On Jan 10, 2007, at 11:53 AM, Charlie Coleman wrote: > Basically, most medical 'science' is 'guessing'. Don't > get me wrong, they have a lot of information, data, research, etc, > to help > them guess, but in the end it's pretty much guessing. Surgury is, of > course, a bit more 'scientific', but most things beyond that are > 'lets try > this and see what happens.'
The 'guessing' is the result of those pesky ethical issues involved in sampling living human brains for analysis. The mechanisms have been confirmed in those mammalian creatures for whom such issues are not as much of a problem. I did my thesis (degree in Neurological Biochemistry) studying the enzyme monoamine oxidase (MAO), which is a major actor in schizophrenic disorders, but they wouldn't let me work with human patients for some odd reason. However, more than a few rats gave their all for the research. All kidding aside, it isn't as simple as 'guessing'. There has to be a ton of neurological research to establish a mechanism, and then testing on non-human subjects to confirm the guess there. Only then can they actually start trying it out on humans. But as I mentioned in a previous post, a single disease such as depression is actually several distinct conditions. It would be as unreasonable to expect every one of those conditions to respond the same way to the same drug, just as you wouldn't expect the same treatment for one kind of cancer have the same effect on all other cancers. -- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.