i can't help myself. so, now we are inferring the
presence of an association based on THREE people. and,
as if that weren't bad enough,  two of them gambled
before taking a DA - AND continued to gamble
afterwards - and the average time they had been on a
DA at the time of the increase in gambling was 9.3
months, and that is considered a close temporal
association - 9.3 months from having started?

AND as usual, the "evidence" that this was
pathological gambling takes the form of dollars lost,
which, if you look up the definition of PG, is not a
criterion - think about it - one could gamble away
one's life savings in one sitting - making the dollar
amount the measure of the degree of the problem is
ludicrous. pathological gambling is about addiction,
not about quantity lost.

AND even if money lost were a valid measure, one of
the three people they include lost a whopping $750 -
in a year!!! gee, that would be $150 in each of five
gambling sessions over a 52 week period - does that
sound like a major league problem to you? doesn't to
me, which would mean they are really basing their
assertion on TWO people! and it makes it  into the
newspaper - and onto this list. this is crazy.

and just for the record, please note that the
incidence of gambling cited for the general population
in this article is 1.93%. the very first gambling
study, the one that started this whole mess, found an
incidence of gambling among those taking mirapex of
1.5% - almost a half a percent LOWER - i said LOWER -
than that of the general population as cited in this
article.

There is zero anecdotal evidence of this problem on
this list prior to Maryse asking people, in 2002, if
they had heard about it. No one had.

Maryse prefaced her question by saying that there had
been talk about it on the CARE list - she said it had
been discussed for 6-7 years, and many pointed to DAs
as the culprit.

However, in reality, aside from one person who heard
about it at a 2001 seminar by the author who would
eventually publish the first study (as with the PIENO
list, no one else had noticed or heard anything about
it), the only person talking about a “problem” along
these lines on the CARE list prior to Maryse’s
mentioning it on this list was Maryse, like, once, and
on that list she said she had heard about it on the
french list.

i am sorry to have lost it a little bit here, but good
lord, surely folks can see that these assertions are
*completely* unsupported.

this is mind boggling.



--- "M.Schild" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Pathologic Gambling Seen in RLS Patients Treated
> With Dopamine Agonists
>
>
>
>
>   NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jan 31 - Impulsive
> behavior sometimes seen with
> dopamine agonist therapy may affect patients other
> than those with
> Parkinson's disease. Patients with restless legs
> syndrome (RLS) who are
> treated with dopamine agonists may be at increased
> risk for pathologic
> gambling, according to a report in the January issue
> of Neurology.
> "A recent meta-analysis evaluating the available
> literature reported a
> lifetime prevalence of pathologic gambling in the
> general U.S. population of
> 1.93%," Dr. M. Tippmann-Peikert and colleagues from
> the Mayo Clinic College
> of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, write in the
> January issue of Neurology.
> "A similar or even higher frequency has been
> suggested in patients with
> Parkinson's disease (PD) treated with dopamine
> agonists."
> In the current study, the researchers report on
> three patients -- two
> middle-aged women and an older man -- with restless
> legs syndrome who
> developed pathologic gambling while being treated
> with dopamine agonists.
> None of the patients had signs of parkinsonism on
> neurologic examination, and
> none was aware of the reported link between dopamine
> agonists and pathologic
> gambling in PD patients. One of the patients had no
> gambling experience prior
> to dopamine agonist therapy, while two had minor
> pre-existing recreational
> gambling experience.
> At the time gambling commenced or worsened, the
> three patients were on a mean
> dose of pramipexole of 0.5 mg/day (range 0.125 to
> 0.75 mg). One patient was
> also on a daily dose of 0.25 mg of ropinirole. The
> behavior got worse with
> dose increments. The patients had been treated with
> the dopamine agonists for
> a mean of 9.3 months at the time of onset of
> gambling compulsions.
> The patients reported gambling losses of more than
> $750 in a year, $140,000,
> and "several hundred thousand dollars."
> Once dopamine agonist therapy was discontinued,
> pathologic gambling resolved
> or markedly decreased in all three patients. Two of
> the patients continued to
> gamble infrequently and without much financial loss.
> "Future studies are needed to establish if the
> prevalence of this condition in
> this population is different from that in the
> general population," Dr.
> Tippmann-Peikert and colleagues note. "However, the
> close time relationship
> of development or significant worsening of gambling
> behaviors in our patients
> as well as the resolution upon discontinuation of
> the dopaminergic agents
> suggest a causative association."
> Neurology 2007;68:301-303.
>
>
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