The Travis Corner

cyclops

Member
Joined
May 30, 2017
Messages
1,636
It's not good to light any substance on fire and then draw it's smoke into your lungs.

Tobacco may (or may not) be wonderful, but smoking it isn't a good way to consume it.
 
Last edited:

YourUniverse

Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2017
Messages
2,034
Location
your mind, rent free
I've read many of the various pro-tobacco websites, Nightlight's posts on longecity, and this whole thread re: nicotine's positives. I still haven't seen a reasonable justification though for why these positive effects wouldn't be gotten from vaporizing tobacco, from using a pipe/cigar (harm reduction), from using a tobacco extract ejuice, or using smokeless tobacco. Or nicotine gum/patch, but people are saying tobacco has all these extra benefits so that wasn't listed. So I can only see cigarettes as simply being more pleasurable and enjoyable than these alternative delivery mechanisms which ostensibly would give the same benefits, unless there's something specifically beneficial about inhaling combusted tobacco. I think this is fine, not everything everyone does has to be fully 100% healthy, but it's just interesting how many pro-tobacco folks appear to smoke cigarettes and often neglect alternate delivery methods that would seem to have all of the benefits with much, much less risk. I don't personally believe that taking gamma tocopherol is enough protection against the tar from cigarettes to consider it enough harm reduction. I wish there was more incorporation of the "hedonic calculus" involved in arguments for smoking rather than just espousing the physical benefits of tobacco repeatedly. Because people enjoying their life and having less stress often are healthier, so if for whatever reason cigarettes bring that much pleasure to you, and if you've been smoking daily for 4 decades, it might actually outweigh certain physical downsides in some cases. There was a post by Travis here saying he thought nicotine gum was the healthiest delivery method too (which I took to mean delivery mechanism for nicotine only, compared to vaping ejuice or something), but I didn't see any specific comments about what you don't get with just nicotine vs tobacco.
Good post, I've wondered these things too.

FWIW, Travis rolled his own cigarettes from organic tobacco (afai can recall)
 

Mossy

Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
2,043
I've read many of the various pro-tobacco websites, Nightlight's posts on longecity, and this whole thread re: nicotine's positives. I still haven't seen a reasonable justification though for why these positive effects wouldn't be gotten from vaporizing tobacco, from using a pipe/cigar (harm reduction), from using a tobacco extract ejuice, or using smokeless tobacco. Or nicotine gum/patch, but people are saying tobacco has all these extra benefits so that wasn't listed. So I can only see cigarettes as simply being more pleasurable and enjoyable than these alternative delivery mechanisms which ostensibly would give the same benefits, unless there's something specifically beneficial about inhaling combusted tobacco. I think this is fine, not everything everyone does has to be fully 100% healthy, but it's just interesting how many pro-tobacco folks appear to smoke cigarettes and often neglect alternate delivery methods that would seem to have all of the benefits with much, much less risk. I don't personally believe that taking gamma tocopherol is enough protection against the tar from cigarettes to consider it enough harm reduction. I wish there was more incorporation of the "hedonic calculus" involved in arguments for smoking rather than just espousing the physical benefits of tobacco repeatedly. Because people enjoying their life and having less stress often are healthier, so if for whatever reason cigarettes bring that much pleasure to you, and if you've been smoking daily for 4 decades, it might actually outweigh certain physical downsides in some cases. There was a post by Travis here saying he thought nicotine gum was the healthiest delivery method too (which I took to mean delivery mechanism for nicotine only, compared to vaping ejuice or something), but I didn't see any specific comments about what you don't get with just nicotine vs tobacco.
I'm not well schooled on this subject; that particle article I referenced just stuck in my mind and I thought to share it, as it's contrary to anything we've ever heard on smoking tobacco.

I wasn't aware that the general position is that you can't reap the benefits of tobacco from pipes or cigars. Pipe tobacco is my first choice, though due to long-term cost and wanting my health at a certain point, I haven't delved into it yet. I have actually purchased all that I need, but it's on stand-by.

I think trends and pop culture have a huge influence, and cigarette smoking gets much more attention. It's considered sexier and associated with youth more than other forums of smoking, and to the anti-crowd, it's demonized as corporate promoted poison. Personally, I am against the corporate version of cigarettes, due to the additives, but I am open to cigarette smoking in general, such as roll your own, Indian tobacco, etc.

As you mention, the hedonic calculus element, the pleasure-to-harm ratio, is an important factor. If life is very stressful and smoking neutralizes that stress, there is value there--even if the smoking itself may potentially do harm.

Apart from gamma tocopherols, that article references vitamin c (as I believe Travis does) and taurine as being very helpful in countering "damage caused by smoking (tobacco)". They reference independent sources at the end of the article.

I'm not blindly for smoking, but am always attempting to be as objective and open until the truth arises. I think there is a smear campaign against smokers, that is agenda-based, and a bit self-righteous. I do think cigarette companies may deserve the criticism they get, though, as they've strayed so far from the natural product.
 
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
960
Kevin Stanley explains the biphasic response of the GABAA receptor through the outward flux of bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) after the inward chloride (Cl⁻) concentration has equilibrated. The inward flux of Cl⁻ increases the magnitude of the membrane potential, making it more negative as the cell assimilates these negative ions. Since this receptor is conceptualized more-or-less as a membrane pore only specific to the chloride ion, it becomes nondirectional the moment intracellular [Cl⁻] matches that of the extracellular. However, the background bicarbonate efflux persists regardless and this reverses the effect in membrane potential after a lag period of a few seconds. This biphasic effect is always assumed time-dependent, with the hyper-depolarization always following the initial polarizing spike. Differences are observed depending on the initial conditions, and are they especially-dependent on the initial membrane potential.

'The time courses of Cl⁻ accumulation and extrusion are consistent with observations regarding the direction and amplitude of a second GABAA current evoked shortly after a conditioning GABAA current. The accuracy of this simple model suggests that the proposed mechanism of anionic gradient collapse is a sufficient explanation of the depolarizing GABAA response.' ―Stanley

Kevin Stanley had spent more than the usual amount of space explained some of the experiment's limitations, and in fact devoted roughly two pages to just that alone. As honest and admirable as that is, he didn't explicitly draw attention to the fact that this experiment had been conducted under highly unphysiological conditions. Glutamate receptors had been blocked, the second GABAB receptor had been blocked, and supraphysiological 100·μM concentrations of GABA had been used. The blocking of the GABAB receptor would block the K⁺ ion flow that could offset the high voltage potentials induced by GABAA through importing the Cl⁻ ion. As good as this article is, I think we all would like to know what's really going on. The chloride ion is not psychedelic, psychotropic, or nootropic in any way and it is difficult to draw a link between intracellular chloride ions and the action of benzodiazepines—the classic pharmaceutical ligands of the GABA receptors.

What's Really Going On:

Gamma-aminobutyric acid appears to have no interesting chemical properties: It's two opposing charges should mainly exclude it from the cell and it has no fluorescence to speak of; γ-aminobutyric acid also appears incapable of physically-interacting with ions. However, it is these two opposing charges that hint towards the relationship of GABA and benzodiazepines: This molecule should readily cyclicize into a pyrrolidinone ring, which is far more similar to other GABA agonists than γ-aminobutyric acid. There is evidence of pyrrolidinone formation in the brain alongside γ-aminobutyric acid, and pyrrolidinone analogues are indeed well-known GABA-nergic agents:

[1] Petroff, Ognen. "Topiramate increases brain GABA, homocarnosine, and pyrrolidinone in patients with epilepsy." Neurology (1999)

'Topiramate increased mean brain GABA, homocarnosine, and pyrrolidinone concentrations in all patients. In paired measurements, brain GABA increased by 0.7 mmol/g. Homocarnosine increased by 0.5 mmol/g. Pyrrolidinone increased by 0.21 mmol/g.' ―Petroff

View attachment 9706 Click to embiggen: It would be a crime not to embiggen.

Pyrrolidinone works in the same way as GABA, and even more surprisingly it is not even underlined by the spellcheck program. [Just try it; you'll see.] The pyrrolidinone core is also used as a basis of synthetic GABA-nergic agents, and benzodiazepines also have the lactam structure.

[2] Ebrik, S. "Synthesis of novel pyrrolidin‐2‐ones: γ‐aminobutyric acid cyclic analogues." Journal of heterocyclic chemistry (1998)
[3] Worms, P. "Influence of GABA-agonists and antagonists on neuroleptic-induced catalepsy in rats." Life sciences (1978)


This cyclicization event is not altogether novel. Acetylcholine appears capable of doing this, and cyclo-acetycholine is more structurally similar to classic cholinergic agents (i.e. nicotine, scopolamine, atropine).


Pyrrolidinone is an inhibitor of carbonic anhydrase. Since γ-aminobutyric acid ostensibly cyclicizes into pyrrolidinone, this fact can explain the driving force behind the GABAA bicarbonate channel—and perhaps even its biphasic effect: Carbonic anhydrase is a bidirectional enzyme, and one of peculiarly high-velocity:


The reaction catalyzed by carbonic anhydrase is also pH-dependent, explaining the acidic conditions caused by γ-aminobutyric acid—or cyclic γ-aminobutyric acid—that'd been observed in many studies. Here are a few quotes by Kai Kaila:

Kaila, Kai. "Ionic basis of GABAA receptor channel function in the nervous system." Progress in neurobiology (1994)

'At present there is evidence that intracellular carbonic anhydrase is present not only in certain glial cells but also in nerve cells including sensory and hippocampal neurons.' ―Kaila

'This difference in the underlying ionic mechanism is clearly evidenced by the opposite role of the enzyme carbonic anhydrase in their generation: both intracellular and extracellular pH shifts evoked by GABA are enhanced by carbonic anhydrase activity while the opposite is true for glutamatergic interstitial alkaline shifts as will be described below.' ―Kaila

'Inhibition of intracellular carbonic anhydrase activity by acetazolamide resulted in a marked slowing down of the GABA-induced acidosis in crayfish muscle fibres and neurons [...] which, in turn, was due to the channel-mediated loss of internal HCO₃⁻.' ―Kaila

'The fact that intracellular carbonic anhydrase activity plays a central role in promoting GABA receptor-mediated pH shifts has to be paid attention to when considering the action of GABA on pH in different types of cells. A modest intracellular acid load produced by GABA receptor activation cannot be taken as evidence for the absence of a significant HCO₃⁻ permeability—such a situation may also arise from the absence of intracellular carbonic anhydrase activity. Indeed, the rather small acidosis evoked by muscimol in cultured rat astrocytes might well reflect the absence of intracellular carbonic anhydrase.' ―Kaila

Carbon dioxide is an uncharged gas that could underlie anxiolytic benzodiazepine action. Uncharged gasses generally are small, lipophilic, and hence can penetrate nerve myelin and into microtubules. The administration of GABA-nergic drugs can change responsiveness to carbon dioxide; and quite surprisingly, the converse effect also holds true: The administration of carbon dioxide can influence the brain uptake of GABA-nergic drugs—specifically GABA-nergic drugs, and no other type:

Power, S. J. "Carbon dioxide response curves following midazolam and diazepam." BJA: British Journal of Anaesthesia (1983)

'The mean values of the slopes of the carbon dioxide response curves following both drugs are shown in table I. Following diazepam the slope decreased from 18.9 litre min⁻¹ kPa⁻¹ in the control period to a minimum of 13.7 litre min⁻¹ kPa⁻¹ which occurred 15 min after the drug.' ―Power

Concas, Alessandra. "Carbon dioxide inhalation, stress and anxiogenic drugs reduce the function of GABAA receptor complex in the rat brain." Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry (1993)

'All together these data strongly suggest that carbon dioxide inhalation, like stress and anxiogenic drugs, decreases the function of the GABA, receptor complex.' ―Concas

'Carbon dioxide was administered by placing the rats in a hermetically closed box. A gas mixture (35% CO₂ and 65% O₂ was fed through the cage for 1 min and the animals were killed 10 min later. Control animals were maintained in the same hermetically closed box but not exposed to the gas. Benzodiazepines and β-carbolines, dissolved in distilled water with one drop of Tween 80 per 5 ml, were given intraperitoneally 30 min before sacrifice. [...] After sacrifice, the brains were rapidly removed and used for the measurement of ³⁵S-TBPS binding.' ―Concas

'Accordingly, CO₂ inhalation was also able to reduce ³⁵Cl⁻ uptake in the brain of the same animals (paper in preparation). Moreover, these effects were antagonized by the positive modulators of GABAergic transmission, alprazolam and abecamil. The finding that CO₂ inhalation reduces GABA, receptor function is not in contrast with the evidence that this treatment enhances the function of neurons of the locus coeruleus.' ―Concas

'On the other hand it is also worth noting that the action of CO₂ inhalation at the level of the GABAA receptor complex is rather specific. In fact, this treatment fails to alter the function of receptors for other neurotransmitters including those labelled by ³H-MK 801 and ³H-CGP 39653, ligands currently used to evaluate the function of NMDA receptors.' ―Concas

Some may view CO₂ as no better an explanation than γ-aminobutyric acid, but to that I would disagree. The action of GABA is defined by the changes it causes in cellular pH and membrane voltage, and also by the partitioning of: chloride, potassium, and bicarbonate ions. None of these things will effect consciousness when given or applied directly, yet carbon dioxide can do this; it also has all the chemical properties consistent with myelin penetration.

General anesthetics do not conform to any receptor paradigm: as small unreactive molecules they cannot bind to anything, and many will not react even under the most extreme conditions. The noble gases argon and xenon are general anesthetics, so unreactive they are as a class that their entire Mendeleev group had been named for it. The mechanism behind general anesthesia had seemed so notoriously-elusive at one point that Linus Pauling had attempted to explain it, in which he did in a most ridiculous—yet very stylish—manner (it's only slightly less embarrassing than his dNA triple helix, vide infra):

Pauling, Linus. "A molecular theory of general anesthesia." Science (1961)
Pauling, Linus. "The hydrate microcrystal theory of general anesthesia." Anesthesia & Analgesia (1964)
Xenon seems like a remarkable substance
 

Owen B

Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2016
Messages
310
I can only find baicalin to buy. is this a prodrug for baicalein and can I safely assume it has basically equivalent effects for this purpose?

I will try and do a root tincture of any skullcap plants on my property, but that takes time, and I'd like to try this soon. It also seems like baicalein has other generally protective effects, on GABA, estrogen, etc
Still trying to sort the whole -lin vs. -lein thing but this study says the -lein is better

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jchem/2016/2510621/
 

tara

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
Does anyone know what brand and dose did Travis recommend for those drinking milk?
IIRC, his own preference, when he did consume it, was local goat or sheep cheeses. Generally recommended considering goat or sheep cheeses milk and cheese over cow.
 

Alpha

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2018
Messages
236
IIRC, his own preference, when he did consume it, was local goat or sheep cheeses. Generally recommended considering goat or sheep cheeses milk and cheese over cow.
I meant how much 5-MHF or folate to take if you consume bovine milk to mitigate auto antibody folate receptor effects of CFD.
 
OP
Amazoniac

Amazoniac

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
8,583
Location
Not Uganda
Taking bets for how many notifications are awaiting for him. :writer:

upload_2019-3-15_13-1-7.png

Daily fortune-telling sessions for a month as prize.

raypeatforum.com/gambling
 
OP
Amazoniac

Amazoniac

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
8,583
Location
Not Uganda
you seem sure that he will be back .
Many of us are wondering: will is Trabis?

The hunch of the liquidophile here is that he got hit by the harsh Madison winter, therefore had to prioritize other areas of life, and since it was starting to be impracticable for him to deal with so many messages, he might have decided to leave the foro for an indefinite time.

However! These words might be coming in a good timing for your desolations because I just brewed a graph available on the temperature variations of his city throughout the year: at this very month they must be creeping up again until the peak in July. It's still cold, and we'll need to wait for May to arrive bringing its acceptable temperatures along. Yet, you'll waste your times refreshing the pages expecting him to appear much earlier than 1 month after that because it's the time required for him to recompose himself as Trabis 2.0.

Patreod page, 3D representations, animations, narrations, learning games, A-Z condition cures, humorous chronicles of the trivial, and more.

There's only ein more detail: his return was then scheduled to June, yet he might antecipate a few days to ruin the prediction. I can't comment further because of risking having to wait until August.
 
Last edited:

Aymen

Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2017
Messages
596
Location
Tunisia
Many of us are wondering: will is Trabis?

The hunch of the liquidophile here is that he got hit by the harsh Madison winter, therefore had to prioritize other areas of life, and since it was starting to be impracticable for him to deal with so many messages, he might have decided to leave the foro for an indefinite time.

However! These words might be coming in a good timing for your desolations because I just brewed a graph available on the temperature variations of his city throughout the year: at this very month they must be creeping up again until the peak in July. It's still cold, and we'll need to wait for May to arrive bringing its acceptable temperatures along. Yet, you'll waste your times refreshing the pages expecting him to appear much earlier than 1 month after that because it's the time required for him to recompose himself as Trabis 2.0.

Patreod page, 3D representations, animations, narrations, learning games, A-Z condition cures, humorous chronicles of the trivial, and more.

There's only ein more detail: his return was then scheduled to June, yet he might antecipate a few days to ruin the prediction. I can't comment further because of risking having to wait until August.
you seem cool and fun man :rollingred:rollingred
 

Broken man

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2016
Messages
1,693
The one thing that I dont understand and want to ask him is how can he drink so much coffee? The reason for this question is that the better my health is the less coffee I can drink. Ray wrote me the same thing, that hypothyroid people are drinking alot of coffee. Very interesting.
 

olive

Member
Joined
May 17, 2018
Messages
555
The one thing that I dont understand and want to ask him is how can he drink so much coffee? The reason for this question is that the better my health is the less coffee I can drink. Ray wrote me the same thing, that hypothyroid people are drinking alot of coffee. Very interesting.
Genetics. Probably a fast caffeine metaboliser like me. Also the more caffeine you drink, the more you can drink. Tolerance and what not.
 

Alpha

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2018
Messages
236
If you are hypothyroid, you need coffee to work your metabolism, you are running on stress hormones, and coffee gives you the jolt you need to function.

Hyperthyroid, or normal thyroid doesn't feel the need for stimulants.
 
OP
Amazoniac

Amazoniac

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
8,583
Location
Not Uganda
What's the region that Candida tends to infest? Because apparently a great deal of iodide is adsorbed already in the stomach, therefore the antimicrobial effect of iodine will be dependent on how much the body can process safely. There's the risk of compromising our wealth before the immunity has a chance to address the issue.
 

Broken man

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2016
Messages
1,693
Genetics. Probably a fast caffeine metaboliser like me. Also the more caffeine you drink, the more you can drink. Tolerance and what not.
It could be it the way you wrote but I am thinking of other ways like microbiome population, liver health/glycogen storage. The thing is that my father is heavy coffee drinker but is also on thyroid meds, I have taste for it only after playing some sport or when I have low dopamine. Smokers tend to drink alot of coffee to counteract the NO from cigarette. Just alot of examples that are telling me that healthy people need less. Given the fact that coffee increases metabolism/ oxidation, it does make sense because healthy people dont need to increase it. And I know that my liver health is better than before, its confirmed by alcohol test :D.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom