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Temozolomide Is Explosive

blogs.sciencemag.org

61–70 of 128 posts

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#61

Reminds me of how DNP, a chemical used for creating explosives, has been used as a weight-loss drug. It's surprisingly effective, but overdosing on it will result in a long, hot, agonizing death.

DNP was banned after causing a lot of deaths. Still a fascinating drug, I don't remember exactly how it worked but it disrupted respiration so that less ATP was produced from electrons while their energy instead was 'spent' increasing heat

So has Clenbuterol (pure stimulant), Sibutramine (an ADHD medication way before its time, marketed as a weight loss drug by some idiot marketers), and many others.

Really should stop banning drugs because a few morons overdosed on them.

I mean, no one has banned stairs yet. They tried to ban alcohol, but the conviction turned out paper thin.

I guess it is easier to ban something that only benefits a sad small minority. Bonus evil points when the rich can get the drug regardless.

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#62
post #38

Reminds me of how DNP, a chemical used for creating explosives, has been used as a weight-loss drug. It's surprisingly effective, but overdosing on it will result in a long, hot, agonizing death.

The fundamental reason why 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) burns fat is surprisingly complicated. Basically, it intoxicates mitochondria in your cells being their power houses. These organelles create ATP, a universal metabolic energy carrier, by maintaining a proton gradient across its membrane. By means of chemical osmosis this gradient is what drives the ATP synthase enzyme under normal conditions. Now, DNP is capable of…

This is an animation and cursory explanation of ATP synthesis, with suitably dramatic music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT5AXGS1aL8

This animation and associated narration is much more detailed, but a bit slow for something you haven't vetted your interest in yet :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpzp4RDGJI

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#63
post #14
post #10

I mean, seriously, just look at the molecule. All those nitrogen atoms lying there restless to each go their own separate way:) I would be surprised if it wasn't.

As someone who dropped chemistry in grade 11- what makes Nitrogen so exciting like that? So many common explosive compounds seem to have it.

I thought this was an informative read for someone who also only has a limited knowledge of chemistry:

https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/06/27/when-does-the-breaki...

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At every people’s house, I see a cupboard with the chemicals. WD-40, 90° alcohol, acetone, white spirit, all in the same IKEA (=plywood) cupboard (although it would be hard to protect children if they were each in a different cupboard too). I wonder how many fires start from the chemicals cupboard. We know that a lot of artists had their rag pile spontaneously heating up then catching fire…

Those things are fine in their separate containers. They will not spontaneously combust. If the containers are leaking, or fire starts elsewhere, yeah they could become fuel. But really no more than any other hydrocarbons in your house (e.g. wood, plastic, cloth, upholstrey and foam cushions, etc.)

> They will not spontaneously combust.

Linseed oil or other drying oils can if they have enough exposure to air.

A couple years ago, my wife re-oiled our wooden patio furniture and threw all the paper towels in the trash. Ten minutes later, smoke was pouring out of the trash can. Fortunately, I managed to get it out of the house before the fire spread.

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#65
post #6

Chemotherapy is basically cave man medicine. That a therapeutic drug is explosive only adds to that sentiment. The idea that we'll basically poison you just up to a point that's nearly fatal in order to kill the cancer is such a terrible way to treat someone. Now I'm not saying don't ever do it -- unfortunately that's where we're at in 2021. It's just kind of unbelievable that cancer remains so elusive that we're sti…

A rather surprising number of chemo compounds trace directly to chemical warfare and compounds used during WWI, including several mustard-gas-related compounds. Some years ago, a close friend died of a relatively rare and aggressive form of cancer. Among my roles was running interference against those who were pitching various miracle cures, with that tired old scam laetril playing a significant role. In the decades…

There's a weird wedding here, toxic/warfare compounds dropped into your blood stream and nowadays it's used with administrative processes (for repeatability and liability purposes). Back in the days the people who came with the chemotherapies were also aggressive in the way the approach treatment (and according to De Vita it gave better results [but maybe cost more])

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#66
post #6

Chemotherapy is basically cave man medicine. That a therapeutic drug is explosive only adds to that sentiment. The idea that we'll basically poison you just up to a point that's nearly fatal in order to kill the cancer is such a terrible way to treat someone. Now I'm not saying don't ever do it -- unfortunately that's where we're at in 2021. It's just kind of unbelievable that cancer remains so elusive that we're sti…

>Perhaps one day we'll be able to simulate the body well enough to the point where we can brute force treatments computationally to fix this gap. This is why as a total outsider/non-expert I believe we will cure everything in the next 50 years if we do not regress or destroy ourselves.

We still don't understand much of the inner workings of our own body. It's a bit like the divide between quantum physics and the macroscopic world. We have successfully observed and modeled individual processes as they happen at a cellular level, and we can draw some statistical conclusions at the whole body level, but much of the area in-between is basically unknown.

One just needs to look at nutrition or the farce that is "nutrition science". We only barely understand what we are supposed to eat to maximize our health, and that's such a basic and fundamental concept that I feel anything like "brute force treatments computationally to fix this gap." would require multiple generational leaps in our understanding. In other words, I feel like you are extrapolating to space flight when we have just recently invented the catapult.

Hell, we are only starting to suspect that the gut biome affects our consciousness. How crazy is that? And yet it is a very sobering indicator of how little we know. The human body is an incredibly complicated system with so many feedback loops that I'd put it in the same class as solving the halting problem or establishing a grand unified theory of physics.

We have modern robotics and tools like laser knives, but we still have to poke needles into a patient's brain to determine where to cut out tumors. I don't mean to disparage the doubtlessly talented surgeons of today, but to me this seems barely above medieval techniques. Our tools have improved 100 fold, our understanding just barely.

I think at best the prediction we can make is that "we believe eventually all diseases should be treatable". But to say that in the next 50 years we can become functionally immortal (treat all diseases), is a very long stretch IMO.

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#67
post #6

Chemotherapy is basically cave man medicine. That a therapeutic drug is explosive only adds to that sentiment. The idea that we'll basically poison you just up to a point that's nearly fatal in order to kill the cancer is such a terrible way to treat someone. Now I'm not saying don't ever do it -- unfortunately that's where we're at in 2021. It's just kind of unbelievable that cancer remains so elusive that we're sti…

this could be true that as a different example along the lines of the same conclusion: Women-only medical conditions are less known by medical fields, and there are fewer treatments. Its because the society treats women's lives less seriously. For example pregnancy is still pretty mysterious in general medicine. Birth control pills are to prevent women fertility etc. It could be true that children lives are deemed more important by parents and more researched.

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#68
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitrogen-Nitrogen bonds inside larger molecules are never quite stable because 1) nitrogen “wants” to form stable di-nitrogen (N2) molecules containing a very stable triple bond (an exothermic reaction) and 2) the result of such decompositions is nitrogen gas increasing the amount of entropy released (due to more molecules being created). Reactions are driven both by the amount of heat released (enthalpy) and the amo…

Does the same apply to oxygen? Since it also likes to be in a diatomic form.

Diatomic oxygen is less stable than many other oxygen-containing compounds like CO2 (that is why charcoal burns) but diatomic nitrogen is pretty much as stable as nitrogen can get.

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#69
post #10

I mean, seriously, just look at the molecule. All those nitrogen atoms lying there restless to each go their own separate way:) I would be surprised if it wasn't.

I think some (many) blood vessel dilation meds are based on nitroglycerin :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroglycerin_(medication)

I certainly remember looking with great suspicion at my granddad's medicine and was very much disappointed when my attempts to light his pills on fire did not yield rapid and uncontrolled decomposition.

Re: Temozolomide Is Explosive

#70
post #60
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cancers that are treated successfully in children are the blood borne ones (mostly leukemias) and generally because they’re easier to wipe out and replace the marrow with. Some Childhood brain tumours are also very successfully treated, and most other adult cancers children don’t get. Sarcomas still kill people left right and centre though. The truth is that we’re already peeking out of the dark ages of chemother…

Metastatic melanoma? I haven’t seen any data showing close to 50% survival rate, where are you looking? Just managed a young patient with metastatic melanoma and very poor prognosis.

I think they were referring to pd-1 inhibitors. I’m not an oncologist but that generally fits with what I’ve seen as a hospitalist. FWIW I personally know someone who has survived > 5 years who received it right when it cane out.

Here’s a paper supporting:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7019511/

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