I spent all of 30 seconds vetting that information, alologies. Here are the two article titles I am basing that off. Should have said protective against cardiotoxicity in some specific circumstances, maybe. Didnt mean to imply it's heart healthy like cheerios and alcohol.

"Morphine is protective against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity in rat" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17988779/

"Morphine enhances doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity in the rat" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24531975/

Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#66

Post by rmac »

DanBC wrote: post #7
Scoundreller wrote: post #5

Sooo, opiates have an anti-diarrhea action by slowing down the intestines/Bowel movements, which is why they cause constipation. Loperamide is an opiate that acts locally (and probably via the bloodstream too) on the intestines, but doesn’t get into the brain, so you get the anti-diarrhea effects without pain relief/getting high/slow breathing of opiates. Some randos on the internet believe that you could consume a b…

> Some randos on the internet believe that you could consume a bottle of loperamide and overcome that inability to get into the brain. In theory that’s true (since the brain barrier is actively pumping it back out and there’s gotta be a limit to that rejection), but I don’t think it’s worked out in practice other than causing massive constipation. It's a medication that gets stolen by drug users which is a bit frustr…

I started an opiate taper at 40mg loperamide a day and while I didn't feel euphoria it definitely had a strange, almost dissociative high. On other forums people report therapeutic effects up in the 100mg range, but ymmv

Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#67

Post by eitland »

oblio wrote: post #35
EForEndeavour wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Medicine is an ancient tower of hacks upon hacks. 2. Many people have areas of interest outside of their profession.

3. Programming is one of those things you can do as a side-gig/hobby. I'm quite sure you can be a programmer and an MD, but you probably can't be both a theoretical physicist and a neurosurgeon :-p

I'm fairly certain there was at least one doctor who used to write Linux kernel code as a way to get rid of stress after work.

(3 minutes of searching got me Con Kolivas, and "ck" sounds familiar so that might be him.)

edit: now I see heavyset_go has commented about the same.

Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#68

Post by foxyv »

rmac wrote: post #62
wittyreference wrote: post #6

Several classes of opioids have been shown to cause neuronal degeneration via ATF4 activation. So, key points: 1. Loperamide is not unique. I don't know why these researchers have singled it out. Is it because they heard there's an opioid that doesn't get you high? It only avoids getting you high because it doesn't get into the brain. IF you deliver it to the brain to treat a brain tumor, it will get you high. 2. Pat…

Loperamide (imodium-ad in USA) is a godsend for tapering off opiates. It prevents all withdrawal symptoms (aside from actually getting high).

There was a kid here in the USA who died doing that. Chubby Emu did a piece on him. Definitely check with your doctor first.

Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#69

Post by eitland »

Benjammer wrote: post #23
wittyreference wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical doctor.

Just curious, how does an MD end up on Hacker News? Edit: I don't mean this in a gatekeeping way, I honestly was just curious to hear an example of how this happens. Do people outside tech have someone in tech mention the site to them? Do they browse and just read the fraction of articles that aren't about something software related?

I've been delighted to see not only MDs but also a bunch of actual farmers, students, kids, retited people etc :-)

Re: Anti-diarrhoea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

#70

Post by jzemeocala »

wittyreference wrote: post #6

Several classes of opioids have been shown to cause neuronal degeneration via ATF4 activation. So, key points: 1. Loperamide is not unique. I don't know why these researchers have singled it out. Is it because they heard there's an opioid that doesn't get you high? It only avoids getting you high because it doesn't get into the brain. IF you deliver it to the brain to treat a brain tumor, it will get you high. 2. Pat…

Beat me to the punch. I also seem to recall someone on drugs-forum actually attempting to inject loperamide into their spine or neck (details are fuzzy, it was about a decade ago) to get it past the Blood-Brain-Barrier
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