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  Pot-Like Chemical May Relieve Pain
Posted by CN Staff on July 16, 2006 at 06:01:32 PT
By Cindy Tumiel, San Antonio Express-News 
Source: Times Argus 

medical Texas -- A synthetic version of the chemical that gives marijuana smokers their high can also cool the "heat" of an injury. That makes it a potential new pain reliever for surgical incisions, infections and chronic inflammation disorders such as arthritis, researchers say.

Scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center found that certain synthetic cannabinoid chemicals can block a heat-related nerve channel in the body. It's the same pathway that the body uses to feel the spice of hot peppers and the zing of pepper spray, said Kenneth M. Hargreaves, chairman of endodontics in the university's dental school and lead author of the study.

By altering the cannabinoid and administering it in tiny doses, scientists appear to be able to avoid the neurological effects of marijuana, he said.

"This is one of the major receptors our body uses to detect heat and detect a lot of different chemicals," Hargreaves said. "This offers the promise of developing an entirely new generation of drugs that have the beneficial effects of marijuana — that is pain relief — without having any of the side effects that marijuana is notoriously known for."

The study will appear on the online site of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. It also will appear in the July 25 print issue of the scientific journal.

In their first experiments, the San Antonio scientists injected the cannabinoid compound into inflamed tissue of rodents and observed "really potent" pain relief, Hargreaves said.

Next, they took tissue samples to the lab to try to understand how the relief occurred, and they discovered that the cannabinoid switches off a capsaicin receptor called TRPV1.

"What we envision is, with this knowledge we can develop drugs that you can take as a pill and would only act in the periphery" and not in the brain, Hargreaves said.

Scientists now are going back to the dental lab to investigate how inflamed human dental tissues will respond, said Amol M. Patwardhan, a scientist who works under Hargreaves. "If it works there, then we might actually be able to try it in clinical trials, where we can inject it into inflamed dental pulp," Patwardhan said.

Newshawk: Mayan
Source: Times Argus (Barre, VT)
Author: Cindy Tumiel, San Antonio Express-News
Published: July 16, 2006
Copyright: 2006 Times Argus
Contact: letters@timesargus.com
Website: http://www.timesargus.com/

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Comment #11 posted by Dan B on July 18, 2006 at 01:53:45 PT
Synthetics
Lab-created sweeteners are not better for an individual than is natural sugar or honey.

Artificial flavorings are not better for a person's body than are natural ones.

Artificial colorings are not better for a body than are natural ones.

Artificially preserved food is not better for a person than is fresh, natural food.

Synthetic fibers do not make better clothing than do natural ones.

Synthetic opiods are not safer than raw opium.

And synthetic cannabinoids are not better for an individual than are the naturally occuring ones found in the real thing.

These facts are too obvious to be ignored, yet they are habitually ignored in service to corporate greed. It has become far too difficult for reality (truth) to break through the international corporate messaging system known collectively as "the media."

You said it, unkat27: "corporations are the real problem today." I would add that greed is the deadly sin toward which all others lead and from which all others emanate. Our culture is obsessed with excess, and the love of excess leads to all manner of evil. Or, to put it the way the Bible says it, "the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). As embodiments and facilitators of said greed, corporations are likely the single greatest threat to human existence. Ultimately, all greed-based entities (corporations and their ilk) can promise is fleeting, synthetic happiness. There is no joy in the temporary fulfillment of greed because such fulfillment is always and swiftly followed by a greater desire for excess.

Greed perpetuates the myth of synthetic bliss. Synthetics perpetuate the myth of fulfilled greed. It's a vicious cycle that can only be broken with truth.

Dan B

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Comment #10 posted by FoM on July 16, 2006 at 08:39:45 PT
For Mr. and Mrs. Whig
Love is all you need

Love is all you need

La la la la la

Love is all you need

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #9 posted by FoM on July 16, 2006 at 08:35:06 PT
Whig
I can tell you will both be busy for a while but have fun because someday you will laugh at it all. It's a brand new day for the both of you. Enjoy!

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #8 posted by whig on July 16, 2006 at 08:29:39 PT
FoM
We're having fun but we're really busy still and haven't caught up on sleep or anything yet. No television, not much furniture, our car was late being shipped and won't be here for at least a week -- we have a rental for today, and then we're on public transportation until the car gets here, so we're trying to run all our errands now.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #7 posted by global_warming on July 16, 2006 at 08:29:39 PT
re: comment 2
and sell it back to them for an indecent profit..

Good to see you made it to your new home,



[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #6 posted by unkat27 on July 16, 2006 at 07:11:12 PT
Whig
The corporate fiasco has to be exposed, fully exposed, to the common public, for what it is, and the govt has to be held accountable for its complicity.

The first main problem is, unfortunately, that the MSM is also complicit and in the pockets of the corp-state, so the message is very hard to get out to everyone.

We know that the internet has become quite helpful as a messenger tool, but there are still far too many common poor people who have no exposure to it, and as long as the MSM continues to use tv and newpapers/magazine to dumb-down the masses, the corporate big-brother machine continues to blind them.

Word of mouth, pass it on, tell what we know, tell the truth, expose the lies, use whatever medium we can as messengers of the truth... its all we can do. It's an unfortunate reality however that too often too many people are fooled by the big liars and can only learn from experience, after its too late and the damage has been done. Sigh.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #5 posted by FoM on July 16, 2006 at 06:50:50 PT
Whig
I hope you and Mrs. Whig are having fun settling in to your new place. We are working on our house. They put in 4 new windows yesterday and are putting up siding today. When I went to bed last night I looked out our new bedroom window that I never had a window there and just stared at the beautiful moon. They started at 6:30 today because of the heat. They will have to stop soon. It's in the low 70s but the humidity is very high and it's going to hit 90 the weather says.

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #4 posted by whig on July 16, 2006 at 06:44:58 PT
unkat27
Not to take things too far off topic, but how do you think we should proceed in order to disestablish the legal fictions of corporate personhood and limited liability?

[ Post Comment ]
 
Comment #3 posted by Wayne on July 16, 2006 at 06:44:29 PT
doomed to fail
"This offers the promise of developing an entirely new generation of drugs that have the beneficial effects of marijuana — that is pain relief — without having any of the side effects that marijuana is notoriously known for."

--I thought the FDA just came out and said that marijuana doesn't have any medical benefits. And what side effects does marijuana have? The only things it does is make you hungry and high (and that's IF you smoke enough of it), and people know that ahead of time before they smoke it, so how is it a side effect?

I just don't see how this could ever succeed in the long run. As soon as the synthetic drugs come out, people by and large will notice the blatant double-standard and they will say something. They will say, "If they can make pills out of it, why can't we grow it in our backyard?" That is my hope anyway, unfortunately the public tends to be quite gullible and tend to believe everything they hear and see in the media. All we can do is pray...

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #2 posted by whig on July 16, 2006 at 06:43:17 PT
Health Care
If God had meant for the sick to be healed, he would have given them cannabis. Or something.

But you can't make a profit on suffering unless you take away what heals people and takes away their pain.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #1 posted by unkat27 on July 16, 2006 at 06:15:48 PT
Corporate Control is Unamerican
Synthetic? Oh, we're supposed to think just because some dang govt-approved lab-ratician whipped this up with antiseptic base-chemicals using a slide-rule and calculator then it has to be better than natural cannabis grown in dirt in the ground with rainwater and solar radiation?

It's quite obvious to me now that the whole cannabis prohibition thang is all about control. The corporations want to control it, they want to use it to control people, and they want to make huge profits at the same time it isn't cutting into all their other profiteering enterprises (alcohol, pharmaceuticals, oil, etrc...).

Corporate control over human lives is a fiasco and sheds an obvious hypocritical light on the original US "democratic" ideals.

People have to start realizing that corporations are the real problem today.

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