This thread is for the exploration of potential negative biological effects associated with pheromone testing. Here I'd like to collect experiences of actual negative physical or psychological effects, as well as theoretical speculation as to why some molecules may exhibit toxic effects.
Social effects, like getting beat up when wearing high doses of Androstanone, are beyond the scope of this thread.
Phillipus Auroleus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (I love that name! Friends called him Paracelcus for short) expressed the fundamental idea in toxicology when he said this back in the 16th century.
Quote:Alle Dinge sind Gift und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die Dosis macht, dass ein Ding kein Gift ist.
translation - "All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison."
Too much of anything is bad for you, and the essential question is how much is too much. A couple of examples. If you can eat a pound of salt and keep it down it will kill you. Similarly if you drink a few gallons of water it will upset your electrolyte balance and you will die. Mentally ill people have indeed done such things and died from it. However, both salt and water are essential to our survival, in appropriate doses.
It is normal for a dose-response curve to show beneficial effects at one level, and detrimental effects at another level. Most, and possibly all, chemicals exhibit these properties. One bit of falacious reasoning often used by politicians or policymakers is called the linear no-threshhold hypothesis. This hypothesis holds that if a lagre quantity of something produces a detrimental effect, a proportionally smaller quantity will produce a proprotionally smaller detrimental effect. Above I've given the examples of salt and water where this is not true. Policymakers think they are playing it safe by using this approach, but actually they are just being wrong.
One of the reasons the approach above is wrong is the presence of threshholds for many effects. Let's use the old practice of pressing witches to death for an example. You get a witch lay them down, and pile on bricks until the witch expires. Death is caused by the crushing of the ribs and inability to breathe. Say it takes 300 bricks to achieve this effect. Does this mean if you take 300 people and place 1 brick on each of their chests one of the 300 will die? We don't see that, because the threshhold where the ribs are broken and the lungs collapse is never even approached with a single brick.
Dose response curves vary from individual to individual. What is toxic for one individual may be fine for another. This is a major challenge in toxicology and product liability.
When considering pheromones, we need to consider both psychological and physical effects. For instance, if a smell causes an emotional response there are likely to be physiological indicators, like increased heart rate and respiration.
Intake pathways also bear consideration. It is possible for something to be completely harmless if you smell it, but if it is put onto the skin and absorbed into the blood it might be dangerous or cause other effects.
With that long winded introduction out of the way, here are a couple of observations to get us started.
From Diane in another thread.
(10-22-2009 8:39 PM)Diane999 Wrote: Stess steroids are corticosteroids. They are released in the body only during periods of prolonged or intense stress. Some of these, if overused or overstimulated, can cause neuronal loss.
This is worth exploring. I experienced such effects during a time of emotional trauma, and looked into them at that time. The physiology of the brain does indeed change under long periods of stress, and the change can be permanent. PTSD and similar disorders are a manifestation of this effect. Questions for our exploration would be if smelling molecules induce similar long term stressors, or lead to heightened blood levels of corticosteroids. Another question would be if putting such chemicals on one's skin as a pheromone product could lead to direct absorption into the blood and potentially dangerous blood levels via that route.
Another tidbit from Diane
(10-22-2009 10:48 PM)Diane999 Wrote: ...in my experience with some of the "mystery" chemicals, I don't feel some of them are safe at all to use if you have a heart condition or are prone to PTSD reactions. Now that is just my opinion, but also my reaction. P84, P100, P107 are three I can name off the top of my head that I would never use again at any concentration because my own physical reactions were so alarming.
Diane, can you list the observed reactions indiviually by putative? Would you care to speculate as to psychological components of the reaction?
Finally, an observation of experience of Mrs. Gone with a314. I wear this quite a bit and neither I nor she experience negative reactions when it is on me. However, on a couple of occasions when we have applied a drop to her skin, she has experienced anxiety and increased heart rate. Since she does not experience this when she smells it on me I am led to believe that something absorbed through the skin creates this reaction. She finds it uncomfortable and thus does not wear a314 any more. Other than temporary discomfort, no other detrimental effects were observed.
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