Word: destroyer
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From his experience with hundreds of gunshot victims, Wintemute knows only too well that their wounds are among the hardest for doctors to deal with. The gaping holes torn into the flesh by bullets of any kind can easily destroy major organs, unleash torrents of blood, produce severe infection and in general cause widespread bodily mayhem. Gunshot wounds also account for a major part of the rise in spinal injuries in the U.S.; even the grazing passage of a bullet along the spinal cord can be enough to cause paralysis. Two-thirds of gunshot victims do not live long enough...
...patient can begin the drastic treatment that will destroy bone marrow unless it is certain that the marrow can be replaced. Some have autologous transplants, in which their own marrow is harvested and returned to them later; others must search for allogeneic transplants from donors--usually relatives. But even close relatives do not always have compatible marrow. In recent years about two-thirds of all patients needing allogeneic transplants have sought unrelated donors...
They were right. Iproniazid is what is known as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAO). In the brain, scientists have subsequently learned, monoamine oxidase's job is to destroy leftover neurotransmitters that are floating around loose after they have done their work. By inhibiting the action of monoamine oxidase, drugs like iproniazid let neurotransmitters circulate and keep stimulating neurons longer than they normally would. An extended soaking in serotonin and norepinephrine evidently made for a happier patient, and MAO inhibitors became the first antidepressants...
Another line of investigation revealed that serotonin may play a role in sleep. Destroy the raphe nuclei in cats, and they develop permanent and total insomnia. Give the wakeful cats a shot of serotonin, and they immediately go to sleep. In humans the amino acid L-tryptophan, which is converted to serotonin in the brain, is sometimes used as a sleeping pill. (A bad batch of L-tryptophan killed several people in the late 1980s and effectively killed the craze.) In another experiment, researchers discovered that when they stimulated raphe cells to release extra serotonin not in the brain...
...Redux has serious potential side effects. One is primary pulmonary hypertension, a rare form of high blood pressure that strikes the blood vessels of the lungs. Another, considered even more serious by some of Redux's critics, was the possibility of brain damage. When fed to monkeys, dexfenfluramine can destroy neurons. Says John Harvey of the Allegheny University of Health Sciences in Philadelphia, who edits the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics: "Any of us who were pharmacologists knew this was a dirty drug. None of us was surprised...