Talk:Ciguatera

Should this be merged with Ciguatera_fish_poisoning? startaq 00:53, 2005 May 22 (UTC)

FYI ... this was mentioned on the House episode April 10, 2007. Pgrote 03:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Also mentioned on Slashdot today at http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/14/0232228 68.229.115.137 14:32, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It also turned up in the news in Feb 2008: Several outbreaks of ciguatera fish poisoning have been confirmed... The first case in this report appears to have been Nov 2007. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Confusing

Could some please clarify what the cause of this disease is. The first line states that the cause is ingesting a toxin (Ciguatoxin), but the article goes on to say that the disease can be tramsitted sexually and can persist for up to 20 years (both of these would usually imply that the disease is pathogenic). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Holshy (talk • contribs) 14:53, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Does it make more sense now? What's transmitted through body fluids is just the toxin itself. I believe that the long-term effects are due to the damage that it does, not because individual toxin molecules persist in the body for 20 years. (If, for example, it killed a nerve cell, you would expect that damage to be permanent, even if the nerve-cell-killing toxin went away the next day.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the Name

I agree, please take it out. What Englishman would say that his fish came from the Seawater, when Cuba only has Ocean water? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.123.242.176 (talk) 14:34, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Origin of the Name

See this document

Ciguatera Fish Poisoning Annual Review of Medicine Vol. 33: 97-111 (Volume publication date February 1982) (doi:10.1146/annurev.me.33.020182.000525) N W Withers http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.me.33.020182.000525

This attributes the name to the "cigua" or turban shell, in the Spanish Antilles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.97.57.130 (talk) 22:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The "seawater" etymology is extremely fishy. The Spanish pronunciation of ciguatera does sound a fair bit like seawater, but if the Cubans were transliterating from English to Spanish, why put in the g or the final a? ciuater or siuater would be closer. Dictionaries and reference books give the completely plausible derivation from cigua, which exists and can cause the symptoms. This sounds like another completely bogus folk etymology. I say take it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.106.179.126 (talk) 17:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Use of Mannitol

Please forgive formatting, protocol or etiquette mistakes as this is my first post. Feel free to correct any mistakes or make suggestions to me. thanks.

In the mannitol section, there is a declarative statement that IV mannitol is no longer recommended in the treatment of ciguatera. This is just not true in the Atlantic/Caribbean/Bahamian area. Florida Poison Control/Aquatic Toxins Hotline staffers routinely provide IV Mannitol protocol information to ER Physicians and other medical practitioners in the treatment of Ciguatera within 72 hours of symptom onset. This information is often disseminated to physicians around the country.

Furthermore, the article cited that calls doubt on the efficacy of IV Mannitol is for the Pacific ciguatoxin (P-ctx), not all types of ctx. P-ctx is said to be more damaging than the ctx in the Atlantic according to many ciguatera experts (Dr. Donna Blythe, Larry Brand, PhD, Lora Fleming, MD, PhD, Melissa Friedman PhD, etc.) See article cited in this section Ciguatera fish poisoning: A double-blind randomized trial of mannitol therapy "Pacific ciguatoxin (P-CTX-1) has been shown in experimental animal studies to result in prolonged opening of both tetrodotoxin-sensitive (TTX-S) and tetrodotoxin-resistant (TTX-R) voltage-gated sodium channels". Which can mean more damage. P-ctx can also be fatal while Atlantic ciguatera isn't known to be deadly.

So to say that IV mannitol is not recommended anymore because the author cited the finding of that one study on one type of ctx, isn't accurate. I think it is misleading and a potential liability to say that it is not recommended. I know of one pending law suit right now because a local boat captain did not receive IV Mannitol within the three day window because he was poorly advised. To be sure, IV Mannitol is controversial but physicians do recommended IV Mannitol to Ciguatera patients who are within the 72 hour window of exposure. Juju's Beans (talk) 20:43, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Folk science detection

The section on folk science detection methods for ciguatera seems to me to be outright dangerous. In addition there is nothing scientific about those methods so even the name seems wrong. I propose at the very least calling it something along the lines of 'old wives tales', if not deleting the section altogether.

I am somewhat torn because I find reading about such stuff very interesting but the current iteration just isn't right. Any suggestions?

MFdeS (talk) 04:16, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Account and citation added from a personal narrative in a credible education magazine, 2010. Feel free to edit as required for style consistency - National Library of NZ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.122.171.11 (talk) 23:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)