Posted by zeugma on December 20, 2004, at 18:18:32
In reply to Re: speculations on acetylcholine and NE » zeugma, posted by jujube on December 18, 2004, at 10:06:09
> > Thanks for the links about DMAE.
> Tamara,
> >
> > Thanks for the links about DMAE.
>
> -- My pleasure, although I am sorry I had not taken the time to include them in my direct response to you when I raised DMAE. My apologies.There was no inconvenience on my part. I appreciated the links :)
>
> > I do not believe the explanation that its manufacturers dropped DMAE from FDA approval for treatment of ADHD because of expense of clinical trials.
>
> -- You are probably right. Not only am I not the hottest coal in the fire at times, I am, by nature (unfortunately), quite gullible (although I always told those who made fun of my gullible nature that I was actually trusting and that was a good thing).Posting inquiries on various drugs and supps here, where some real experts can be found (not myself of course- I never took a high school chem class and would have failed it if I had, but of course I failed everything in those days...) is not a gullible thing, but a rational thing to do. There are trustworthy people here!
I found another article that talks about DMAE, and what was said was that DMAE was originally marketed as a prescription drug for hyperactivity, but was withdrawn because it lacked significant efficacy evidence. The article also talks about the some types of ADHD appearing to be mediated by dopamine-hypometabolism and others may be due to acetylcholine dysfunction. Here is the website, if you are interested:
>
> http://www.nutraceuticalsworld.com/Sept011.htm
>Yes, I checked it out, and it is interesting. It seems that the authors believe that cholinomimetic drugs would be especially good for inattentive ADD. This definitely catches my attention (pardon my strange sense of humor). It seems to me, intuitively, that inattentive ADD'ers are the 'daydreaming' type, and that this propensity to daydream would be a mark of cholinergic overactivity, not underactivity. In fact, I believe that inattentive ADD is more likely to result in depression than the hyperactive kind (although this may be utterly wrong- I need to research this, it should be easy enough to pull up an abstract or two from pub Med, but I am lazy- this is an important topic and I should look into it tonight). I would have thought the daydreaming would profit from specific REM suppression, which selective NE reuptake inhibitors perform (for the link, check out this study on the differential effects of stimulants and NE reuptake inhibitors: http://www.sro.org/pdf/863.pdf
You will notice that this study was performed on narcoleptic canines, not on inattentive ones, so this finding may have no bearing on the issue of inattentive ADD. You can see from the study why I would have seen acetylcholine and norepinephrine as 'opposite numbers', since NRI's and anticholinergics suppress REM while cholinergics enhance it. Desipramine and nisoxetine, the NRI's used in the study, are both AD's, although nisoxetine was dropped by Lilly in favor of its cousin, atomoxetine, which is ... an ADHD medication! And although PsychoBabbleLand is full of horror stories about this med, including my own, if you go to http://crazymeds.org/, you will find atomoxetine (Strattera) in heavy rotation as an ADHD med. (You'll also find them, or at least Jerod, site owner, bashing TCA's. It's good to get a spectrum of opinions.)
I don't know what to conclude from all this. but if DMAE is working for you, that is fantastic!
>
> -- I can only begin to imagine what you go through each day, and my heart goes out to you. I certainly do not suffer that greatly. I am extremely hyper and have the attention span of a tse tse fly, but these things have not caused any signficant problems in my life. The jobs I have had have always been good for a hyper person, and even the distractability and short attention span have not been too problematice since my work has always required me to deal with many multiple priorties over the courseof any given day. However, the attention span issue does become a bit of an issue when I have to read long court decisions or review and analyze long, tedious pieces of draft legislation, or sit in a long meeting.
Thank you for the kind words. Being hyper has its benefits, as you know, and being in a 'dreamlike' state much of the time does too, even though it's harder to exploit professionally (I'm working on that one). I actually was a hyperactive child, and retain traces of this (highly nervous, and I sometimes enjoy doing two things at once, so that two boring tasks cancel each other out). .>
> Anyways, take good care, and I hope I'll be chatting with you again soon.
>
> TamaraThanks, same here.
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:430543
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20041212/msgs/432164.html