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Side effect: gambling

arcticpenguin

Philosopher
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/08/030812073612.htm

ST. PAUL, MN – Excessive gambling could be an unfortunate yet rare side effect in Parkinson's patients who take certain dopamine agonists, according to a study in the August 12 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Researchers at Muhammad Ali Parkinson Research Center in Phoenix, Ariz., examined the data of 1,884 Parkinson's patients who were seen during a one-year period. Nine patients – seven men and two women – were identified with pathological gambling.
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They're putting this out based on 9 patients???
 
Yes, sort of shoddy. Also, later they give other numbers that seem to say there isn't much of an effect.
The rate of pathological gambling found in the 529 subjects taking pramipexole (1.5 percent) is only slightly higher than the reported rate in the general population (.3 to 1.3 percent)
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But then repeat that the 9 people test contradicts the 529 people data. huh?

What I don't understand is, they had these 9 people, but what made them notice that they started gambling? Why would medical doctors notice something like that? Could it be because.... they were looking for something to do with gambling?

And did anyone check if a new casino opened up around the same time they started gambling? :)
 
It's a curious notion.

I'm always intrigued by how some people behave in casinos. They don't behave like human beings. They smoke and push buttons on slot machines, and that is all they do, for hours on end. They behave like robots.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if there's something chemical about this mechanistic behavior. And considering the nature of Parkinson's, it certainly seems like there might be a connection.
 
If it's true it's fascinating, but I'd like to see better science starting with a larger population.
 
arcticpenguin said:
If it's true it's fascinating, but I'd like to see better science starting with a larger population.
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Yeah, I agree. There's probably enough there to justify taking a look, but I'd wonder about a study that reached conclusions based upon a small sample size.
 
Would one extra help AP? ;)

Well, this is the oddity of the global net.

The (divorced) mother of a friend has just recently had neuro surgery in regards to her Parkinson's. I have no idea what if any meds she has been using.

However...her family were shocked to learn last year that she had been losing big on web casino sites. Something in the 150 to $200k range.

The house will be sold soon to cover most of the debt. All savings/assets were already long gone. She will be moving in with a daughter in So. Cal soon I belive.

It seems, keeping her away from a computer is proving difficult. Or at least it was until after the operation(s). She's a bit less ambulatory at least for the time being.

Well, as I said...just a basic odd coincidence. :)
 
Yeah, I saw this yesterday too. I think we need some confirmation before we draw any firm conclusions. But...

Dopamine, in excess, in the brain can cause people to go a little cuckoo. It's involved in much of our reward center neurobiology. It's also a big player in our current understanding of schizophrenia. While this interesting finding may or may not ultimately prove to be true upon further study, I would assume that it will only be so in a small, very susceptible cohort of patients who probably have some yet unknown and specific neurobiological quirk in their brains. Point is, there is some legitimate scientific theory to this and it does (and I'm not at all saying that you didn't imply this and/or don't agree) warrant keeping an eye on.

When it's n (with n being a statistically relevant number) to 0 in a study - any relatively big study - that's always going to pique interest. We like to call such findings, for lack of a better term, an "idiosyncratic" effect. Drugs have even been pulled off the market because of such seemingly small numbers of serious adverse events (SAEs) in relation to the number of people who've actually taken the drug with no problems.

-TT
 
Using just simple Poisson statistics these numbers work out as 8+/-3 people out of 529, or between ~0.9% and 2.1%, perfectly consistent with the norm of 0.3% to 1.3%. They also note that this study was conducted in an area with a large number of gambling establishments. Talk about bias! Have they done control group studies? They should look at Parkinsons patients who aren't on this medication as well as people of the same age group and social situation who don't have Parkinsons. Both control groups should come from the same area as the study group. Otherwise this isn't science, it's just anecdote - `Ooh look, some of our patients gamble too much!'
 
I agree they were looking for something and found it.. I wonder how many of the group craved strawberry jello.. What? They didn't bother to ask?




Ho hum... So much grant money, so little time...
 
One word, my friends: liability. Ultimately, that's all that matters.

'Nuff said.

-TT
 
Brown said:
It's a curious notion.

I'm always intrigued by how some people behave in casinos. They don't behave like human beings. They smoke and push buttons on slot machines, and that is all they do, for hours on end. They behave like robots.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if there's something chemical about this mechanistic behavior. And considering the nature of Parkinson's, it certainly seems like there might be a connection.
Click to expand...

Ditto. I've gone gambling once. I played a nickle slot for all of about 15 minutes, and came away $0.65 richer, which I blew on a coke at a 7-11 on the way home.

The faces on the people gambling just gave me the creeps. They do look like robots, with programmed facial expressions as the machines do their stuff, ending in an occasional part-smile or most often a wince and frown. The people playing table games look a LITTLE MORE human, but are still scary to watch, especially when they mindlessly throw down "another $50" on the next game.

Sorry, took the probability class, never understood the attraction.
 
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