Cannabis reverses aging processes in the brain
m.medicalxpress.com
m.medicalxpress.com
The headline of the paper is: "A chronic low dose of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) restores cognitive function in old mice.
https://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v23/n6/full/nm.4311.html"
Which is interesting, but you shouldn't take it to mean smoking is good for your brain. We already have some data to suggest that smoking cannabis, at least while young, is linked to cognitive decline.
"Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife" (2012)
> Persistent cannabis use was associated with neuropsychological decline broadly across domains of functioning, even after controlling for years of education. Informants also reported noticing more cognitive problems for persistent cannabis users. Impairment was concentrated among adolescent-onset cannabis users, with more persistent use associated with greater decline. Further, cessation of cannabis use did not fully restore neuropsychological functioning among adolescent-onset cannabis users.
Does the last sentence mean what I think it means. That even after stopping cannabis use, the neuropsychological damage / cognitive problems remained, and didn't rollback the decline from cannabis use?
If yes, it's troubling. All my stoner friends claim no permanent damage from chronic use
I mean, your stoner friends have got to be making a strange claim in the first place. There is no magic Twin Earth, where yoga is a contact sport, John McCain is president, and they never smoked, that they can compare themselves to.
We all decline somewhat from other factors, the question is just how much is attributable to what. How would they even be able to parse out their cannabis-decline from their age-decline, or from their haven't-practiced-long-division-recently decline, etc?
If they are only thinking "I felt dumber when smoking but now that I stopped, it seems gone", well, that's something, but it can't be a complete picture vs their never-smoked potential.
That's just, like, your opinion man. If they smoke enough, they've probably been to Twin Earth.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the...
Does that count as full contact?
How did you compare you with your version who never had shots? Or how did any vaccination trials do it?
But we were not talking about problems. The person I was replying said this
> but it can't be a complete picture vs their never-smoked potential.
So I am talking about the potential (meaning various capabilities IQ, Social behaviour, Emotional stability (withing the bound of normalcy) etc. I mean, things that are not usually recognized as problems..).
How can you compare the potential of a version of you who never had vaccines with a version of you who had a given set of vaccines. This is particularly relevant with vaccines because you don't have a version of you before having vaccines, since these are usually administrated at a very young age..
For example, I think everyone knows about the 2015-2016 Zika virus out-break and what experts believe to be a link to devastating child birth defects. This has clearly become a high priority vaccine candidate... and, we believe we already have one.
It's just that, despite the devastating effects, medical professionals/scientists aren't going to go willy-nilly releasing it to the public without a comprehensive study (ideally multiple of them), for example, the following study which is expected to complete in 2019.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/phase-2-zika-v...
> You compare populations. Did a group who got the vaccine have more problems than an otherwise identical group that didn't? This requires careful study design and statistical analysis, of course.
These are called identical twin studies, they're inherently limited in capacity and are not an appropriate means of studying vaccines. Vaccines are inherently something widely distributed to the public. Vaccines do have adverse effects on some people, all publicly released vaccines have publicly available figures on the likelihood of adverse effects in a percentage of the population. If the percentage is too high or the types of effects are too severe then the vaccine is not released to the public - this is common sense.
For example I was seemingly affected by a Whooping Cough (Pertussis) vaccine I was administered as a baby. After receiving part of the vaccine (it was administered in doses at the time) I became quite ill and doctors advised against administering the rest of the vaccine. So for many years I was not vaccinated against Whooping Cough but received the rest of my vaccinations without issue - again, should be common sense.
I'm a perfectly healthy adult now and have actually since received a newer/different a Whooping Cough vaccine (I don't believe they still administer the old one), as well as several other vaccinations.
I'm perfectly content with the fact a vaccine may have almost killed me, it's certainly better than the alternative of Whooping Cough running rampant killing more than the 50,000 people it already kills each year.
But with pants, I guess you never had to wonder "Is wearing pants safe".
Again. That was not the question. But I see you have answered the actual question also, agreeing with my point. So we're cool..
So, does vaccination make more healthy people, at a population level, than not vaccinating? That's the question that matters, because every action (or inaction) has risks. The evidence is abundant that yes, vaccination has helped us reach closer to our potential. Diseases like polio might even be entirely eliminated, in which case we're trading a few adverse reactions today for a nigh infinite number of saved lives in the future (if future generations don't have to even be vaccinated, it's pure benefit with no cost)
There is admittedly a weird philosophical issue, whereby a vaccine does juggle around probabilities: you're trading 1000 people getting sick with measles (say) for 10 people getting sick from the vaccine. But they're (probably) different people. Were the people who got sick harmed? Sure, but if they hadn't gotten the vaccine, they might have been harmed by the disease. It's impossible to to know for certain. But it's what happens at the population level that counts.
I'm not an anti-vaccer for the record.
The studies vs experiments problem is larger in social sciences than medicine.
Most drugs are studied using clinical trials, which contain control groups. Not perfect experiment, but close to it.
There are plenty of examples studies and trials published in scientific journals with erroneous conclusions. With a purwly scientific experiment that would be impossible (at least for the experimental outcome to disagree with nature).
Their point is almost exactly the opposite - we know vaccinations work without requiring a 'twin Earth' that the grandparent posited. Exactly the same applies to whether e.g. cannabis is linked to cognitive decline.
I ask . "Is it logical to reach the conclusion x based on y" and people are responding as if I have said "x is not true"! and they are saying things like "whether X is true or false does not matter because Z!"
HI larious!
That studies don't have literally the same people in both groups.
Especially when the main problem with "I turned out fine, so it must be safe" is that the person is confusing anecdotes with statistics, not any deficits in rigor caused by lack of access to branching timelines.
It's no wonder people are confused about what you're actually trying to say. So you don't have to be intentionally condescending with "you should go back and read the comment again ellipsis".
Edit: Oh great you added similar language to this comment while I was replying. Cheers.
Edit 2: Even if you had branching timelines, the butterfly effect ruins your ability to know if your intervention is the actual cause of any particular outcome. Maybe one version of the participant skips a plane flight five years down the line, and that changes their health in a major way.
Go back to my first comment and tell me where I mention any kind of studies.
All I was point was at the logical fallacy in the claim that something hadn't any negative impact on you because you turned to be out fine, without comparing with a version of you without the influence of that something...
In the equation, 10 = y - z, you cannot say that z is 0 without knowing y, right?
I am saying just that.
EDIT: regarding branching timelines and butterfly effect, are you talking to yourself?
I'm lumping that in under "studies" about health effects.
> In the equation, 10 = y - z, you cannot say that z is 0 without knowing y, right?
> I am saying just that.
Yes. You are. But we have good baselines for y, and the person is trying to make an argument about the entire population of zs, so while you're correct that there is uncertainty on the y, the way you went about it is only relevant to thought experiments and your later replies were very much exacerbating a fruitless discussion.
And like I added later, you can't even measure y with magic twin earths, so there was even less reason for the comment at all.
>EDIT: regarding branching timelines and butterfly effect, are you talking to yourself?
The comment you were replying to was talking about "twin earths". Your specific comment said "your version who never had shots". That's what I'm referring to with "branching timelines". Sorry for using alternate wording.
I can avoid using the phrase "butterfly effect" if you want. It's shorthand for: Once you change something, like vaccine vs. no vaccine, there is a chance that the "twin earth" or "your version who never had shots" comes out completely differently for essentially random reasons. Tiny little differences in what you experienced the day of the shot cause different outcomes later that are entirely unrelated to the shot itself.
So it's actually irrelevant whether you can test against this "your version who never had shots", because the act of performing the injection screws up the list of "random" events that happen to that other-you. And once that happens, you're basically measuring two different people. And you can measure two different people on normal earth.
So there is no y vs. z comparison, not even in the thought experiment you were replying to.
Then the blame is on you, Not me.
> Then the blame is on you, Not me.
Okay, I think there's been some miscommunication here. Because whether we call that a study is absolutely irrelevant to either of our points. So I accept total blame for that wording? I will call it whatever you want, because it has nothing to do with my argument.
There is no need to use a time line. You can have an hypothetical machine that could extract the effects of the vaccine from your body... So you enter into this machine, and comes out as a version that never had any vaccines...There. You have got your delta.
Anyway this is not really helpful so I'll restate the part that actually matters and then peace out.
Yes you have a technically correct point, but the way you went about presenting it as "this argument is flawed" lead to people pointing out significantly more important flaws in the argument. You then sassed people instead of just letting it be or trying to refocus on what you were actually trying to contribute. Not a great strategy, all-in-all.
Like what exactly?
>Yes you have a technically correct point, but the way you went about presenting it as "this argument is flawed
if "argument is flawed" how can I present it any different...
To answer your question: How can I compare my vaccinated self to my unvaccinated self?
The answer is: I can't, because my unvaccinated self is probably dead as it would have had to have lived in a world where childhood mortality was much higher than it is now, due to various factors but especially communicable diseases.
I'm 100% for legalization, but no drug is ever completely safe. I had to talk a friend down from a nasty paranoid dissociation episode after she ate the recommended dose of a mass-produced legal pot cookie in Seattle. It's a hell of a lot safer than alcohol, IMO, but that's not the same thing as "safe".
Schizophrenia is its own thing.
Just the stress on the heart and nervous system alone is enough to offset any supposed benefit (from this perspective I'd say there are none, it's just getting hopped up on another drug, albeit a very much culturally accepted one in most parts of the world).
Concentrated sugars taken in on a regular basis are also harmful to one's health. I guess live like the ancients (i.e. before alcohol, coffee, tabacco, white sugar, etc. came into being) is a pretty good recipe for optimal health.
Probably like a cigarette smoker giving up smoking, the thought of getting jacked up on caffeine is not at all appealing.
Probably depends on the strength of the coffee, mine were more along the lines of Turkish than Folgers instant. Definitely could feel heart constriction at times.
re: before drugs and alcohol, sure, the ancient ones reference is more metaphorical than any historical timeline.
A lot of people in this country make that--indeed strange--distinction. The way we got here was fro government-private partnerships that created a cultural willing to accept the double think requires for G-P to profit off Drugs and medications.
Incorrect. Those predisposed to schizophrenic and some other mental disorders are more likely to have those symptoms aggravated by chronic drug use. Pot doesn't create mental illness, it exacerbates it.
The lesson here is not to smoke weed in your developing teen years, or to experiment in a safe environment if there is a history of schizophrenia in your family, something that should be a no-brainer.
"Safe" is a very relative word and a substance can only be as safe as the person consuming it. Incorrect safety procedure when ingesting a substance, such as taking drugs without proper dosage experimentation or in unstable environments, should not be held against the substance itself.
Aren't both these statements a bit too one-sided in light of the evidence? As far as I'm aware we know there's a correlation, but there's no consensus about causality either way (although I lean towards weed being mostly harmless in itself, and 'triggering' if you happen to be susceptible to schizophrenia).
As I said, weed doesn't cause schizophrenia, it just exacerbates the symptoms in some people. I don't see what is one-sided about that and there is plenty of literature to support this, if you search around for a minute or two.
Doesn't mean one causes the other, though. More that one can (but doesn't always) bring out some of the symptoms. It surely isn't enough of a link to ban it for that reason, unless we want to ban things like stress, which can also bring on symptoms if you have the "right" setup for it.
Factual drug information would include these warnings, plus giving lots of folks information about what to do if it should happen. Prudent age limits - ones that can be enforced reasonably - help folks know themselves a bit more before they try it out. Psychiatric care being normal can help catch a few folks along the way, and knowing what to do (per the drug education) hopefully means more folks get help.
It won't stop the "I am fine, it won't happen to me" sort of thinking, but this sort of thing can prevent a bit of it and change the outcome of it.
This is one reason why I avoid psychedelics. I'm waiting for a 'right' moment, and would really like to experience it, but I figure I better err on the side of caution when it comes to my mind.
as a science develops it usually branches into specific categories of study
these categories and their proponents usually create language to simplify intercommunication of ideas
but the issue becomes these placeholder words can sometimes be misunderstood: two parties each agreeing on a conclusion but holding different definitions for linking jargon; or sometimes are oversimplifications of their underlying ideas that are less interesting to the science being discussed
what does neuropsychological mean?
googs will tell you: the study of the relationship between behavior, emotion, and cognition on the one hand, and brain function on the other.
wiki(o) will tell you: Neuropsychology studies the structure and function of the brain as they relate to specific psychological processes and behaviours
so what is declining? the structure of the brain?
how do you measure that? less neurons? less connections? do we know how many neurons or connections is ideal?
or is behaviour and emotion declining? how do you determine desirability of emotion and behaviour?
wiki also suggests methods of measuring this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychology#Methods_and_to... ; which include card sorting(i) and brain scans
the former suffering from what i would consider a fallacy of overfitting and the latter currently under scrutiny for overassuming(ii)
it's also a young enough field that hn's spellchecker flags neuropsychology as a misspelled word.. perhaps the spellchecker's neuropsychology has been damaged
do i care one way or the other on the short and long term damage from cannabis smoking? of course i am interested in the results but i hope in the future the language, from both sides, will become more descriptive and less inflammatory
that said, much like with alcohol use, you are intentionally poisoning yourself in order to alter your perception of shared reality.. accelerated entropy should be expected
but the more descriptive information we can form will better inform our decisions on whether the benefits outweigh the negatives
(o) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychology
(i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Card_Sorting_Test
(ii) https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/apr...
This is an odd statement. Weed isn't exactly toxic like alcohol is. It's nearly impossible to overdose, any acute harm will be purely psychological (even though this thread is debating whether long-term harm can enter the physical realm).
Also, we do all sorts of stuff all the time to alter our perception of reality, mostly not involving substances...
I'm finding it hard to believe smoke from cannabis combustion is anything other than terrible for your lungs.
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?Rec...
Regarding the link between marijuana and cancer, the committee found evidence that suggests smoking cannabis does not increase the risk for cancers often associated with tobacco use – such as lung and head and neck cancers. The committee also found limited evidence that cannabis use is associated with one sub-type of testicular cancer and insufficient evidence that cannabis use by a mother or father during pregnancy leads to a greater risk of cancers in the child
The evidence reviewed by the committee suggests that smoking cannabis on a regular basis is associated with more frequent chronic bronchitis episodes and worse respiratory symptoms, such as chronic cough and phlegm production, but quitting cannabis smoking is likely to reduce these conditions. The committee stated that it is unclear whether cannabis use is associated with certain respiratory diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, or worsened lung function.
http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657/F2.expansion.html
As far as reversal, looks like it stuck pretty hard if you started regular use during adolescence. If you started afterwards, then you bounced back as long as you weren't still using frequently.
http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657/F3.expansion.html
If your friends are adults it's probably either damage done already or nothing irreversible, at least to the extent this study is accurate.
One thing that would be interesting would be a breakdown around different standard deviations. We know that drug use is higher in more intelligent people[1,2], and that probably does represent our audience here given subject matter. I'd be curious to know whether the effects are more or less marked once you're a couple of standard deviations out from the norm, given that the population measured seems to be near median-100 (i.e. either a broad cross-section or skewed towards average).
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamen...
[2] http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/15/why-kids-with-high-iq-...
That makes sense. The human brain doesn't mature until the early 20s.
> Our findings suggest that regular cannabis use before age 18 y predicts impairment, but others have found effects only for younger ages (10, 15). Given that the brain undergoes dynamic changes from the onset of puberty through early adulthood (37, 38), this developmental period should be the focus of future research on the age(s) at which harm occurs.
Age of onset is a particularly important variable as it pertains to cannabis-induced cognitive impairment. I doubt cannabis is perfectly safe and harmless at any age, but it has consistently been shown to be both more harmful and less reversible to younger brains in development.
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/11/4251.abstract
It seems the original authors didn't even bother to look for confounding factors, such as socioeconomic status or use of other drugs.
Hmm, let's dig further. The home page of the TPRC lists a single funder: the NDIA.
https://childandfamilypolicy.duke.edu/project/transdisciplin...
That would be the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an institution which has a pre-established position on marijuana and other drugs, and stands to gain financially the more problems that are perceived with recreational drug use.
The following government piece on drugabuse.org does not mention the serious criticisms, despite heavily quoting from the journal in which they were published 6 months prior. Since it streches credulity to think they didn't know about the problems raised, the logical conclusion is that the authors felt their piece would be stronger without mentioning them (versus offering any counter-rebuttal).
https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2013/08/ear...
Conversely, with declining levels of endocannabinoids in older unexposed individuals, one might expect low-level THC exposures to improve function.
0. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00...
1. http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article...
2. http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcolleg...
What do you see as the distinction between "restore cognitive function in older individuals" vs "reverses aging process in the brain"?
And they did prove. There's no might, they measured it.
It bugs me that people like you read things into headlines that aren't there and then complain that the headline didn't clarify your assumptions.
When you're young, and you do it recreationally, it is bad for you.
As you grow older, and it becomes an annoying distraction from what you want to get done, it suddenly becomes beneficial.
So I think your principle is a long term equilibrium position that things end up in, not really true in the short term.
From around the same time, so presumably an alternative regurgitation of the same press release: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/health/cannabis-could-h...
Choice quote: "But the benefits were only seen in older mice, said the researchers. When young animals were exposed to THC, their memory and learning performance got worse" - and I have to say that sounds more like my own experience of THC exposure as a young animal.
But maybe I should take up the habit again in my dotage?
there are hemp strains that are naturally low on THC (legal limit is low anyway) and also embed other cannabinoids like CBD (cannabidiol), which seems to be a potent anti inflammatory, and activates CB receptors (brain, GI tract). To summarize, it could be of use to grow non THC-heavy hemp and extract cannabinoids for your health.
People always think of raw cannabis plant but hemp is the same family except useless for 'weed' since thc is so low in it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=cannobinoids
Lots of research is related to Cancer, but there are some meta studies and non cancer related too.
I wish I could have a chance to smoke what they had.
Ageing essentially is the same process as erosion of mountains. No amount of cannabis or LSD would help.