With the drug industry’s rush to develop new Alzheimer’s drugs, are we in for a flood of “off label” uses for such medications?
Future of the Human Body
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Doctors are being asked increasingly by healthy people to prescribe Ritalin and other “cognitive enhancers” that boost their mental abilities—believing such drugs will give them an edge in the office or classroom. Treating genuine sufferers of Alzheimer’s or attention-deficit disorder this way is one thing, but no-one knows how such drugs affect the brain’s delicate chemistry over the long term. Will social pressures force the rest of us to medicate ourselves to compete and appear “normal”?
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Listen to the podcast: Wired for action
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 Approx. 12 mins |
Dr Colin Blakemore, head of the UK's Medical Research Council, discusses the social and medical implications of normal people taking cognitive-enhancing drugs, including even caffeine.
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I think that its very dangerous to use drugs for purposes other than what they were specifically designed to do. Its been reported that kids without Alzheimers are being fed these drugs to ensure they learn quicker which I must admit is appalling but I agree that we have no idea what the long term effects of these drugs will have.
Total Posts: 2 - Pages (1): [1]