About narcan vs naltrexone I had the same thought, wondering what the difference was. There are 3 opioid receptors, mu kappa beta or something like that, narcan binds strongly to all 3 I was told, while naltrexone strongly binds 2 weakly binds the third
The metabolism study u link states :By these data we can hypothesise a complex regulatory role of opioids in metabolic balance in obesity.
So it's still related to opioids. Also I wanna mention tak242 the drug earlier it's said to be highly selective, with little off target activity but they say there is always off target activity, and due to the presence of some chemical structure it causes methemoglobinemia
Interesting that you bring up naltrexone having other properties elsewhere, I guess there's always a lot going on with any drug isn't there. I didn't look deeply into it but there are links to hgh and fertility too somehow.
Re antidepressants, depression is related to inflammation too somehow, panadol apparently can relieve depression. I am not sure I believe in the lack of neurotransmitter theory for depression, even though I know nothing about it, because if it was true why are we not measuring it to diagnose?
It is interesting isn't it. My note re: the antidepressants analogy was really to note that the 'spiel' tends to always infer specific, where there are a lot of antidepressants these days that are used off-label or for other purposes. So I'm intrigued to be open-minded to the potential that given we are talking 'low dose' (so not blocking 'all' or 'nearly all' receptors which would be the purpose used for the Narcan type use) could there be the likelihood that it isn't necessarily opioid-receptor in brain effects only that are leading to the effects for those it is working well for.
I just wondered whether turning method on its head and looking at those who it genuinely does seem to work well with (rather than the usual 'representative sample' jump in with a trial before narrowing down with exploratory research [method often used in research areas outside of medicine]) and seeing 'how' for those might give us more clues. Particularly given the individualised dosage issue and - I don't know enough whether there is half-life or anything like that - there might be some clues there in seeing 'the effect' and finding out more qualitatively about 'in who' and 'how'.