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Failure of cola nut chewing to alter antipyrine disposition in normal male subjects from a small town in South Central Pennsylvania
Author(s) -
Vesell Elliot S.,
Shively Carol A.,
Passananti G. Thomas
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.941
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1532-6535
pISSN - 0009-9236
DOI - 10.1002/cpt1979263287
Subject(s) - cola (plant) , disposition , nut , pharmacokinetics , saliva , physiology , psychology , medicine , social psychology , structural engineering , engineering
Cola nuts chewed for either 14 or 28 consecutive days failed to alter antipyrine disposition in normal male Caucasian subjects living in a small town in south central Pennsylvania. Antipyrine decay was measured in saliva on two separate occasions before cola nut chewing when the subjects appeared to be in a basal state with respect to most factors affecting antipyrine disposition, and then redetermined at 9:00 A.M. on the day after the last cola nut was chewed. Failure of either 14 or 28 consecutive days of cola nut chewing to alter antipyrine disposition in normal Caucasian volunteers does not directly contradict an earlier study that identified cola nut chewing as the major single predictor of antipyrine half‐life in West African villagers. That study and the present one differ significantly in design and methodology, in duration of cola nut administration, as well as in multiple genetic and environmental factors that could have differentially affected antipyrine disposition in the two groups. Nonetheless, although the two studies are not directly contradictory, several problems can arise when conclusions concerning causes for differences within or between groups or races in drug disposition are derived solely from correlation coefficients. Such difficulties are especially likely if results include only a single pharmacokinetic value rather than being also tested under the conditions of a rigorously controlled experiment. Ideally in this controlled experiment, pharmacokinetic values obtained in a basal state are repeated to assure reproducibility, subjects serve as their own controls, only one variable is manipulated independently of all others, and the same population is investigated under the same conditions that prevailed when the initial correlation coefficients were derived.