Astral Codex Ten

DNP

3 min read

DNP

Article

DNP is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between March 02, 2021 and March 07, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “permission to test DNP as a treatment for Huntington’s disease”; “A drug that modified this process could potentially replicate the fat-burning properties of DNP without its side effects”; “ethical issues about my post last week on DNP and mitochondrial uncoupling”. It most often appears alongside mitochondrial uncoupling, 1938 FDA, 2,4-dinitrophenol.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: March 02, 2021
  • Last seen: March 07, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Shilling For Big Mitochondria
March 02, 2021 · Original source
In the 1930s, a shady outfit called Isabella Laboratories made a popular over-the-counter diet pill called Formula 281 (slogan: "281 for the too weighty one"). If you're familiar with any of: the 1930s, shady pharma, or diet pills, your next question will be "did it contain amphetamines?". Actually, no! It contained 2,4-dinitrophenol, a mitochondrial uncoupling agent.
Inline links: Formula 281
So after 1938, US dieters stopped using 2,4-dinitrophenol. It next shows up in history books on the Eastern Front of World War 2, where Soviet soldiers would - I can’t believe I’m writing this - take it to keep warm. There’s something quintessentially Russian about this, like a cross between the Platonic essences of AK-47s and Krokodil. Still, World War 2 ended and poor DNP vanished from the history books again.
Inline links: take it to keep warm
Whenever British tabloids, Vice, and the FDA all hate a thing, I’m inclined to feel at least a little fondness towards it. So is there a case for 2,4-dinitrophenol? I think the case would look like: sure, it has a very low therapeutic index. Sure, if you take just a few times the recommended dose, you could die. But if you very carefully take exactly the recommended dose, you probably won’t. You could give it out like methadone, in a way that makes it impossible to overdose. Patients might still get cataracts. But cataracts are treatable, or at least more treatable than some of the complications of obesity.
Open Thread 162
March 07, 2021 · Original source
1. Several people brought up ethical issues about my post last week on DNP and mitochondrial uncoupling. In order to help me form a policy on this, I've made a survey about it, which you can find at the bottom of this post. I'm not going to talk about it more for now so that I don't bias your survey answers, but I might discuss it more in the future.