Posted on 02/22/2023 8:27:19 PM PST by ConservativeMind
As cocaine use continues to climb, scientists have struggled to develop an effective pharmacological approach to treat the devastating disorder.
But by seamlessly combining artificial intelligence (AI), human intelligence, clinical testing and computer analysis, researchers have unearthed an existing option that appears to hold promise.
"Ketamine, a small synthetic organic molecule used clinically as an anesthetic and a depression treatment, was found to be associated with significant improvement in remission among people with cocaine-use disorders," said Rong Xu.
"This study is a great example of addressing an intractable problem by the creative use of AI using different sources of data," said study co-author Pamela Davis.
More than 2 million people in the U.S. regularly use cocaine, more than three times the number who take methamphetamine. Roughly one of every five drug overdose deaths in this country involves cocaine, and its consistent use contributes to an array of serious health issues—including heart attack and stroke. However, there is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved treatment for cocaine-use disorders.
Decades of research have found that existing medications such as antidepressants or stumulants have no meaningful effect, while others involve such small patient samples as to be years away from certain conclusions. Therapeutic interventions have yielded positive outcomes, but barriers such as cost, staffing and stigma significantly limit widespread adoption.
By developing novel AI-based drug discovery algorithms to identify promising candidates from all FDA-approved drugs, reviewing top drug candidates by Xu and her colleagues determined ketamine held the greatest potential to yield useful insights.
They evaluated the potential clinical effectiveness of ketamine on improving remission rates among patients with cocaine-use disorders by analyzing tens of millions of electronical health records. They found that cocaine-use disorder patients administered ketamine for pain or depression experienced two to four times higher remission rates.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
Wait... isn’t ketamine an addictive recreational drug?
SSSSHHHHHHH....
That one is Big pharma approved, Cocaine isn’t....
yes, how silly of me.
“You are not a horse, You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
compliments of the FDA when they tried to dissuade people from using a useful drug for covid
“ 4X remission rate from ketamine? ”
What’s the baseline remission rate?
So the author advocates replacing one recreational drug with another? I thought the idea behind rehab was to get sober?
And antabuse prevents alcoholics from drinking. But there still are a number of alcoholics who still drink. A pill will never solve the drug crisis because people want to use drugs. They will take the pill an then stop to use again. They will try to use the pill to control their drug use; not stop it. But it won’t work either way.
“That one is Big pharma approved, Cocaine isn’t....”
Merck sells cocaine.
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