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aloneinthesky

questions about adrenaline

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First off, sit in a freshman biology class and ask 400 students how many are premed 390 will raise their hand. Probably 20 of those, if that, will not give up, get discouraged, or simply not make it in to med school. And havent you ever head, 62% of statistics are just made up anyway :P

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Great topic, I just had adrenergic drugs last friday in Pharm, so here a few adverse effects of epinephrine (aka adrenaline)

*Central Nervous System - Cerebral hemorrhage - i.e., stroke (from marked elevation in blood pressure), anxiety, tremors, fear, headache, tension, etc..
*Cardiovascular - Hypertension(see above), ventricular arrhytmia, tachycadia (sinus), anginal pain, palpitations, etc...
*Lungs - Pulmonary edema

Thats all I remember, need to go study... but procrastination is so gooood

so it could end your life or debilitate you if you're in the habit of getting shots of epi. , but not from endogeneous production.

Your friend is sorta kinda right, in a completely clueless wrong way. :P




Yeah. Epinepherine is released in many situations by the body, including exercise--one of the major Healthy People 2010 focus areas. All of the effects you mentioned are possibilities, but as you said I don't see them occuring (atleast not in most reasonably healthy people) from endogenous production of epinepherine and its normal effects on the body. However, it can and does happen to people (mostly those with pre-existing conditions), just like in the case where someone is literally 'scared' to death (MI from sudden surge in epi and subsequent increase in BP, HR, etc), gets extremely angry and has a heart attack, things of that nature, but I doubt epinepherine is the sole chemical responsible for changes in the body in those situations. Epinepherine surges during exercise, so what this lady said could be applied to going jogging just as well as skydiving.

So, it COULD happen, but most likely if the effects of the adrenaline rush were going to shorten your life, it would do so by a single quick insult, like an MI, CVA, or something along those lines. The minutes off your life thing is absurd, and I can't believe someone backed that statement with 'I'm pre-med.'

FYI, a person could consider themselves 'pre-med' for a semester by taking nothing but art history classes and one chemistry or physics class. Pre-med is exactly that, its pre-any true medical knowledge.

The only long lasting effect I could think of from jumping would possibly be hypertension, but the amount of stress-relief that many seem to get from it almost makes me thing the hypertension would be fleeting. However it could be a problem for a weak heart.

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First off, sit in a freshman biology class and ask 400 students how many are premed 390 will raise their hand. Probably 20 of those, if that, will not give up, get discouraged, or simply not make it in to med school. And havent you ever head, 62% of statistics are just made up anyway :P



I can play.

50% of the campus population was pre-med. 40% were pre-law (this was early 90s). 10% of us enjoyed the easier curve from the 40%. These days the law is a bit less exciting/profitable so I imagine it's more like 60-20-20 now.

The medical world has done a very good job artificially restricting the supply of doctors. Law schools, otoh, got greedy.

She should have said "I'm a resident." If someone told me they were right because they were pre-med, I'd bust out laughing.

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She should have said "I'm a resident." If someone told me they were right because they were pre-med, I'd bust out laughing.



Seriously. I can still remember how brilliant(ly ignorant) about the law my fellow "prelaw" students and I were when we were undergrads.

I'm not an engineer, and I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express; but I do read kallend and billvon on DZ.com. Ask me anything about quantum physics or mechanics. Anything at all. I've got it nailed.

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i was at the bank the other day and one of the tellers told me that everytime your adrenaline rushes it takes 2-5 minutes off your life. i told her that was hard to believe and she came back with "im a pre-med major". Has anyone ever heard this? its hard for me to fully believe that. does anyone else believe that



Not true if your adrenaline comes from skydiving, 3-way sex, base jumping, downhilling, scubadiving, rafting, etc. Maybe true if it comes from negative things. Enjoy! ;)

MD
Gonzalo

It cannot be done really means I do not know how to do it ... yet

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If you go by the limited-number-of-heart-contractions theory, it probably has some validity. Slowing your metabolism is about the only way we know to reliably extend your lifetime; restricting caloric intake can accomplish this, and does extend lifetime in rats and mice. Increasing your metabolism (as happens during high stress events) could be reasonably expected to decrease lifespan somewhat.
....



Bill's is the best answer I think.

And, if we look at the math: there are 1 x 365 x 24 x 60 minutes in a year. If we count each jump as "an instance" of adrenaline rush taking 5 minutes off your lifespan, you'd have to jump

1 x 365 x 24 x 60 / 5 = 105,120 times at a minimum to take a year off your life.

p.s. what in the world were you doing inside a bank?
AMDG

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i was at the bank the other day and one of the tellers told me that everytime your adrenaline rushes it takes 2-5 minutes off your life. i told her that was hard to believe and she came back with "im a pre-med major". Has anyone ever heard this? its hard for me to fully believe that. does anyone else believe that



pretty interesting but what's more interestig is that she'll most likely end up being a teller for the rest of her life and lose 2-5 years off her life due to stress caused by her failure. trust me, i've seen ER and House.

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