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Alcoholism Vaccine Makes Alcohol Intolerable To Drinkers
Hugh Pickens writes "Ariel Schwartz reports that researchers are working on an alcoholism vaccine that makes alcohol intolerable to anyone who drinks it. The vaccine builds on what happens naturally in certain people — about 20% of the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean population — with an alcohol intolerance mutation. Normally, the liver breaks down alcohol into an enzyme that's transformed into the compound acetaldehyde (responsible for that nasty hangover feeling), which in turn is degraded into another enzyme. The acetaldehyde doesn't usually have time to build up before it's broken down. But people with the alcohol intolerance mutation lack the ability to produce that second enzyme; acetaldehyde accumulates, and they feel terrible. Dr. Juan Asenjo and his colleagues have come up with a way to stop the synthesis of that second enzyme via a vaccine, mimicking the mutation that sometimes happens naturally. 'People have this mutation all over the world. It's like how some people can't drink milk,' says Asenjo. Addressing the physiological part of alcohol addiction is just one piece of the battle. Addictive tendencies could very well manifest in other ways; instead of alcohol, perhaps former addicts will move on to cigarettes. Asenjo admits as much: 'Addiction is a psychological disease, a social disease. Obviously this is only the biological part of it.'"
Wait, no alcohol? Shot as in vaccine? Fuck that.
This is one vaccine some people would want to avoid. Imagine a winelover accidentally getting stuck with one and having their passion ruined for life.
Seriously? This is news?
The EXACT SAME effect can be produced by feeding people shaggy mane mushrooms, (which are perfectly edible) due to the presence of a substance called Coprine.
Coprine acts similarly to a well known medicinal substance called Disulfriram" that has been used to treat alcoholism via this mechanism for nearly 100 years!
So, what you are telling me is that this doctor has essentially re-invented the wheel, and that this is news?
Does anyone really drink alcohol for the taste? Take the effect away and most drinks are a lot like drinking piss with a mediciney aftertaste.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
It could put you at a higher risk of developing liver cancer.
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/healthyliving/alcohol/howdoesalcoholcausecancer/how-does-alcohol-cause-cancer
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
Make another vaccine (or possibly something in pill form), that increases that second enzyme, and makes hangovers less and less painful!!
I never knew what a hangover was till I was in my mid-30's...then BAM....
Now, sure I can still drink quite a bit....not even getting very drunk at times, but man, I pay for it for 2+ days now at times.
If this is what happened to me....I'd pay a TON of money to be able to regenerate that 2nd enzyme production to lower the acetaldehyde (sp?) and lower the hangover pain.
Drinking is fun for those that can handle their booze....if you could get rid of the hangover, it would be great for those that still like to party a bit.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I don't think they understand what a "vaccine" is. Can we (especially the media) stop throwing that word around for everything? A vaccine immunizes you against a disease, by getting the body to produce antibodies.
If this works. Expect to see people get court-ordered to get an injection after alcohol-related offenses. The CJ will do anything and everything in their power to make the criminal's life unbearable, rob them of the self-esteem, and keep them in the system.
cat sig >
Actually...yes many of us like the taste.
When I was a little kid and I had my first taste of beer, I LOVED it.
I love the taste of fine wines...great with meals. I love a good, single malt scotch, with maybe a splash of water or a couple ice cubes (ok purists, bite me, I like it chilled a bit).
I like mixed drinks...I like the bitter tastes of a gin and tonic with fresh lime on a hot summer afternoon, I like a real daquiri (not that fucking over fruited strawberry frozen shit)....I like a good mojito.
Yes, many of us do enjoy alcohol's flavor in its various forms and mixed with things. The fact that it makes you feel great is definitely a plus.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
which in turn is degraded into another enzyme
Should say
which in turn is degraded by another enzyme
It makes no sense for a product of alcohol degradation to become an enzyme on it's own.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
They come to like the taste because they associate it with the feelings that come after.
This would change the feelings that happens after drastically, I think it could be extremely effective.
I stole this Sig
Will be 12 stepping fanatics who think that the only way to get over an addiction / bad habit is through their fucked up religion.
There is booze that I would only drink if I wanted to get drunk, but there is definitely also booze that I would drink even if it was entirely nonalcoholic. You don't buy good scotch for the booze, you buy good scotch because it's good scotch.
This is one of the most horrible and stupidest summaries I've read in a long time. Enzymes are biochemical catalysts. Ethanol and acetaldehyde are substrates. The substrates get converted into end products with the help of enzymes and energy. Ethanol does not get converted *into* an enzyme known as acetaldehyde. Ethanol gets converted to acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, through the loss of one hydrogen atom. In the next step, acetaldehyde gets converted into acetic acid (same thing as in vinegar) by the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase through the loss of another hydrogen atom. Acetaldehyde a lot more toxic than acetic acid. If you block the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (which lacks naturally in a minority of East Asians), there will be an accumulation of excess acetaldehyde, causing very noxious symptoms. This is exactly what drugs like disulfiram ("antabuse") do. What a badly written summary. Both the submitter and the editor need to read some biochemistry or learn to use google before posting rubbish.
I know someone who has this alcohol intolerance. She still drinks, in spite of the rotten feeling afterwords.
In some cases, alcoholism is about social and psychological dependence. Not the buzz from the chemistry. If people drink because they need it to fit in to a crowd, getting sick won't stop that.
Have gnu, will travel.
There is also a genetic basis for nicotine tolerance. The mechanism is essentially the same. There is an gene that codes for an enzyme which removes nicotine from the bloodstream. This gene has several different alleles that code for more or less effective versions of the same enzyme. Individuals who have the allele that codes for the most effective enzyme are heavy smokers if they smoke. They smoke a cigarette, receive the desired stimulation, and then the enzyme clears the nicotine. Thus they desire another dose soon afterward. Individuals who produce the least effective version of the enzyme get sick when they smoke. The enzyme fails to clear the toxin in a reasonable time and they feel ill, sometimes vomiting. Individuals producing middling effective versions can be occasional smokers. Read more here.
If researchers can create a treatment for alcohol in this way, they can probably create a smoking treatment as well. It is unlikely, though, that the treatment would alleviate withdrawal symptoms on its own. This approach likely will lead to treatments for other addiction problems also.
If there come sto exist effective treatments for illegal drugs, there will be serious socio-political implications. The rational for the the war on drugs will be completely destroyed. If people can choose effective treatment, then there will be no unwilling chemical dependence. This will decrease crime, health problems, and other negative effects of dangerous drugs. So there will be no basis for illegality. Will that change the politics surrounding drugs? I don't think so.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
When I was in the military, there were some guys that came to work 3 or 4 times a week (almost every week) with hangovers.
I'm not not talking about the "I'm a little queasy, give me an asprin" kind of hangovers, but rather the "shhhh, you're breathing too loud" kind of hangovers.
Sure, there are some people who will stop, but there are too many that won't.
Now if it caused illness fast enough they haven't even finished their beer, then it might have an effect. Of course, those drugs already exist and are in use.
Also, it has been proven, they don't solve alcoholism, but they do help in it's treatment.
Dude, stop drinking the cheapest crap you can find.
News flash: It tastes like crap.
Good wine is very tasty. Microbrew beers (assuming you're from the US, considering you equate beer with piss) can be quite good.Tequila that you don't have to crawl on the floor to buy can be fairly smooth and good for flavoring meat. Vodka that doesn't come in a plastic bottle is more likely to have a clean, crisp flavor. I will often have wine/beer with a meal because it makes everything taste better. Of course, that requires that you not shop for the cheapest swill that some convenience store is willing to sell you. This shouldn't be shocking: Really cheap meat is crap. Cheap cheese isn't even cheese. Cheap bread has no flavor. Cheap fruit is often bland and far from ripe.
Of course, that lesson isn't likely to make a difference. People buying cheap alcohol are usually alcoholics, college students, idiots, or some permutation of the three.
easier to dose them with a mushroom pizza, made with shaggy mane mushrooms. Same effect, less permanent.
Mushroom ingestion disrupts enzyme activity for up to 3 weeks.
Hilariously, shaggy mane mushrooms frequently grow on lawns, and are easily identifiable. There is a reasonably good chance you can find them simply growing on the campus quad, if you live in the northern hemisphere.
Sadly, due to the nature of the mushroom, it decomposes rapidly after being picked, so only fresh mushroom could be used for this purpose. In terms of taste and texture, it is similar to crimini, though has a different appearance when sliced. Disguising the mushroom in a saute' will not adversely effect the action of the coprine (active agent present in the mushroom) and will enable one to better deliver the joke mushroom to one's peers.
Hmm, if you suffered from it you would probably think differently. Trust me.
While the stones are great because they don't add some arbitrary amount of water, I do like a few drops in my scotch to open up the flavors a bit. This is particularly true with overproof scotches.
For a lark, take a shot of water and add a few drops of scotch. I find that i can pick up on many flavors that get lost in the overall intensity of the drink. Also its like homeopathy for drinkers :-)
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Does anyone really drink alcohol for the taste? Take the effect away and most drinks are a lot like drinking piss with a mediciney aftertaste.
I'm with you, man. The worst kind of drink I can think of is a cask-aged Belgian monestary trippel served with an apple, a block of cheese, and a hunk of bread fresh out of some stupid oven. Yuck!
Does anyone really listen to music for the sound? Take the dancing people and the lights away, and most music is just annoying noise.
Does anyone really look at paintings for the visuals? Take the frame and the museum away, and most paintings are just blotches of pigment on canvas.
Does anyone really read books for the stories? Take the paper and binding away, and most books are just a bunch of words in too small a font (which are getting smaller and smaller every year, by the way).
Yeah, pretty much all of our senses and all of the "pleasurable" reactions that are brains fool us into thinking we're having are such a load of crap. Kind of makes you wonder: What's the point anyway? I mean, could this sunset even be any more orange? Pffft.
You're drinking bad hooch then. There are actually GOOD tasting drinks out there, not all of them expensive.
It's also worth noting that tastes change as we age.
A product called "Budweiser" has been making tiny amounts of alcohol intolerable to drinkers for years.
You could, you're just too cheap.
A drunken Scot was on his bicycle pedaling unsteadily home after closing time, with his flask in his back pocket. His tire fell in a rut and he crashed into a wall. Dazed, he sat up and felt a wet trickle running down his thigh. He muttered a prayer, "dear God, I hope that's blood."
John
If you're referring to Budweiser, I will take this moment to remind you that it's now Belgian swill. We don't have to claim it as our own anymore!
You must still be suffering? It's useless talking to you zombie fucks. Anybody who dares criticize the great organization is automatically a drunk. The 12 step program was judged a religion by the SCOTUS precisely because they found the distinction between "religion" and "spiritual" to be an obfuscation. You can believe whatever you want, and if you think you're not a member, being close to a member is close enough to soak up the BS as you so evidently show (if you're even telling the truth). Hell. In this day and age, watching TV / pop culture, stooped in dogma, is enough.
I have either that mutation or some other factor that makes drinking even a tiny amount of alcohol a horrible experience. I can handle about a teaspoonful of wine or a quarter cup of beer, but any more than that and I feel nauseated and dizzy with a terrible headache and grogginess. It developed about the time I hit 30 and the same thing happened with my mother at around age 35, so I assume that it's a genetic factor that either gets triggered with age or some environmental factor.
I was always a light drinker and never felt emotionally or physiologically dependent upon it, so my experience is NOTHING like an alcoholic's or somebody whose entirely social life is dependent upon drinking, but I gave up drinking immediately once it developed. Didn't matter that I'd just started being able to appreciate the good stuff and really enjoy it, I dropped it completely.
Can't say how it would work for an alcoholic, but I'd imagine it'd be very effective on somebody who is concerned about becoming one.
It has not been proven to work. It has been proven to be no better than doing nothing at all (spontanious rate of remission). Penn and Teller even did an episode on it (search YouTube). Pretty damning stuff. AA is popular because it is free, because people are court ordered into it, and because prosthelitizing is part of the program, not because of any inherent quality.
I'm with you. I like my scotch on the rocks, and I like to eat the little scotch-flavored ice cubes when I'm done with the drink. I don't care how angry that makes scotch lovers. My wife got me these rocks to chill the drink, but that's not for me.
And a G&T is the definitive summer drink (for me).
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disulfiram is used extensively in Sweden to treat bad drinkers and has been for a very long time. It is called Antabus there.
The U.S. has the best beer in the world. Period.
http://www.finedininglovers.com/stories/brussels-beer-challenge-2012/
Presumably the nerve called "not liking people who state incorrect things as fact". That gets on my nerves, too.
The idea that people are powerless over their addiction is a load of looney-tunes. Demonstrably so. Either you stop drinking and you're not suffering anymore, or you don't, and you remain an alcoholic. Of course a separate problem is whether you're cured as in you can keep drinking occasionally like any other person, or should you abstain forever. That is a separate issue. There are many people who can't in fact drink at all, because the feedback loop in their brain is so strong that once they resume drinking, the slide into alcoholism. But if you're not an alcoholic, but previously were, then duh you have overcome your addiction. You, not his noodly appendage.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
People who act obnoxious on alcohol are just people who are crypto-obnoxious. Alcohol only exposes their flaw. I wish employers were allowed to do a violent behavior screening where employees must get drunk, and are observed to see if they get violent. I'd definitely not want to hire anyone who gets violent after drinking. It doesn't take much for them to get violent otherwise as well.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
I love the taste of fine wines...great with meals. I love a good, single malt scotch, with maybe a splash of water or a couple ice cubes (ok purists, bite me, I like it chilled a bit).
As a purist who drinks my scotch neat, I say it's more important to know how you enjoy the drink and to enjoy it as such rather than trying to conform to other people's method of enjoyment.
Unless you're mixing Diet Coke with 18 year single malt.
Yes, many of us do enjoy alcohol's flavor in its various forms and mixed with things. The fact that it makes you feel great is definitely a plus.
I'm all for allowing people to drink. I'm not some prohibitionist.
I'm like the non-annoying vegetarians - I don't like the taste of alcohol, I don't like how it makes me feel, so I don't drink it. But I know there's lots of stuff other people like that I don't, and there's things I like that others don't.
"To each his own". Have fun drinking. If you need a ride, call.
I don't read AC A human right
It prevents people from seeking or discovering or creating actual solutions if they already believe God gave the perfect solution to some philandering scam artist in the thirties. It's religion, it spreads like a disease, and by preventing actual progress, it actually kills people like one. That is why I hate it. Yes. Hate. I hate what destroys society and drags us all down into ignorance. Is that not reason enough?
You re underestimating what a desire to stop drinking is really like.
I'm saying this as a sober alcoholic.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Parent deserves +1 correct moderation.
A year ago I was drinking a fifth of vodka every day, sometimes more. That's 17+ standard drinks a day by american standards, at least. Enough to cause seizures, hallucinations, and possibly death if I had stopped drinking "cold turkey".
So I didn't go cold turkey. I didn't go to a single AA meeting and I sure as HELL didn't check into "rehab". Instead, I bought a calendar and marked off how many drinks a day I was allowed. I started with 17 drinks a day and drank one less drink per day until I was down to 2 drinks per day, which I kept up for a few weeks until I became an occasional drinker. There were a couple of fuckups along the way where I drank way more than I should have. But in the morning after I'd check the calendar and resolve to keep trying. It worked, and I'm not normally an especially strong-willed person. I think it was the knowledge that alcoholism would kill me and ruin all my relationships if I didn't do something about it. Oh also, it was very satisfying to contradict the very unthinking common opinion that quitting drinking is "impossible on your own". It's all about willpower and priorities. Some people definitely need help quitting alcohol because they lack the will to do it themselves, but I think that fear and misinformation pushes a lot of people into AA and rehab unnecessarily.
People have been using alcohol to taper off of alcohol-dependence for as long as people have been drinking alcohol. Keep that in mind at all times. If you AA nuts think I'm full of shit then why don't you go talk to some vietnam veterans and hear about how they quit heroin all on their own when they returned to the 'States.