51–60 of 79 posts
you need to cure the causes not the effects.
There is nothing wrong with a temporary clutch. After all, and actually clutch doesn't cure someone's broken leg, but you wouldn't take it away from someone with a broke leg. A clutch gives people time to heal. This can do that too.
I'm a psychiatrist and I work with an addiction population. I think many of them would be glad to have this as an option. It's certainly not perfect, but it would provide an additional layer of protection to people who struggle to maintain sobriety. I think it's sad that the first reaction to this is to think of it as something from "dystopian" science fiction. The oral medication disulfram shares a similar mechanism…
If so, then this sounds like a fantastic tool for people with an physiological addition to alcohol.
If I understand what is being proposed, the recipients of the treatment will essentially suffer from Asian flush (many people of Asian descent have a mutation that makes them less capable of breaking down alcohol and its byproducts). This may discourage the recipient from drinking in the future by essentially preventing the body from protecting itself from the ravaging effects of alcohol. Perhaps there is a better wa…
If I understand what is being proposed, the recipients of the treatment will essentially suffer from Asian flush (many people of Asian descent have a mutation that makes them less capable of breaking down alcohol and its byproducts). This may discourage the recipient from drinking in the future by essentially preventing the body from protecting itself from the ravaging effects of alcohol. Perhaps there is a better wa…
The second enzyme mentioned is one possessing acetaldehyde dehydrogenase activity, ALDH2 being the primary actor. This would not be a vaccine in the traditional sense since it would not cause ethanol to prompt an immunological response.
The closest paper I could find is this one from 2010, that describes the mechanism of action[1]:
"a long-term inhibition of ethanol consumption by reducing ALDH2 levels by the administration of vectors that code for anti-aldh2 antisense RNA molecules that inhibit aldh2 gene expression"
Pretty cool; they are using a viral vector to introduce complementary RNA that binds to the mRNA responsible for translation of ALDH2, directly down regulating expression of ALDH2. This reduces the number of ALDH2 enzyme molecules available to interact with acetaldehyde by reducing the number created (compared to disulfiram, which is a competitive inhibitor of ALDH2 itself). It seems the antisense RNA used targets the mitochonrial isoform of ALDH2, mimicking the effect of the "natural" mutation. I wonder if it has cross specificity adequate to inhibit expression of the cytosolic isoform as well.
Acetaldehyde is not the only substrate for ALDH2 however. Glyceryl trinitrate (nitroglycerin) and amyl nitrite are also metabolized by ALDH2, so this treatment might not be wise for those taking glyceryl trinitrate for a heart condition or amyl nitrite for cyanide poisoning/heart. It looks like the cells in coronary arteries mainly use cytosolic ALDH2 to metabolize glyceryl trinitrate[2] though, so if this "vaccine" only inhibits the mitochondrial isoform it may not interfere with the effectiveness of these other drugs.
1. (Martinez, et al.) http://www.captura.uchile.cl/bitstream/handle/2250/11147/Mar... Viral vectors for the treatment of alcoholism: Use of metabolic flux analysis for cell cultivation and vector production.
2. (Beretta, et al.) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22207712 Vascular bioactivation of nitroglycerin is catalyzed by cytosolic aldehyde dehydrogenase-2.
Basically, vaccine induced allergy.
Good thing this didn't exist in the 20's.
No, bad thing. Because this didn't exist in the 20's, the government started adding poison to alcohol not intended for drinking -- because people were drinking it, predictably, and bootleggers were reselling it to be consumed -- and killed thousands of people in the process. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa... Denatured alcohol still does nasty things to people who are ignorant and/or desp…
I'm a psychiatrist and I work with an addiction population. I think many of them would be glad to have this as an option. It's certainly not perfect, but it would provide an additional layer of protection to people who struggle to maintain sobriety. I think it's sad that the first reaction to this is to think of it as something from "dystopian" science fiction. The oral medication disulfram shares a similar mechanism…
What kind of level of drinking or drugs do you think constitutes a real problem?
I know it varies, but what is the average. I assume that one drink a month is not a problem, but where is the middle amount of alcohol do you see an issue?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, bad thing. Because this didn't exist in the 20's, the government started adding poison to alcohol not intended for drinking -- because people were drinking it, predictably, and bootleggers were reselling it to be consumed -- and killed thousands of people in the process. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa... Denatured alcohol still does nasty things to people who are ignorant and/or desp…
If something is labeled "do not drink this - poisonous" then whose fault is it that you drink it?
Obviously the people drinking alcohol in liquids not meant for consumption aren't in normal rational states of mind; but yes, they're doing something really stupid. But suppose when you're "denaturing" the alcohol in your product, you have the choice to use a substance that will make it taste very bad and cause vomiting; or a substance that will make people die, or at least go blind. Which should you choose?
Next, suppose that the alcohol was stolen and resold by a bootlegger and thus has no warning (beyond the government's warnings that buying illegal alcohol is dangerous, which had already been going on for some time).