A Tale of Two Suppressed Studies

Let me tell you a story. A big, powerful institution commissioned a report into something important. But the authors ended up writing something that the institution’s leaders couldn’t accept. They found it unpalatable. It went against their orthodox dogmas. So, they suppressed it. It never saw the light of day. It’s the report they didn’t want you to read.

Nice story. But does that mean the report is true? Couldn’t they be smarter than the authors of the report? Is “Commissioned to write a report by a big powerful institution” a qualification you would respect in any other context? Maybe they didn’t want you to read the report because it was just a bit rubbish?

The past couple of weeks has seen two classic texts from the ever-popular genre of Suppressed Reports. There was the World Health Organization study on cocaine that concluded that it isn’t all that harmful. And then there was the Environmental Protection Agency report that was sceptical of global warming. They didn’t want you to read either, so we’re told.

I’m not saying these reports are wrong. I haven’t read either. But it’s odd that their "suppression" has granted them the kind of uncritical attention that they would never have had if they’d just been published normally. How many global warming skeptics take what the Environmental Protection Agency says seriously? Yet when they deliberately don’t say something, they’re all ears. It’s like Catholics taking the Pope’s word as infallible, but only when he doesn’t want them to. It’s the argument from authority in reverse.

A Tale of Two Suppressed Studies

Let me tell you a story. A big, powerful institution commissioned a report into something important. But the authors ended up writing something that the institution’s leaders couldn’t accept. They found it unpalatable. It went against their orthodox dogmas. So, they suppressed it. It never saw the light of day. It’s the report they didn’t want you to read.

Nice story. But does that mean the report is true? Couldn’t they be smarter than the authors of the report? Is “Commissioned to write a report by a big powerful institution” a qualification you would respect in any other context? Maybe they didn’t want you to read the report because it was just a bit rubbish?

The past couple of weeks has seen two classic texts from the ever-popular genre of Suppressed Reports. There was the World Health Organization study on cocaine that concluded that it isn’t all that harmful. And then there was the Environmental Protection Agency report that was sceptical of global warming. They didn’t want you to read either, so we’re told.

I’m not saying these reports are wrong. I haven’t read either. But it’s odd that their "suppression" has granted them the kind of uncritical attention that they would never have had if they’d just been published normally. How many global warming skeptics take what the Environmental Protection Agency says seriously? Yet when they deliberately don’t say something, they’re all ears. It’s like Catholics taking the Pope’s word as infallible, but only when he doesn’t want them to. It’s the argument from authority in reverse.

The Shotgun Approach to Psych Drug Discovery

A foundation is offering to fund research into novel psychiatric medications, we read in the latest Nature Neuroscience:

The Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts has launched an initiative called ‘PsychHTS’ inviting scientists with ideas and data suggesting novel mechanisms contributing to psychiatric disease to apply for access to the Broad’s infrastructure and expertise for high throughput screening (HTS) of chemical compound libraries.

HTS is a clever technique for discovering new drugs, based on the crude but effective principle of trying hundreds of thousands of different chemicals until you find one which works, by using machines to automatically run the experiments (“assays”) extremely quickly. Hence, “high throughput”. It’s pretty cool.

The Stanley Medical Research Institute wants to use HTS to find new psychiatric drugs. There have been no truly new drugs in psychiatry for a long time: there are dozens of different antidepressants, for example, but they all work (if and when they work) by increasing brain monoamine levels, just like the very first antidepressants, iproniazid and imipramine, discovered in the early 1950s. The same is true of antipsychotics, which all block dopamine D2 receptors, just like the very first, chlorpromazine.

So new drugs for the mind would be great. But how are you going to find them by doing experiments in test-tubes, even if you have 50,000 test-tubes? The mind doesn’t fit in a test-tube. Here’s where the proposal gets a bit iffy:

Readouts may be anything from classical enzymatic reactions ... up to subcellular changes captured by automated high-content imaging. ... ‘Hits’—compounds that affect the assay results in a way that indicates potential usefulness in a psychiatric research context—are automatically retested at several concentrations...

So, the idea is that potential new drugs will be found by measuring how they affect certain cellular processes or chemical pathways. But which ones? Until we know what cellular or protein or enzymatic changes underlie mental illness, we won’t know what to look for. And the whole problem is that we don’t know much about that – if we did we’d have lots of new drugs already.

The article suggests only one route to finding truly novel mechanisms – genetics. In the past few years, there have been many genetic studies trying to find genes which cause mental illnesses. Some of them have identified risk genes which seem to imply new biological pathways. For example, the current orthodoxy is that schizophrenia is caused by abnormalities in the brain’s dopamine system. But the gene most strongly implicated in schizophrenia is called “neuregulin-1”, and it has nothing to do with dopamine. That’s interesting but unfortunately -

Recent genetic studies have indeed suggested new targets, but the identification of specific genetic risk factors remains elusive. The genetic results are themselves variable, often have small effect sizes and need independent replication.

In other words, the genetics evidence is so patchy, that using it as a basis for finding new drugs is like building a house on very shaky foundations. It might stand. But if the genetic links turn out to be spurious, all the subsequent research will have been in vain.

Personally, while I welcome any truly groundbreaking work in psychiatry, I would rather people spend time and money doing better research on the drugs we already have.

Nature Neuroscience Editorial (2009). Mining chemistry for psychiatry Nature Neuroscience, 12 (7), 809-809 DOI: 10.1038/nn0709-809

The Shotgun Approach to Psych Drug Discovery

A foundation is offering to fund research into novel psychiatric medications, we read in the latest Nature Neuroscience:

The Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts has launched an initiative called ‘PsychHTS’ inviting scientists with ideas and data suggesting novel mechanisms contributing to psychiatric disease to apply for access to the Broad’s infrastructure and expertise for high throughput screening (HTS) of chemical compound libraries.

HTS is a clever technique for discovering new drugs, based on the crude but effective principle of trying hundreds of thousands of different chemicals until you find one which works, by using machines to automatically run the experiments (“assays”) extremely quickly. Hence, “high throughput”. It’s pretty cool.

The Stanley Medical Research Institute wants to use HTS to find new psychiatric drugs. There have been no truly new drugs in psychiatry for a long time: there are dozens of different antidepressants, for example, but they all work (if and when they work) by increasing brain monoamine levels, just like the very first antidepressants, iproniazid and imipramine, discovered in the early 1950s. The same is true of antipsychotics, which all block dopamine D2 receptors, just like the very first, chlorpromazine.

So new drugs for the mind would be great. But how are you going to find them by doing experiments in test-tubes, even if you have 50,000 test-tubes? The mind doesn’t fit in a test-tube. Here’s where the proposal gets a bit iffy:

Readouts may be anything from classical enzymatic reactions ... up to subcellular changes captured by automated high-content imaging. ... ‘Hits’—compounds that affect the assay results in a way that indicates potential usefulness in a psychiatric research context—are automatically retested at several concentrations...

So, the idea is that potential new drugs will be found by measuring how they affect certain cellular processes or chemical pathways. But which ones? Until we know what cellular or protein or enzymatic changes underlie mental illness, we won’t know what to look for. And the whole problem is that we don’t know much about that – if we did we’d have lots of new drugs already.

The article suggests only one route to finding truly novel mechanisms – genetics. In the past few years, there have been many genetic studies trying to find genes which cause mental illnesses. Some of them have identified risk genes which seem to imply new biological pathways. For example, the current orthodoxy is that schizophrenia is caused by abnormalities in the brain’s dopamine system. But the gene most strongly implicated in schizophrenia is called “neuregulin-1”, and it has nothing to do with dopamine. That’s interesting but unfortunately -

Recent genetic studies have indeed suggested new targets, but the identification of specific genetic risk factors remains elusive. The genetic results are themselves variable, often have small effect sizes and need independent replication.

In other words, the genetics evidence is so patchy, that using it as a basis for finding new drugs is like building a house on very shaky foundations. It might stand. But if the genetic links turn out to be spurious, all the subsequent research will have been in vain.

Personally, while I welcome any truly groundbreaking work in psychiatry, I would rather people spend time and money doing better research on the drugs we already have.

Nature Neuroscience Editorial (2009). Mining chemistry for psychiatry Nature Neuroscience, 12 (7), 809-809 DOI: 10.1038/nn0709-809

Receitas com pinhão

CONFORME HAVIA PROMETIDO, AI VAI DUAS RECEITAS BEM GOSTOSAS COM PINHÃO.
BOM APETITE.

Paçoca de Pinhão

1 quilo de pinhões
5 colheres de (sopa) de tempero pronto tipo alho e sal
1 colher de (sopa) de salsinha picada
2 colheres de (sopa) de óleo
1 cebola pequena picada
2 envelopes de sazón laranja
2 e ½ litro de água


Em uma panela de pressão, coloque os pinhões com as pontas cortadas, a água e o tempero pronto, cozinhe em fogo alto por 40 minutos após o início da fervura.

Retire do fogo, espere esfriar,

descasque os pinhões e passe-os pelo processador.

Reserve.

Em uma panela média, coloque o óleo e leve ao fogo alto para aquecer. Junte a cebola e refogue por 3 minutos ou até começar a dourar. Acrescente os pinhões, tempere com o sazón e cozinhe, mexendo sempre com o auxílio de um garfo, por 3 minutos ou até que o tempero esteja distribuído uniformemente.

Junte a salsa, misture e retiredo fogo.

Sirva acompanhando carnes, aves ou peixes

Variações: Faça um refogado com carne bovina em cubos e incorpore a paçoca de pinhão. Substitua a salsa por hortelã picada, a gosto.

Bolo de Pinhão

Massa:

1 COLHER (sopa) de fermento em pó

1 XICARA (chá) de pinhão cozido e moído

1 XICARA (chá) de farinha de trigo

1 COLHER (chá) de manteiga

1 lata de leite condensado 1 pitada de sal 4 claras em neve 4 gemas

Calda: 1 XICARA (chá) de pinhão cozido e triturado

1 vidro pequeno de leite de coco 200 gramas d

e açúcar 4 gemas


Massa:

Bater a manteiga até formar um creme.

Juntar as gemas uma a uma, o leite condensado aos poucos, a pitada de sal e a farinha de pinhão.

Misturar a farinha de trigo com o fermento.

Juntar aos poucos batendo sempre.

Por último, misturar delicadamente as claras em neve. Despejar uma forma com buraco no meio, untada e enfarinhada, e levar para assar em forno médio por cerca de 30 minutos.

Calda: Misturar o açúcar ao leite de coco e levar ao fogo. Deixar ferver e juntar o pinhão (tem de ficar em ponto de fio, escorrendo na colher ). Deixar esfriar a calda. Acrescentar as gemas. Voltar ao fogo e deixar engrossar. Despejar sobre o bolo com a calda ainda quente.

SE VOCÊ NÃO LEVOU, AINDA DÁ TEMPO

Hoje é dia 30.06.- embora esta postagem saiu com a data do dia 29.06.

Não posso mais mudar, pois já tem recadinho.

Hoje tem desafio da Carmem. Estou participando.

PASSE NO BLOG Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos.

Estou te esperando.

Os sabores do Pinhão....

Passeando pelo blog Guardados e Achados da Estela encontrei esta maravilha de pinhão, que quero compartilhar com vocês. E durante a semana, quero estar postando outras curiosidades. Pois moro a 300 km. dessa cidade maravilhosa chamada Lages, a terra do Pinhão

Uma Gostosa Receita da blog da Estela.

“Pinhão quentinho / Quentinho o pinhão
E você bem juntinho / Do meu coração.”
Mario Quintana

Foi por causa desses versos de Quintana que eu resolvi experimentar o pinhão... e fiquei apaixonada pelo seu sabor.



O pinhão é a semente do pinheiro, (Araucária angustifólia), originário do sul do Brasil. Se forma dentro da pinha, fechada, que com o tempo vai-se abrindo, e libertando o pinhão.
Seu formato, com uma asa, lhe proporciona ser espalhada pelo vento, garantindo a perpetuação da espécie.


O pinhão garante a alimentação de muitas espécies animais, principalmente roedores e pássaros e, se tornou item obrigatório no cardápio de outono e inverno em milhares de residências do Sul.
Cozido em água ou assado na brasa, o pinhão é uma festa para o paladar.
Pode ser consumido puro ou aplicado em receitas como: bolos, biscoitos, cremes, arroz, etc.

E, eu que não resisto a um pinhão... fiz uma receitinha deliciosa:


Cozinhei os pinhões na água com sal por mais ou menos 50 minutos (em panela de pressão leva menos tempo – mais ou menos 30 minutos)
Deixei esfriar, descasquei e reservei.

ARROZ DE PINHÃO
½ xícara de pinhão cozido e picado
1 xícara de arroz
2 ½ xícaras de água
Cebola picada (mais ou menos meia xícara)
1 colher de sopa de óleo
Sal a gosto.
Preparar o arroz como se faz normalmente, refogando a cebola junto com o pinhão, juntar o arroz, o sal e por fim a água fervente. Cozinhar em fogo baixo e quando começar a secar, tampar e desligar o fogo.






Um sabor sem igual e, tão... simples de fazer.

Valeu amiga.
Aqui se compartilha conhecimento. E é muita coincidência encontrar no seu blog, uma preciosidade dessa, claro a receita. Obrigada amiga.
Aqui compartilhamos e aprendemos um com o outro.

APROVEITO PARA PARABENIZAR, TODOS OS BRASILEIROS PELA A GRANDE VITORIA, DO NOSSO BRASIL.
É ISSO DAI TIMÃO!

LEVE ESTE PINHÃO SABOROSO PARA VOCÊ,
DEGUSTAR MAIS TARDE.
EM ESPECIAL, QUERO OFERECER A ESTELA
DO BLOG GUARDADOS E ACHADOS.

On Psychiatric Cool

At Somatosphere, "Liz Oloft" (heh) writes about the dilemmas of "coming out" as a user of psychiatric meds while being an academic who researches them: Prozac In The Closet.

Liz is a social scientist, while I'm a card-carrying neuroscientist, but like her I also take antidepressants while studying them, and I identify strongly with her thoughts.

One sentence in particular struck a chord -

Depending on who you ask ... to engage in Lacanian psychoanalysis for neurotic problems of living might be cool, to take an antidepressant for depression without psychotherapy is less cool, and to take a cocktail for bipolar might be even less so (although bipolar disorder may be more legitimate than depression because it seems to be more widely accepted as a “real biological disease”).

This is something which isn't much talked about, but it's absolutely true. Some mental illnesses are just cooler than others. Cool is a famously elusive concept, maybe undefinable. Either you got it or you don't. But some diagnoses certainly have more of it than others. From most cool to least the pecking-order seems to be:

1. "Issues" – problems of living and/or "stress", rather than illness
2. "Physical" conditions with psychiatric symptoms, such as thyroid problems and PMT
3. Anxiety, phobias, panic attacks
4. Substance abuse & addiction
5. Bipolar disorder (manic-depression)
6. Eating disorders
7. Unipolar depression
8. "Personality Disorders"
9. Schizophrenia

This list is, of course, subjective - "cool" inherently is – and it goes without saying that I’m not endorsing this hierarchy, just reporting it as I perceive it. I’m no slave to cool as a glance at my iTunes library would verify.

What does it mean for one thing to be higher on the list than other? Amongst much else it means - that people are more comfortable talking about it and being in the presence of it; that people will tend to prefer it as a diagnosis for themself or a loved-one; and that it's easier to think of "cool" people who have it. And, simply, it means it that it’s easier to “come out” as having it.

Some of the rankings may surprise at first glance. If you read the textbooks, you'd think that bipolar disorder is generally speaking "worse" than unipolar depression. And in many ways it is. But it's still cooler, I think. Cobain sang about "Lithium", the quintessential treatment for mania, not "Imipramine". Hendrix sang "Manic-Depression", not "Depression". Lots of cool, or at any rate famous, people, are bipolar, or are widely believed to be. By contrast, try to think of a famous unipolar depressive, and you'll come up with Winston Churchill with his Black Dog and... who else?

The key factor behind psychiatric coolness seems to be the degree to which a problem is seen as internal to the self. There's little shame in being "stressed" due to things that happen to you, because then the problem is external. You're "normal", it's the situation that's screwed up.

Likewise, as Liz says, bipolar disorder is in an important way cooler than depression, because it's seen a closer to being a "physical” illness that happens to you, like a thyroid problem. That’s as opposed to a weakness or failure of you as a person, which is the most damaging and most persistent stigma of unipolar depression.

The one apparent exception is schizophrenia, which is profoundly stigmatized despite being widely viewed as a biological disease. But isn't this because schizophrenia is seen as a disease that disturbs the self, leaving someone merely "mad" or "insane", no longer responsible for their actions and therefore no longer really a person?