Posted by med_empowered on September 29, 2005, at 18:53:58
In reply to Re: Does Ectasy Cause Brain Damage and Depression? » SLS, posted by Phillipa on September 29, 2005, at 17:30:32
Ecstasy might cause brain damage but...there's a good bit of debate. The early studies on the effects of E were focused on poly-drug users; they also made liberal use of post-mortem examination of the brain's of these people,without controlling for the ill-effects of other drugs (ex:methamphetamine, cocaine, etc) or illnesses, poor nutrition (common with polydrug users), or injuries. Ecstasy can cause overheating--its always a good idea to drink lots and lots of water if you choose to do it. The biggest problem, though, has been purity; apparently, a number people have died because they were given fake ecstasy that contained dangerous substances. There's research now on using Ecstasy in cases of severe PTSD...I think there is some data on using it in cases of depression, but I'm not sure of that. Anyway, there usually is a pretty sharp drop in mood for a bit after using Ecstasy, but most people recover...in cases where depression does develop, it could be the ecstasy, or it could be the post-ecstasy blues combined with environmental factors and/or pre-existing problems (since people with mood disorder are more likely to use drugs anyway, the odds that drugs will cause problems in these people is probably higher than with the rest of the population).
poster:med_empowered
thread:560483
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050927/msgs/561072.html