The Medical Thread

Maybe. Do you they typically use retroviruses in gene therapy?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Yes. Other DNA viruses aren't stable enough across cell divisions or don't integrate. Non-viruses cannot be spread in a live body as well as viruses.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

So Dr. Erskine pretty much invented gene therapy decades earlier than IRL.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Crossposting from US politics, since it involves both subjects to an extent,

In a minor bit of good news Bernie Sanders is now spearheading an investigation into Insulin manufacturers.

In the last two years or so rDNA insulin (insulin produced by genetically modified e. coli bacteria) had risen from around 120 dollars a vial to nearly 500 for certain varieties (and most people on these drugs need multiple vials per month). It's apparently been leaked that the manufacturers (bitter rivals on the surface) have been allegedly colluding with one another to fix the prices. Due to some finicky rules/loopholes with patent laws surrounding genetically engineered organisms and drugs synthesized from them (that I admittedly have little understanding of) no generic versions of these drugs exist. Without these drugs, tens of millions would die, so they are essentially enslaved to the pharmaceutical company producing them to pay for them by any means necessary to survive.

Is there a way to check on your blood sugar without equipment or such?

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

Not really. There are urinalysis strips that change color if there's excess glucose in the urine but they're pretty useless. Lancets and blood glucose test meters are the over the counter go-to for diabetics and hypoglycemics.

Barring self administering those I'm fairly certain most walk-in clinics and the like can perform a test (using pretty much the same over the counter equipment but probably charging you a good $100+ if you live in the USA).

edited 9th Nov '16 7:18:14 PM by carbon-mantis

Alright, how long does it take for your blood sugar to lower if you avoid sugary drinks and snacks?

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

Infinite amount of time? The human body has strong regulatory mechanisms to stabilize blood sugar levels and can create glucose de novo if it doesn't come in through the food.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

If someone is asking about blood sugar it probably means they have one of those conditions that prevents the body from regulating its own sugar.

Actually, it's because I'm on a diet because I'm either 1 or .1 from getting diabetes so I want to know how long it'll take before I can eat a FUCKING Mc Donalds!

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

Eating fast food in moderation won't give you anything that you don't already have, one meal or drink means nothing.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Remember that carbohydrates=sugar when dealing with blood sugar levels and reading food labels; starch just takes a little longer to break down and absorb than pure sugar does.

I know a frightening number of people with type-2 diabetes who were never taught this and suffer for it because they only associate elevated blood sugar levels with raw sugar and happily gorge on starch-rich foods.

What would happen if you somehow manage to induce apoptosis on a person's entire body?

You see, Detective Conan ends its first chapter/episode with the protagonist being fed the fictional poison/toxin APTX 4869, whose effect is described as forcibly inducing apoptosis in the cells of the victim's entire body and somehow leave nothing traceable for an autopsy; fortunately for him, he's ends up winning the Million to One Chance and only de-ages by about 10 years instead of dying ^note common fanon interprets this as well as some other bits of canon as "proof" that APTX 4869 was originally developed as an attempt at a Fountain of Youth medicine, but the seeming 100% mortality caused it to be repurposed as a sure-kill, untraceable murder weapon..

The thing is... NightmareFuel.Detective Conan raises a good point in the absence of expert knowledge: If all cells are forced to die, then wouldn't there be little to nothing left for anyone to find in the middle of the victim's pile of clothes?

Thus here I am, having brought up the question at the beginning of this post.

edited 9th Jan '17 7:54:58 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

The body would dissolve into milk, with a skeleton and extracellular matrices remaining. It would look like a shriveled corpse with intact skin oozing a milky liquid.

Yes, really. If a cell undergoes apoptosis, the cell falls apart into separate blebs, which are basically sacks of lipids filled with cytoplasm and floating in the intercellular fluid. Milk similarly consists of droplets of fat in a liquid, so it'd have a similar consistency.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

... Eaaaaaaghhhhhh. Shin'ichi Kudou and Shiho Miyano (the only two Detective Conan characters to be shown to have taken APTX 4869, and conveniently the only two in the toxin's history of use known to have survived at all) are extremely lucky, then. For the record, the former had a mental monologue in the first episode while he was experiencing the toxin's effects, and in his own words, he felt like his bones were melting away. Would that be plausible as a possible description of what body-wide apoptosis may feel like?

Also, APTX 4869-induced de-aging is preceded by a substantial rise in body temperature; is that a plausible side-effect of body-wide apoptosis?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

A rise in body temperature is going to cause hyperthermia, not de-aging. That is notvplausible at all. Bones melting is also wrong.

Increased temperature (from SIRS) is a plausible effect of excessive apoptosis though, as such massive apoptosis would overwhelm efferocytosis and trigger an inflammatory response.

edited 9th Jan '17 11:42:32 AM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Nobody said anything about the de-aging being caused by the rise in body temperature. Both are independent co-symptoms of the root cause, which is whatever it is that the toxin is doing to the body.

... Well, to be fair, it's not like anyone would have first-hand experience of what it truly feels like to have one's bone melting. He was in extreme body-wide agony and felt dangerously hot all over his body, that's for certain; that combination plus his general dizziness and inability to move seem to be sufficient cause for him to panick and reach horrific (though probably inaccurate) conclusions about what's happening to him.

Yeah, it makes sense that the immune system would go crazy under such conditions.

Incidentally, it just so happens that the in-universe prototype antidote developed for this toxin (and only works temporarily) seems to work best if the subject is suffering from common cold symptoms ^note You can even get the same result by taking another made-up drug that induces fake cold symptoms before taking the antidote. No, I have no idea how "inducing a fake cold" works, and I suspect it's a case of breaking from reality for the sake of the story., implying that an increase in immune activity is a positive influence on the antitode's effectiveness.

edited 9th Jan '17 1:53:26 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Seems like your toxin may be some kind of NK cell stimulator, then. Or something that works through interferon signaling.

Incidentally, de-aging can be done with apoptosis; aged cells usually express INK4A and targeting the diptheria toxin active factor to such cells has been used to rejuvenate bodies. In terms of frailty, not size, though.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Ah, but then apoptosis destroys cells, doesn't it? So perhaps the de-aging effect is due to an ununsually controlled form of apoptosis that stops at a certain point, which is more or less the same for each individual organ. (Yeah, probably a weak Hand Wave, but it's the best I could come up with in the absence of Gosho Aoyama giving Word of God on the matter. He's surprisingly consistent when it comes to the effects of real-life drugs and poisons such as cyanide, which are frequently used as murder weapons in Detective Conan.)

Note: It's canonical fact that in Shin'ichi Kudou and Shiho Miyano's cases, the apoptosis curiously does not affect the nervous system at all. (Yes, I did raise my eyebrow at that, because the nervous system does not remain at a constant size throughout a person's growth from childhood to adulthood, or even to adolescence. The only possible interpretation of that statement that could be even remotely logical is that the apoptosis is very minimal when it comes to the nervous system.)

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

De-aging can more plausibly be done with autophagy, however. The brain has high apoptotic tresholds so it being spared actually makes sense.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

How about combining both apoptosis and autophagy? Like, induce apoptosis in the cells to be consumed by sister-cells?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

That's efferocytosis then and not autophagy - the "auto" is not there for decoration. Moreover, killing off all postmitotic cells (heart, muscle and brain, for example) is a bad thing.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Yup. Even butterflies don't go in for the "dissolve absolutely everything" model when pupating from caterpillars (although mostly an appetite on legs, caterpillars can learn things which carry over). You still need an inviolable control box in charge of select blobs which guide what does get broken down and reformed. <_<

edited 9th Jan '17 3:50:07 PM by Euodiachloris

How much would it hurt to get 300 degree water down your throat? What would be the symptoms if somebody did an autopsy on you?

The same questions go for liquid nitrogen.

Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.

Both of these would result in severe burn injuries to the paths that the liquids passed through. I suspect that it would not hurt much as the nerve endings would be destroyed.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman