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- Ben Fuchs
It may be hard to believe for the average 21st century citizen living in an environment saturated with synthetically derived chemical products -- including pesticides, plastics and pretty much portable anything -- but a mere 200 years ago there weren't any! It wasn't until the early 19th century that scientists really got a handle on exactly how chemical structures could be "engineered" and then mass produced.
The first chemical to be synthesized was a minuscule little molecule called "urea" and, as teeny as it was, the little structure was stupendously significant. It marked a milestone in human achievement; for the first time a chemical only found in the human body, and one with active biological properties, was man-made in a laboratory, developed de novo from a distinct "parent" chemical structure.
That was in 1828. From those humble beginnings, by the middle of the century, millions of chemicals were being produced around the world. It wasn't long before chemists started to turn their attention to substances that could be used to manipulate human metabolism and, come the end of the 1800s, the first manufactured synthetic drugs were being marketed. The race was on to discover more and more ways to make more and more biologically active chemicals.
In 1912, the European drug company Merck, whose American subsidiary had only opened 20 years prior, filed for a patent for a drug called "methylsafrylamin" that was to be used to control bleeding. The patent was granted in 1914 and, although there were periodic attempts to develop the drug as a blood clotting agent, that was pretty much the last anyone ever heard of "methylsafrylamin" until the late 1950s, an exciting and propitious period for pill producers. The promise of miracle drugs elicited great admiration from the medical community. With the culture in awe as well, and the drug industry had matured to become a multibillion dollar business.
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- Ben Fuchs
There are 3 main types of hormones that can be distinguished by the speed of their activity, that is, how fast they accomplish their effects. The slowest acting ones, called endocrine hormones travel through the blood starting in structures called glands and accomplish their effects when they reach specific cells. Others called exocrine hormones don’t require a blood highway; rather they are squirted via specialized ducts directly into body cavities like the abdomen or through the skin. The digestive system is especially dependent upon these types of hormones as are the so-called pheromones, chemicals of sexual attraction that are secreted cutaneously (of the skin) into the external environment.
The third hormone category is composed of ultra-fast acting substances called autocrine or paracrine hormones, a term that refers to the fact that, while other hormones that travel through the body or external to it, these substances work in the immediate vicinity of the cells that make them. This allows reactions to happen instantaneously without requiring the brain or the nervous system to be involved. One of the most important of these types of hormones is a class of fatty substances called prostaglandins. It’s hard to really appreciate how unbelievably important these things are.
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- Ben Fuchs
If you watch the cartoonish commercials on TV about depression and anti-depressants, you would think that that the molecule known as serotonin is a biochemical of bliss and if you’re feeling crappy, you can just take a medicine that bumps up its effects and voilà, you’ll be happy! On the other hand, if you go to websites like “SSRI stories.com,” which is filled with nightmarish tales about violent behavior, assaults, suicides, suicidal thoughts, murders, and school shootings all associated with SSRIs; or if you read the papers and listen to conspiracy theorists, it’s almost impossible not to be impressed by the link between all of this unpleasantness and drugs that affect serotonin levels. Even the package insert that comes with Prozac and Effexor and Zoloft and other SSRIs pharmaceuticals contain warnings from the purveyors of these poisons about side effects of self-harm and savagery that one would never think would be associated with a drug that’s supposed to make you jump for joy.
So which is it, hormone of happy or hormone of horror? If serotonin is indeed the chemical of calm that you hear about on commercials and if SSRI drugs are indeed the glee-inducing, depression-fighting drugs that your doctor tells you they are, why is that Lilly and Pfizer and all the other manufacturers of these substances are warning patients about side effects like suicide and violent and aggressive behavior?
