Slashdot Mirror
The Medical Benefits of Carbon Monoxide
tugfoigel writes with this excerpt from the Boston Globe:
"For more than a century, carbon monoxide has been known as a deadly toxin. In an 1839 story, Edgar Allan Poe wrote of 'miraculous lustre of the eye' and 'nervous agitation' in what some believe are descriptions of carbon monoxide poisoning, and today, cigarette cartons warn of its health dangers. But a growing body of research, much of it by local scientists, is revealing a paradox: the gas often called a silent killer could also be a medical treatment. It seems like a radical contradiction, but animal studies show that in small, extremely controlled doses the gas has benefits in everything from infections to organ transplantation."
NO!
Something that is bad for us in high doses may be beneficial in low doses?! Next they'll be telling us that exposure to radiation and toxins can help cure cancer, or that the same stuff that rusts away unprotected steel and iron is actually necessary for animal life!
In Soviet Russia, carbon monoxidizes you....
So, basically, CO is a bit like digitalis, in that it's a deadly poison that has medical uses?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Almost anything is lethal in large doses, and many things are fatal in even small doses. Those same things are often of some benefit in very small doses. For instance, Botulinum toxin. We use small and weakened versions of virus to immunize ourselves. Most medicines can kill children who ingest a moderate overdose. A little alcohol can be antiseptic, which is why many places in the world used to drink with their food, but too much alcohol is lethal.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
There seems to be some anecdotal evidence that CO exposure may affect the senses to such an extent that people experience "spooky" or ghostly behaviour. Certainly, this occurred when one family was exposed, and their spooky hallucinations ceased when CO poisoning was diagnosed, and the source removed. There a little more here
My web domain.
Paracelsus, sometimes called the father of toxicology, wrote:
German: Alle Ding' sind Gift, und nichts ohn' Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist.
"All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."
That is to say, substances often considered toxic can be benign or beneficial in small doses, and conversely an ordinarily benign substance can be deadly if over-consumed. Even water can be deadly if overconsumed.
(Ripped right from Wikipedia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus ] )
So, 500 years ago, this would have been news?
Grandpa: My Homer is not a communist. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a communist, but he is not a porn star.
Can cigarettes be good for you in small doses then?
...coadminister with tetraethyl lead.
"is revealing a paradox: the gas often called a silent killer could also be a medical treatment."
Not much of a paradox. Every medical treatment suffers the exact same paradox. Morphine - great pain killer. Too much and it silently kills you. Anesthesias are the same. Cancer chemo treatments come very close to killing you, a small overdose may do it. Too much tylenol? Liver disease. Too much advil? Kidney problems.
Can cigarettes be good for you in small doses then?
Cigarettes also contain carcinogens and carcinogens have no real safe levels. They may publish recommended levels but even trace amounts of carcinogens can cause cancers. Even levels considered safe in the environment can cause cancer. Will you get cancer smoking one cigarette a week, probably not. How about one a day may be not. How about one an hour? Probably. The odds are low for one a week and somewhat higher for one a day but they are never zero. The whole point is it worth the risk? I've had friends and family die from lung cancer that were smokers so trust me it's a terrible way to die. We may all die of cancer due to unavoidable effects of modern life but I saw a friend that died from smoking at 43 and it wasn't pretty and he left a young child behind. Some things may be worth some risk but smoking isn't one of them.
Take that you health freaks! I chainsmoke like a chimney, so enjoy your tofu and cancer!!
Reminds me of the same business with Hydrogen Sulfide and Nitric Oxide... The former being found to increase the lifespan and health of nematodes and also to prevent organ rejection and cell death after traumatic injury. The latter was developed into non-inhaled treatments that act on the vascular system... Viagra for instance. That's a long way from rotten eggs and laughing gas. http://www.physorg.com/news115924695.html http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ars.2009.2882
I wonder how this gels with the research into the dangers of giving oxygen when resuscitating people from death. I have a feeling we'll be seeing the new standard procedure in what gasses to give change radically over the next few years. HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
The basic principle of the modern medicine is to modulate the poison to kill the ailment without killing the patient, no?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Would not be the only beneficial peak around.
Have their medicinal values. Most medicines become poisonous at a certain level too, so there is some symmetry to it all.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As any toxicologist will tell you: Dosage is everything.
Water will kill you if you drink too much of it. So it's not much of a surprise that supposed bad things can be beneficial when used sensibly.
From TFA:
But given the deeply entrenched fear of carbon monoxide as a toxin, he said it is unlikely that the gas would be directly given as a therapy to many people. Instead, research into the mechanism by which carbon monoxide works could allow scientists to design a drug that could act in the same way.
REALLY? Because CO has a scary reputation we'd rather give patients a new expensive patented drug that we think works just like CO rather than just give them a well controlled dose of a well understood, inexpensive, and easily available gas?
No wonder nobody can afford health care.
"Transplantation" sounds like a Bushism to me. "Transplant" is already a noun, thank you very much.
Radiation is generally bad for you, but we use it as a medical treatment.
Pick your favorite medical prescription, now eat 10 lbs of it. Oh look it's bad for you.
Congress & the prez are talking about bad incentives in the health care system. IMO this is one of the most obvious wrong incentives: the fact that there is no research into and marketing for cheap, widely available remedies, because you can't get a government-sponsored monopoly on them.
Finally! I don't need to switch my A/C to recycle on the way to work.
Just suck in the fumes and feel health benefits baby!!
46137
Small quantities of DiHydrogen Monoxide are also beneficial to health.
Dr. Wheeler would probably beg to differ.
A lot of you here are to young to remember the big boat station wagons that parents would pile full of stuff and kids and head off to places like Yellowstone and the like. Many of these had rear facing seats and power rear windows. The only problem was that if you let the window down a little, the car exhaust would be sucked into the car, especially near the rear facing seats where the kids were. Now many would think this is a problem, but parents of that day, after having to listen to the little brats giggling, and yelling would crack that rear window and let a little CO in to quiet the kids down. It worked, they went to sleep, and the only drawback was a few points off the ACT scores later in High School.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I failed tribalism 101, so I never get these apparent paradoxes, which seem to be rooted in the us/them, good/evil, they rape/we liberate cognitive homunculus.
Chlorine is also known as a deadly poison. That's how Ghandi liberated India: by extracting a deadly poison from the sea water and spreading it throughout the British subway system. And don't get me started on dihydrogen monoxide. Can kill someone with as little as one teaspoon, and it's found just about everywhere.
Pretty much all combustion produces some ammount of CO. Far more is produced if there is insufficiant oxygen. Properly designed and installed equipment is designed to ensure the burning conditions produce minimal CO and ensure what is produced is vented to outside before it harms the occupants.
Faulty or incorrectly installed equipment on the other hand can produce a lot of CO and depending on the nature of the fault or incorrect installation may release it into the indoor air.
IMO a CO alarm is a good idea if you have any fuel burning equipment in a property.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
One of the final breakdown products of hemoglobin is carbon monoxide, which we produce constantly since red blood cells only live a few days and after they die, their contents are cut up to recover the iron. We only produce one molecule of CO per hemoglobin, so it's very tiny overall quantities. But, since we make it, it's not too surprising that our systems have optimized to cope with it in those same small quantities. The other main constituent of the broken-down porphyrin ring, bilirubin, is what makes feces brown.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Does this mean I should be cuckoo for CO CO puffs?
and smoked cigarettes while driving (and pregnant, mom at least). A couple of times the hot ash would go out their window and back in ours and hit us in the face. I remember getting splitting headaches on long road trips.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
For example, nitroglycerine is used as a heart medicine, yet if you ingest 100ml of it pure, your life expectency will be greatly reduced.
(Actually there are gazillions of examples. Most pharmaceuticals are lethal in high doses, even over-the-counter ones like paracetamol or vitamin D.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
It doesn't surprise me. Whilst many substances are unsafe at any dosage (e.g. mercury), some things are downright deadly in large quantities.
Like Paracetamol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol_toxicity Apparently, it's one of the worst ways to die.
And warafin, an excellent anti-blood clotting agent is also used as rat poison.
Nobel, after finding nitroglycerine, was proscribed it for his heart condition later in life. He said something along the lines of "Are you trying to blow my heart up??"
Bilirubin is yellow, IIRC.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
Given the intelligence in the end user to check the function of the alarm regularly, and to retire the device when it's sensor expires. It is pleasant to see that the working lifetime of sensors has been increasing significantly since I last had to pay attention to the details of these devices. In the mid-1990s the prospect of getting the average user to replace a (moderately expensive) device at 2-3 year intervals was a non-starter ; but if they're up to 10-year lifetimes, then it's a lot more consumer friendly.
Of course, most potential users won't use them, and many will die. This I'm easy with - as long as they die without descendants.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Will someone please tell Glenn Beck the medical benefits are of *large* doses of CO? Thanks your friend the direct action radical commie, pinko, fascist...
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
We have to have them by regulation here. I think its asinine. Not totally, but, this is Boston, the houses here are so old that the vast majority still use single pipe steam heat. The only air exchange beteen my living space and the basement is from when the door is left open.... and there is an aparement between us and the boiler.
Clearly it makes sense to put a detector in the basement. First floor? sure, probably. Second and third?
Shit, these houses have no insulation and the exterior walls are barely six inches thick. These places are leaky as hell.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"Of course, most potential users won't use them, and many will die. This I'm easy with - as long as they die without descendants"
Nah most of the time their descendants will die right there with them :-p
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Depends on the concentration. It's the primary colorant for bruises, which as you've probably seen cover a pretty broad spectrum of colors depending on how much is there.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Unfortunate, but probably true, in a high proportion of cases. I'd like to think differently - I've never been a great fan of punishing the innocent for the sins of others. You'd like to think that people get a sudden attack of common sense when be-sprogging become a real possibility, but it seems not.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"