Re: blood-vessel growth , hormones..veins or tissue growth

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sat Aug 14 1999 - 14:37:56 MDT


Gabriele Betti <lbetti@dinonet.it> writes:

> For example is there any way of taking any hormone to make my veins
> stronger, since I read they made a cure to let nw veins or tissues grow for
> people that need them?

I think what you read about was tissue engineering, where you grow
tissues outside the body using cell cultures in nutrient
solutions. This is a bit different from what you are asking for; my
guess is that there are treatments that may improve the lining of the
veins, although I'm not knowledgeable to say anything about it.

> Is there any way to improve my health or avoid any problem by taking
> hormones: teeth loss, memory, cancer, hearth...

OK, when it comes to memory I can give some authoritative answers:
adrenaline does improve memory encoding when given in the right dose
(above that, the effects become distracting). However, this is likely
mostly useful for short-term effects. Some other stress hormones like
ACTH also have positive memory effects, even if the corticosteroids
(long term stress hormones) tends to impair memory. Outside these,
estrogen has been shown to have positive effects on memory in
women. Vassopressin *may* be useful, but I have not yet seen any clear
studies showing its usability.

Most likely we can help ourselves a lot by tuning our hormonal
systems, but it is often complex and tricky.

(However, I can attest that melatonin works wonderfully against
jet-lag: it took one single dose after coming back from Extro to
normalize my diurnal rhythm)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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