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MostCuriousExplorer t1_j44ngls wrote

Reply to comment by PEVEI in where does epinephrine comes from? The one used for people with allergies because Google only says It comes from glands so I don't understand if it's donated or sintethized by other means. by SALAMI_21

Obviously it can’t be ethically sourced from humans in mass production, but are the effects of human-human epinephrine transfusions the same as sheep/cattle?

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EmilyU1F984 t1_j451u2q wrote

Epinephrine is a small molecule. It doesn‘t matter where you get it from. If it is pure it is identical.

Doesn‘t matter what animal, planet or universe you get it from.

Insulin for example is different, because that‘s just a class of peptide hormones, not a specific one. Meaning human insulin is slightly different from say a pigs insulin. It still works the same on insulin receptors, but it‘s different enough that sometimes your immunesystem might go ‚wsit, this doesn‘t look right, let’s destroy it‘.

But you can also make human insulin through genetic engineering from E. coli bacteria or yeast, that molecule will be identical to the insulin your body produces.

Just modern insulins are modified more heavily, cause actual human insulin only works well if it’s secreted continuously at the correct levels. And not just once you eat food/measure your sugar levels.

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Chemputer t1_j44xjsq wrote

I mean... Epinephrine is epinephrine. It looks like this regardless of if it comes from a cow, a sheep, a human, a lizard, or synthesized in a lab.

I suppose it's like asked if caffeine in a Coke has a different effect to that of caffeine in a Pepsi. No, it's caffeine. Provided the dosage is the same, it's identical (barring tolerance and something weird like the molecule degrading to not be caffeine anymore.)

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MostCuriousExplorer t1_j4525zh wrote

I just assumed there’d be different degrees of potency based on size & potentially even chemical composition.

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Seicair t1_j46lt0m wrote

It’s this, just barely down the wiki page they linked. That’s it, that’s the chemical composition of adrenaline, no matter where it comes from. I don’t know what you mean by size.

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Nago_Jolokio t1_j46rx8j wrote

It's easy to assume a bigger animal means a bigger molecule size. But in the case of hormones, it just means there's a heck of a lot more of it.

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charlesfire t1_j46txx0 wrote

Bigger animals have more cells, not bigger ones. Why would it be different for molecules?

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MetricJester t1_j452ct3 wrote

You say that, but the glucose derived from sugar cane gives me an allergic reaction that the glucose derived from other plants do not. I am allergic to sugar cane.

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Kriggy_ t1_j454aua wrote

Likely because it was not pure enough and contained traces of dtuff that makes you react to it. Glucose is glucose no matter the source

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StingerAE t1_j45sg1f wrote

Isn't cane sugar sucrose anyway?

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Chemputer t1_j45z8at wrote

Yes, but he said derived from sugar cane, so you take cane sugar, sucrose, which can then be (either by your body or through industrial processes, usually using enzymes) split into fructose and glucose.

Like the other poster said, it's impurities in that from the cane sugar that would cause that, not the glucose itself. To put it mildly, if you're allergic to glucose, I don't think you could live. (Yes, the body can digest other forms of sugar for energy, but energy storage is done as glycogen which is a linked branching polymer of glucose molecules, and when it releases those from storage, it's glucose.)

The processes involved in extracting sucrose from cane sugar and then breaking it down into it's components, fructose and glucose, and then purifying just the glucose are likely not set up to purify it to 99% purity. Obviously, if they did have glucose from cane sugar that was purified to a significant enough degree (say 99.99% or LCMS grade), they'd get no allergic reaction to it unless it was nocebo/psychosomatic.

I mean, it's like saying you're allergic to the letter L in light but not in any other word. It's ridiculous. The letter L is the letter L, glucose is glucose, therefore glucose cannot be responsible for their allergy.

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StingerAE t1_j463b3t wrote

Yeah, I realise it is ridiculous. I just want sure is they had understood and meant what they said. Why would anyone source glucose that way? The fact sucrose from sugar cane would need processing and into glucose is the craziest part.

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Chemputer t1_j466ha9 wrote

Because it's an easy source of glucose. You have to process something into glucose, it isn't a naturally occurring sugar in large quantities in plants, so since sucrose is literally just glucose and fructose stuck together, why wouldn't you? It's one of the many ways it's made at industrial scale efficiently.

This short article describes the process and the various feedstocks commonly used, if you're curious.

Edit: While the most dominant feedstock is starch, processed sugarcane (i.e. once the sugar has been largely removed) is used as a feedstock for glucose since it would otherwise just go to waste. Interesting research article here.

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shadowyams t1_j44pu6c wrote

At least for insulin, which used to be harvested from pig and cow pancreases, the use of animal insulin caused allergic reactions in many diabetes patients. I’d assume there’d be similar immune problems with animal epinephrine.

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propargyl t1_j44vama wrote

Insulin is a peptide hormone. The human insulin protein is composed of 51 amino acids, and has a molecular mass of 5808 Da.

Epinephrine is a small molecule, and has a molecular mass of 183 Da.

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EmilyU1F984 t1_j4528z0 wrote

Nah, that‘s crap.

Insulin is a group of hormones. Not any specific molecule.

Epinephrine is a specific molecule.

There cannot physically be any immune problems, assuming it is pure, and any reaction would not be to the epinephrine but contaminants.

Insulin however is all peptides that work on insulin receptors in their specific animals.

Bovine insulin is physically different to human insulins. Three amino acids are completely different of the 51 that make up insulin.

And thus with bad luck, the immune system can detect it as foreign.

If you genetically engineered a cow to produce human insulin; the extracted insulin would not cause allergic reactions if sufficiently purified.

Class of drugs and specific molecules are the important point here.

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