Showing posts with label drinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drinking. Show all posts

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Nicotine shown to have half the constrictive properties on veins as alcohol, and marijuana actually will make them bigger (with vasorelaxatory properties identified in THC)!



Nicotine and vein constriction:
"Smoking was associated with significant changes in the aortic pressure-diameter relation that denote deterioration of the elastic properties and were maintained during the whole study period: the slope of the pressure-diameter loop became steeper (baseline, 35.43±1.38; minute 1, 45.26±1.65; peak at minute 10, 46.36±1.69 mm Hg/mm; P<.001) and aortic distensibility decreased (baseline, 2.08±0.12; minute 1, 1.60±0.08; nadir at minute 5, 1.54±0.07×10−6 cm2·dyne−1P<.001). In contrast, no changes in aortic elasticity indexes were observed with sham smoking."
Alcohol and vein constriction:
"Blood ethanol levels achieved at 60, 120, and 180 minutes were 649+-48, 1,285±81, and 2,546+-130jug/ml, respectively. LAD cross-sectional area was reduced significantly from control at the end of each of the three dosing periods (-24± 5%, -40± 3%, and -53±.3%; p<0.004). a-Adrenergic blockade had no effecton LAD cross-sectional area, while nicardipine partially reversed the ethanol-induced vasoconstriction. No significant change in vessel cross-sectional area took place in control dogs."

Marijuana and vein relaxation:
"The present results provide strong evidence that THC is a PPARγ ligand, stimulation of which causes time-dependent vasorelaxation"
This results in a lower blood pressure and better athletic performance.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X05021352

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Societal Impacts of Alcohol and Marijuana, Revisited: the German Model.

    In Germany, over the last 25 years the consumption of alcohol has fallen by a third. Legal marijuana use rates (in the Netherlands or abroad, or in decriminalized settings at home) have increased in 18-24 year olds from 7% to 28% during this time period. The economic growth has been enormous, suggesting a link between the two, in order to confirm it would be advantageous to compare the numbers with those outlined in the data from my previous paper on societal impacts of alcohol with a low to moderate impact on the national IQ. In this paper it was demonstrated that while the first 5-10 points of IQ decrease would remove 80% of the geniuses or highly gifted workers from a community, more than this had limited effects until the damage reaches 20 or 30 points. This is because the population begins to move along a straight line on the bell curve, where the initial damage from lead, or once the pollutants in the environment are removed, from illegal or decriminalized marijuana (it should be noted that in a legalized setting, marijuana has been associated with a societal increase of 5 points in IQ, while contaminants or parasites in illegal or decriminalized pot have been connected to a decrease) or alcohol, moves along a steep exponentially defined curve.
    Lead was removed around the same time as this trend in drinking occurred. According to the DAX, the Deutsch (German) stock market, the value has risen by over 4 or 5 times since then, as seen in this graph (1989-2014) from under 2000 points to over 9000 points. The GDP, which is predicted by the DAX, a list of around 30 of the heavyweights in the German economy, to a great extent, also has increased in this period from under 1500 to nearly 4000. These are both in keeping with the increase indicated by an increase in geniuses of 500% in an intellectual property dominant economy (such as Germany or America) as found in most of the modern world.
DAX index of German listed companies:
German GDP from 1970-2014



     While this can seen initially as true and true and unrelated, the fact that previous research in SPECT scan imaging has made the connection between responsible drinking and low cognitive functioning concrete in the last few years seems to indicate that this link is more causal than correlative. This can be seen in previous research into light and moderate alcohol or marijuana use this year. That the hypothetical model outlined in the research into societal impacts of these substances fits exactly to the statistics gathered in the real world is encouraging as well, and demonstrates that this is a legitimate and probably accurate method and application of the scientific information available.

http://platophilosphy.blogspot.com/2014/07/effects-of-regular-or-light-marijuana.html
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/germany-stock-market.png?s=dax&d1=19890101
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/germany-gdp.png?s=wgdpgerm&d1=19870101
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/140619/germany-non-alcoholic-beer
http://platophilosphy.blogspot.com/2014/09/societal-impact-of-currently-under.html