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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.
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?
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.........
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.
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.
Without vigilance, there might be a widespread problem with people getting these vaccines against their will.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
A product called "Budweiser" has been making tiny amounts of alcohol intolerable to drinkers for years.
You could, you're just too cheap.
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.
Worst case it would be ruined for 6 months.
When you read TFA, is says:
With one dose of the vaccine, the mice’s drinking habits diminish by 50% for 30 days.
That would suggest the effect is far shorter than 6 months, and the vaccine far less effective than most here seem to think.
Chances are, the occasional, small. glass of wine wouldn't even affect most people.
If the effect only lasts for 30 days, (or, giving the benefit of the doubt, 6 months), the true alcoholic would find excuses
to miss that second shot.
As for accidentally getting this shot, don't discount the possibility of a court order, or at the very least, a court
ordered choice, the shot or jail. A shot with this short period of efficacy probably isn't likely to be successful
in either combating alcoholism or preventing drinking, simply because it appears to be so short acting.
In fact, one wonders if it really qualifies as a vaccine. One of the hallmarks of a vaccine according to wiki is: "[an agent that] stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and "remember" it, so that the immune system can more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters."
This treatment seems merely to be an agent that suppress the production of a naturally occurring bodily enzyme, but only while the agent is present in quantity sufficient to trigger the suppression. It seems to have no lasting effect.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
The U.S. has the best beer in the world. Period.
http://www.finedininglovers.com/stories/brussels-beer-challenge-2012/
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.
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.