Posts Tagged ‘addiction’
Newly Found Species of Bacteria Lives On Pure Caffeine
Discovery could lead to new pharmaceuticals
Previous research had noted microbial consumption of caffeine, which is found naturally in soil and in the seeds, leaves and fruit of several plants, serving as a natural pesticide. But this is the first time researchers figured out just how a microorganism breaks it down. The discovery of these specialized enzymes could help lead to treatments for various diseases, according to the American Society for Microbiology.
That's because byproducts of the caffeine breakdown process are natural building blocks for drugs used to treat asthma, improve blood flow and stabilize heart arrhythmias. These compounds are hard to produce in the lab, so using the bacteria’s special enzymes could simplify pharmaceutical production, microbiologists say.
Caffeine, for all its utility in keeping your eyes open throughout the day, is just a cluster of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. It is built of three methyl groups, which consist of one carbon and three hydrogen atoms each. The bacteria has enzymes that break down these methyl groups, allowing it to feast on the chemical constituents. The enzymes were named N-demethylase A and B.
Researchers isolated the genes they thought were responsible for producing these enzymes, and put the genes into E. coli to test them out. The bacteria produced NdmA and NdmB, according to a report in .
Researchers found P. putida living in a flower bed at the University of Iowa.
“This work, for the first time, demonstrates the enzymes and genes utilized by bacteria to live on caffeine,” said doctoral researcher Ryan Summers, who presented his research at the 111th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.
It’s still unclear whether caffeine gives the bacteria afternoon jitters, however.
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Fighting Drugs With Drugs: An Obscure Hallucinogen Gains Legitimacy as a Solution for Addictions
Ibogaine, a brown powder derived from the African Tabernathe iboga plant, has intrigued researchers since 1962, when Howard Lotsof, a student at New York University and an opiate addict, found that a single dose erased his drug cravings without causing any withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately, the hallucinogen can increase the risk of cardiac arrest, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency lists it as a Schedule 1 substance, a classification for drugs like ecstasy and LSD with “no known medical value” and “high potential for abuse,” making it difficult to get federal funding to run clinical trials.
Animal tests, however, have shown the drug’s medicinal promise. “Rats addicted to morphine will quit for weeks after receiving ibogaine,” says Stanley Glick, the director of the Center for Neuropharmacology and Neuroscience at Albany Medical College. And addicts have reported positive effects in Mexico and Europe, where ibogaine therapy is legal. “Going cold turkey is horrible. There’s vomiting and diarrhea and pain and a constant drug craving,” says Randy Hencken, a drug user who was treated in Mexico. “After ibogaine, I didn’t feel any symptoms or cravings. I’ve been clean for nine years. Heroin and cocaine no longer have any power over me.”
Despite these successes, ibogaine lacks scientific credibility. “As great as ibogaine seems, no one knows exactly how effective it is as a treatment,” says Valerie Mojieko, the director of clinical research for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Research (MAPS), a privately funded Massachusetts-based nonprofit. So starting this month, MAPS will enlist Clare Wilkins, the director of Pangea Biomedics, to run the first long-term study to gauge the drug’s lasting effects at her clinic in Mexico (where patients already pay $5,000 for the treatment). She will treat 20 to 30 heroin addicts and, for the next year, MAPS will subject them to psychological and drug tests to quantify ibogaine’s effectiveness.
The study will also help establish how to prescribe the drug safely. “Most psychedelics are relatively harmless,” says neurologist Deborah Mash of the University of Miami, “but ibogaine has a much narrower margin for error.” Mash runs an ibogaine clinic in St. Kitts and has treated more than 400 addicts without incident in the past decade. But in the early 1990s, overdoses of the drug at a clinic in the Netherlands led to several deaths, which ultimately scared off the National Institute of Drug Addiction (NIDA) from starting its own research program in the U.S.
From the limited research, though, scientists have two theories about how ibogaine works. Some say it’s purely biological—that ibogaine degrades into a compound that binds with opiate receptors in the brain to quiet cravings. Others believe that it is also psychological, with the “whole-life review” part of the hallucination providing perspective on the negative aspects of drug use, and so the subject strives to quit.
Regardless of the mechanism, proving ibogaine works is essential to winning approval and funding for clinical trials in the U.S. The sooner the better: Nearly seven million Americans abuse illicit drugs, costing the nation an estimated $181 billion a year in health care, crime and lost productivity.
The MAPS study should begin to answer questions about ibogaine’s efficacy and safety, but most experts think prescriptions are 10 to 15 years away. Until then, desperate patients will continue to seek out treatment in unregulated places such as Mexico, and that’s ideal for neither the patients nor the researchers. Rick Doblin, the founder of MAPS, hopes this study will force regulators’ hands. “If we can show great results, it could increase support for ibogaine clinics and maybe get NIDA interested again—because that’s who really should be doing this research.”