Abstract
The negative symptoms of schizophrenia represent an impairment of normal emotional responses, thought processes and behaviors, and include blunting or flattening of affect, alogia/aprosody, avolition/apathy, anhedonia, and asociality. Negative symptoms contribute to a reduced quality of life, increased functional disability, increased burden of illness, and poorer long-term outcomes, to a greater degree than positive symptoms. Primary negative symptoms are prominent and persistent in up to 26% of patients with schizophrenia, and they are estimated to occur in up to 58% of outpatients at any given time. Negative symptoms respond less well to medications than positive symptoms, and to date treatment options for negative symptoms have been limited, with no accepted standard treatment. Modest benefits have been reported with a variety of different agents, including second-generation antipsychotics and add-on therapy with antidepressants and other pharmacological classes. Recent clinical research focusing on negative symptoms target novel biological systems, such as glutamatergic neurotransmission. Different approaches include: enhancing N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor function with agents that bind directly to the glycine ligand site or with glycine reuptake inhibitors; influencing the metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR2/3) with positive allosteric modulators; and stimulating nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. In conclusion, the lack of clearly efficacious pharmacological treatments for the management of negative symptoms represents a significant unmet need, especially considering the importance of these symptoms on patient outcomes. Hence, further research to identify and characterize novel pharmacological treatments for negative symptoms is greatly needed.
Chue P, LaLonde JK (2014). “Addressing the unmet needs of patients with persistent negative symptoms of schizophrenia: emerging pharmacological treatment options”. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 10: 777–89. PMC 4020880.
I’m a bit concerned that this is a hormone, and it is a hormone that makes all the other hormones, including estrogen. What could be the long term effects of this? Especially since I am a woman on anti psychotics. It only remains to be seen whether I won’t need any anti psychotics if I am on pregnenolone. I am already on this pregnenolone. I think I need to at least talk to my pdoc and primary care doc about it and get their okay.
I’ve been reading that the company that makes Mars candy bars, has discovered that the substance, cocoa flavonol, at 900 mg. per cup of hot cocoa, actually substantially improves memory, according to recent research testing done by Mars. All of their test subjects, who were all 50-80 years of age, substantially improved their scores in memory after drinking a cup of hot cocoa with high concentrations of the substance, cocoa flavonol. The control subjects who drank none or lower concentrations did not improve their memory scores. So, chocolate is actually good for your brain. But, no one can drink enough of it naturally.
www.Pipingrock.com has some good quality pregnenolone and is really affordable. They also sell the L-theanine supplements which one study is using right now in conjunction with preg to evaluate synergistic effects of both together. Piping rock guarantees potency and quality.
It also helps with THC intoxication, I tested that and smoked some, I became real slow thinking and loud thoughts, but I took a few more 50 mg doses and eventually the deficits caused by the THC went away, but I had to keep high doses for a week. Usually with high doses I get headaches, but the THC effect is the opposite of head ache it is head numb. Lesson learned, THC causes cognitive deficit in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The little fun it gives you for a while is not worth the deficits.
I’ve been on 50 mg of pregnenolone every day for about a month now and I’ve noticed that my full, thick hair is now thin and lifeless. I’ve been reading about this hormone on the internet and I’ve found that pregnenelone causes hair loss. So be aware of that every body.
One Dr. on the internet said that this hormone is not safe to take. Another said it is not safe to take over the long term.
I’ve also noticed since taking 50mg of this every day over the last month or so, my mood has become alternately either quite irritable and even angry in public at times or loud and expansive. Even though my pdoc doubled my Seroquel in response to this news, I still seem to be a bit loud and expansive. I was not at all like this before the pregnenelone. My mood had been very level and even for years. I know that hormones can alter your moods so it was most likely the pregnenelone. I think that if you are susceptible to mood symptoms, you should think twice before taking this drug. I threw my bottle of pregnenelone in the trash.
I called my local Walgreen’s pharmacist to ask how long it would take for this pregnenelone to clear my system, and she told me that this drug is not F.D.A. approved, so, she has no information on it. And that no information has been verified on it. Which means, as good as the early research might look, it hasn’t been verified by Food and Drug Administration standards yet, and therefore, is still risky to tamper with.
Well - its a dietary supplement - and not being sold as a drug so the FDA will never “verify” it.
As a general rule in the US - the FDA does not regulate or test any dietary supplements. Its all “buyer beware” - and stop using it if you don’t think its being helpful.
Does anybody know how long it takes for this drug to completely leave the body? I thought I heard a day or two, but I’m not sure. I know hormones can stay in the body for some time.
Now I can’t seem to get motivated. I stand around and think about doing things instead of doing them. Like I was before. Which is worse? Yelling at people in public, and being nasty to people in public, or this?