ORAC
6th Apr 2003, 04:39
New Scientist - Gulf war syndrome research reveals present danger (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993546).
Hopefully the threat is now past, but I'd suggest anyone out there only take NAPS tablets in a life threatening situation. ( NAPS tablets = Pyridostigmine Bromide)
"Syndrome 2 veterans were also around eight times as likely as healthy comrades to have reacted badly to pyridostigmine, a drug given to soldiers in the Gulf, then and now, to protect against nerve agent attacks. In troops who were both exposed to nerve agent and showed side effects to the drug, the risk of long-term ill effects was five times the risk conferred by each factor separately.
The link, says Haley, is that chemical weapons, and the drug that protects against them, affect the same physiological pathway. Nerve gas sends muscles into fatal spasm by blocking an enzyme that destroys acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that makes muscles contract. In theory, pyridostigmine protects by blocking the enzyme for a short time, keeping nerve agents from binding to it permanently.
But some people may not be able to cope with having the enzyme blocked at all."
Hopefully the threat is now past, but I'd suggest anyone out there only take NAPS tablets in a life threatening situation. ( NAPS tablets = Pyridostigmine Bromide)
"Syndrome 2 veterans were also around eight times as likely as healthy comrades to have reacted badly to pyridostigmine, a drug given to soldiers in the Gulf, then and now, to protect against nerve agent attacks. In troops who were both exposed to nerve agent and showed side effects to the drug, the risk of long-term ill effects was five times the risk conferred by each factor separately.
The link, says Haley, is that chemical weapons, and the drug that protects against them, affect the same physiological pathway. Nerve gas sends muscles into fatal spasm by blocking an enzyme that destroys acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that makes muscles contract. In theory, pyridostigmine protects by blocking the enzyme for a short time, keeping nerve agents from binding to it permanently.
But some people may not be able to cope with having the enzyme blocked at all."