Some interesting articles I found

[Pebbz]

Cannabis-based boost for smokers' suffering sperm

A synthetic chemical based on those found in marijuana may fix a problem that, paradoxically, affects the sperm of cigarette smokers.

 

A new synthetic cannabinoid appears to restore the ability of the sperm to bind to the outside of human eggs. The finding is unexpected since smoking marijuana itself appears to decrease male fertility, the researchers say.

 

Previous studies have shown that cigarette smokers’ sperm cannot fasten as well to the outside of human eggs, explains Lani Burkman at the University at Buffalo, New York, US.

 

Cells within the reproductive system have receptors that bind to cannabis-like chemicals that are produced naturally in the body, so Burkman and colleagues tested a synthetic version of a cannabis compound, called cannabinoid-1346, to see if it might fix this problem.

 

 

Hope for cannabis-based drug for Alzheimer's

A compound derived from marijuana might one day help fight the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests.

 

Researchers have shown that a synthetic drug similar to cannabis can help older rats perform better on a spatial memory task.

 

Over a period of three weeks, Gary Wenk at Ohio State University in Columbus, US, and colleagues injected the brains of young and old rats with an inflammatory molecule that created an immune response in the animals’ brains which mimics that seen in Alzheimer’s patients.

 

During the same period the researchers also injected some of the rats with a synthetic drug similar to cannabis, called WIN-55212-2, which stimulates the brain receptors that normally respond to cannabis compounds.

Water maze

 

The team then tested the rats by having the animals navigate through a water maze. Because rodents dislike water they will do their best to find the dry platform hidden in the maze.

 

"The maze task is sensitive to memory impairment and also to ageing," Wenk says. "Old rats tend to be pretty bad at navigating the maze. It's kind of like an elderly person trying to find his way around a house that he's not familiar with.” Researchers gave the animals three days to learn the maze and then timed them on the fourth day.

 

The rats that received WIN-55212-2 in both age groups found the platform faster than their control counterparts. However, the difference between the treated and untreated animals’ performance was greatest among the older rats. The brains of rats receiving the synthetic drug also showed less sign of inflammation.

 

The results are impressive particularly because of the low dose of drug used in the experiment, comments Ken Mackie at the University of Washington in Seattle, US, who was not involved in the study.

 

"They gave them a relatively low dose, even for a rat." Mackie says that this aspect of the study makes the prospect of developing a similar treatment for humans with Alzheimer's disease "more promising".

 

Wenk cautions, however, that WIN-55212-2 still causes psychoactive effects similar to cannabis, and as such is not yet a candidate for human use. Researchers are currently trying to develop a similar drug that could control inflammation in the brain without a concomitant high.

 

Wenk presented the findings today at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, US.

 

 

Drug-danger 'league table' revealed

When it comes to danger, cigarettes and alcohol beat ecstasy, LSD and cannabis, according to a league table of the harm they cause.

 

The UK Science and Technology Select Committee, which advises the government, commissioned an assessment of 20 legal and illegal stimulants to examine the actual social and physical harm they cause based on scientific evidence.

 

Controlled drugs are currently categorised to reflect the penalties they incur for possession and dealing. The highest category, class A, carries the largest legal penalties and includes heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and magic mushrooms. Class B includes speed and barbiturates, while cannabis and some tranquillisers are in class C.

 

However, the new league table puts alcohol in the top five most harmful drugs, alongside heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and street methadone. Ecstasy and LSD, currently categorised as class A drugs, come well below both tobacco and alcohol.

 

The UK drug classification system needs to be overhauled to reflect the harm these substances cause, says the committee. "The government, its advisors and the police are in confusion about the relationship between drug classification and criminal penalties for possession," says committee member Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat MP. "We've made our recommendations to the government and we're very hopeful that they will act."

[Pebbz]

and some more...

 

Cannabis-inspired diet pill shows some success

A new weight loss drug that works by blocking a cannabinoid receptor in the brain has had “modest” success at helping people both lose weight and keep it off, researchers say. It also seemed to improve other risk factors for cardiovascular disease beyond what would be expected from weight loss alone.

 

But critics say the study’s methodology may have been flawed, given that almost half of its participants dropped out.

 

Although 3045 people entered the study, the main results were based only on the 1602 who followed through to the end of the first year. “That may erroneously create a larger effect,” says Denise Simons-Morton, at the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, who co-wrote an accompanying editorial about the paper. She and her co-authors suggest the researchers should have made a greater effort to measure final outcomes in all their participants, even those who left early.

 

Xavier Pi-Sunyer, of St Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, and his colleagues randomised their obese participants to take daily doses of either 5 milligrams or 20 mg of the drug, called rimonabant, or a placebo. The volunteers were also encouraged to stay on a weight-loss diet and given instruction on how to exercise more. Over the course of a year, various measures were taken, including weight, waist circumference, triglycerides (blood lipids), good cholesterol and blood pressure.

 

The researchers found that patients taking the larger dose were able to lose significantly more weight than those on placebo – an average loss of 6.1 kilograms versus 1.6 kg. Shedding even that amount of weight is clinically meaningful, says Pi-Sunyer. “It turns out it is quite helpful,” he says.

 

Elephants cleared of going on drunken rampages

ELEPHANTS are big, powerful and can be very dangerous - but they are not drunkards. Anecdotes about African elephants going on alcohol-fuelled rampages after eating the fermented fruit of the marula tree are probably incorrect, says Steven Morris at the University of Bristol, UK.

 

Assuming an alcohol content of 3 per cent, his team calculates that a 3-tonne elephant would need to eat more than 1200 fruit to get drunk. That would require a diet solely of fermented marula fruit consumed at 400 times the normal maximum food intake.

 

It is more likely that "drunk" bulls are just defending a prized food source, says Morris. The study will be published in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology next year.

[DownUnderDoper]

Great stuff pebbles

 

but could I be a pain and ask for some links??