Health
Ketamine dangers in spotlight after arrests made in actor Matthew Perry’s death
Recent arrests made in actor Matthew Perry’s death have cast new light on the dangers of ketamine abuse.
Perry’s Oct. 28th death — which initially appeared to be a drowning in a hot tub at his California home — was later attributed to the “acute effects of ketamine,” as ruled by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner.
Several people are now charged in connection with the 54-year-old actor’s overdose death — including Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who allegedly administered excessive amounts of ketamine — as well as multiple physicians and dealers, who are said to have provided the drug.
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On the day of Perry’s death, the “Friends” star received three ketamine injections, according to information in the assistant’s plea agreement.
Here’s a deeper dive into ketamine and the issues around it.
Recent arrests made in actor Matthew Perry’s death have cast new light on the dangers of abusing ketamine. (Getty Images)
What is ketamine?
Intended for use as an anesthetic to be handled by medical doctors and veterinarians, ketamine is also used illegally as a recreational drug.
The Alcohol and Drug Foundation (ADF) describes ketamine as a “dissociative drug,” which means it causes people to feel “separated or detached” from their bodies or physical surroundings.
Perry’s Oct. 28th death — which initially appeared to be a drowning in a hot tub at his California home — was later attributed to the “acute effects of ketamine.” ( Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
For some, it can cause hallucinations and alter people’s thoughts and emotions, according to the ADF.
“Ketamine is in the PCP (phencyclidine) family,” Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News and clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, told Fox News Digital.
(PCP is a dissociative, mind-altering drug that may lead to hallucinations.)
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The off-label use of ketamine has “skyrocketed” in recent years, “despite limited data supporting the safety and efficacy of that practice,” according to a report from Yale School of Medicine.
The drug is usually sold as a colorless, odorless liquid or as a white or off-white powder, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) website.
Five people were arrested and charged in connection with Matthew Perry’s death, including assistant Kenny Iwamasa and Jasveen Sangha, aka “The Ketamine Queen.” (Getty Images/MEGA)
When used in a powder or liquid form, it is often mixed with beverages or smoked with marijuana or tobacco.
The powder form can also be snorted or pressed into tablets.
As a liquid, ketamine can be injected, the NDIC states.
Ketamine approved for depression in health care setting
In 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ketamine in a nasal spray format (Spravato, or S-ketamine) for treatment-resistant depression and suicidal ideation.
It is intended to be used in combination with antidepressant pills only under the supervision of a medical professional.
“S-ketamine is regulated very tightly,” the Yale report stated. “It has to be delivered intranasally, in a certified health care setting under the supervision of a health care professional, and patients must remain in the facility for two hours after dosing.”
Ketamine is intended to be used in combination with antidepressant pills only under the supervision of a medical professional. (iStock)
Ketamine is more commonly used for treatment of severe depression and for pain management, according to Siegel.
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Dr. Justin Gerstner, psychiatrist and chief medical officer at Ellie Mental Health in Minnesota, uses ketamine therapy in his own practice, saying the response from clients has been “great,” as Fox News Digital previously reported.
Ketamine therapy eliminates the need for patients to take medication every day, according to the doctor.
The drug is usually sold as a colorless, odorless liquid or as a white or off-white powder, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) website. (Getty Images)
Gerstner’s practice usually administers ketamine to clients via IV injection in two- to three-hour sessions, partnered with psychotherapy before and after treatment, he said. While ketamine can work as a “really powerful anti-depressant and anti-suicidal drug,” it is “not the right answer for everybody or everything,” he previously told Fox News Digital.
When does ketamine become deadly?
There are risks and limitations involved, Gerstner warned — including the potential for ketamine to be abused.
There isn’t too much regulation surrounding how ketamine treatments are administered, Gerstner noted, since the drug was previously approved for anesthetic use.
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“The field is wide open, and it’s a little bit like the Wild West,” he said. “This is a really powerful medication and the way that it’s used can vary quite drastically.”
At high doses, the drug can cause adverse health issues that affect cardiovascular, respiratory and neurologic function, which can be fatal, said the American Addiction Centers website.
“Common causes of overdose death include excess sedation, respiratory failure, low blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, coma and seizures.”
Some of the risks include elevated blood pressure, difficulty breathing, amnesia, seizures, addiction, problems with judgment and coordination, and a lower urinary tract irritation called ulcerative cystitis, according to the same source.
“Common causes of overdose death include excess sedation, respiratory failure, low blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, coma and seizures,” said Siegel.
In Perry’s case, the report stated that given the high levels of ketamine found in his blood, “the main lethal effects” from the ketamine included “cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression.”
Angelica Stabile of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
The risk of Alzheimer’s disease could escalate along with high blood pressure, according to a new study.
Published in the medical journal Neurology, the research found that people age 60 and older who have untreated high blood pressure may be more likely to develop the common dementia type.
Although the results don’t prove that untreated high blood pressure causes the disease, they do show an association, the American Academy of Neurology stated in a press release.
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Study author Matthew J. Lennon, M.D., PhD, of the University of New South Wales in Australia, wrote in a statement that high blood pressure is a “leading cause of stroke and cerebrovascular disease, and yet it can be controlled with medication, reducing a person’s risk of these diseases.”
The study found that people age 60 and older with untreated high blood pressure may have an increased risk of Alzheimer’s. (iStock)
While previous research has found that taking blood pressure medications can reduce dementia risk, according to Lennon, less is known about the condition’s impact on Alzheimer’s risk.
“Our meta-analysis looked at older people and found that not treating blood pressure may indeed increase a person’s risk,” he said.
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The researchers analyzed 31,250 people averaging 72 years old who were involved in studies measuring cognitive change and dementia diagnosis over time, the release stated.
After four years, 1,415 of those individuals developed Alzheimer’s disease.
A doctor points at potential evidence of Alzheimer’s disease spotted in a PET scan at Brigham And Women’s Hospital in Boston on March 30, 2023. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File photo)
People with untreated high blood pressure had a 36% increased risk of Alzheimer’s compared to those without the condition, the study found.
They had a 42% increased risk in comparison to those with high blood pressure who were taking blood pressure medication.
“This relationship is not altered by increasing age, which indicates that even those in their 70s and 80s are at significantly lower risk of AD if hypertension is treated,” Lennon told Fox News Digital in an email.
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“These results suggest that treating high blood pressure as a person ages continues to be a crucial factor in reducing their risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” he added.
The researchers also found that there were no significant risk differences in the effects of blood pressure or medication use across different sexes or racial groups.
“This is a very promising result, as it suggests that optimal care for one group will be similar for others,” Lennon noted.
“Treating high blood pressure as a person ages continues to be a crucial factor in reducing their risk of Alzheimer’s disease.”
Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and Fox News senior medical analyst, reacted to these findings in a conversation with Fox News Digital.
Alzheimer’s involves “neuroinflammation and the formation of plaques, which interfere with neuronal communication,” noted Siegel, who was not involved in the study.
“We have long known that high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high glucose levels — as well as obesity, smoking and alcohol use — contribute to increased risk of heart attack, stroke and vascular dementia,” a doctor told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
Added the doctor, “High blood pressure may accelerate this development by interfering with oxygen and blood supply to the nerve cells of the brain in some areas — especially the frontal lobe, which is affected.
Dr. Elizabeth Landsverk, geriatric medicine physician and author in California, was not involved in the study but said she was not surprised by the findings.
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“We have long known that high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high glucose levels — as well as obesity, smoking and alcohol use — contribute to increased risk of heart attack, stroke and vascular dementia,” she told Fox News Digital.
“This new study also finds a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s disease (amyloid proteins deposing the brain) among those treated for hypertension.”
Potential study limitations
The researchers used data from 14 different longitudinal studies from around the world, Lennon noted, which means there may be some variability in the way they define dementia and high blood pressure.
“Most of the studies also did not report mortality data, and thus our analysis did not account for the competing risks of dementia and death,” the researcher told Fox News Digital.
“These results suggest that treating high blood pressure as a person ages continues to be a crucial factor in reducing their risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” a study researcher said. (iStock)
Factors like socioeconomic status, health literacy, access to medications, poorly managed medical conditions, and depression and other mental illnesses could also confound the association between hypertension status and dementia risk, Lennon added.
“Because the study is taken over a long period of time, any number of outside variables can alter the results, making it less reliable,” Landsverk noted.
Hypertension is extremely common, affecting two-thirds of those over age 65 and around 1.3 billion people worldwide, Lennon noted.
“In the vast majority of cases, it is clinically silent, causing no symptoms until you present with a heart attack, a stroke, or — as we now have shown — dementia,” Lennon said.
Hypertension is extremely common, affecting two-thirds of those over the age of 65 and around 1.3 billion people worldwide. (iStock)
Only 28% of those with high blood pressure have it under adequate control, he noted.
“While you might not feel the consequences of high blood pressure immediately, it is really important that you keep a close eye on it and bring it under control if you want to maximize your chance at a longer, happier, healthier life,” Lennon added.
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For those who are obese, Landsverk added, losing weight is the fastest way to decrease risk factors.
“In general, the healthiest approach is adopting a plant-based diet and exercising 30 minutes each day to reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke, dementia and now Alzheimer’s disease by as much as 40%,” she advised.
Leonard Hayflick, a biomedical researcher who discovered that normal cells can divide only a certain number of times — setting a limit on the human life span and frustrating would-be-immortalists everywhere — died on Aug. 1 at his home in Sea Ranch, Calif. He was 98.
His son, Joel Hayflick, said the cause was pancreatic cancer.
Like many great scientific findings, Dr. Hayflick’s came somewhat by accident. As a young scientist in the early 1960s at the Wistar Institute, a research organization at the University of Pennsylvania, he was trying to develop healthy embryonic cell lines in order to study whether viruses can cause certain types of cancer.
He and a colleague, Paul Moorhead, soon noticed that somatic — that is, nonreproductive — cells went through a phase of division, splitting between 40 and 60 times, before lapsing into what he called senescence.
As senescent cells accumulate, he posited, the body itself begins to age and decline. The only cells that do not go into senescence, he added, are cancer cells.
As a result of this cellular clock, he said, no amount of diet or exercise or genetic tweaking will push the human species past a life span of about 125 years.
This finding, which the Nobel-winning virologist Macfarlane Burnet later called the Hayflick limit, ran counter to everything scientists believed about cells and aging — especially the thesis that cells themselves are immortal, and that aging is a result of external causes, like disease, diet and solar radiation.
Other researchers later discovered the mechanisms behind the Hayflick limit: As cells divide, they create copies of DNA strands, but the ends of each copy, called the telomeres, are a bit shorter than the last. Eventually the telomere runs out, and the cell stops dividing.
Dr. Hayflick made other important contributions to science. He developed a particularly vibrant cell line, WI-38, which has been used for decades to make vaccines. He also discovered that so-called walking pneumonia, unlike regular pneumonia, is caused not by a virus but by a type of mycoplasma, the smallest form of free-living organism.
But it was his work on aging that established his legacy. Dr. Hayflick was an outspoken critic of those who thought they could unlock the science of eternal life; he considered that idea an illusion and the pursuit of it a folly, if not outright fraud.
“The invention of ways to increase human longevity is the world’s second-oldest profession, or maybe even the first,” he told the medical journal The Lancet in 2011. “Individuals are going to the bank at this moment with enormous sums of money gained by persuading people that they’ve found either a way to extend your life or to make you immortal.”
Leonard Hayflick was born on May 20, 1928, in Philadelphia to Nathan Hayflick, who made dental prosthetics, and Edna (Silver) Hayflick, who worked in his father’s office.
He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania but took three years off to serve in the Army. He graduated with a degree in microbiology in 1951, and five years later received a Ph.D. in chemistry and microbiology there.
After two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, he returned to Penn and the Wistar Institute, where he made many of his most important discoveries. He continued that work at Stanford University in 1968.
There was a wrinkle, though. The National Institutes of Health had funded the research on his WI-38 cell line but declined to fund its distribution, even as other researchers clamored for samples. Dr. Hayflick established a company to process orders, charged a minimal fee for shipping and set the proceeds aside until ownership was clarified.
But in a private report that was released to the news media, the N.I.H. accused Dr. Hayflick of theft. He sued the institute, charging invasion of privacy and reputational damage, including a forced resignation from his position at Stanford. The litigation took six years and ended in a settlement that allowed him to keep some of the money and cell samples.
During those six years, Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, which allows scientists to profit off government-funded research. The law, which would have made Dr. Hayflick’s earlier actions unquestionably legal, helped catalyze the biotech industry.
Dr. Hayflick married Ruth Heckler in 1955. She died in 2016. Along with his son, he is survived by four daughters, Deborah Curle, Susan Hayflick, Rachel Hastings and Annie Hayflick; eight grandchildren; and his sister, Elaine Rosamoff.
Dr. Hayflick later worked at the University of Florida and, since 1988, at the University of California, San Francisco, where he was an emeritus professor.
His criticism of those trying to find ways to extend the human life span was not just about practicality. On principle he thought it was a terrible idea.
“I’m an optimist,” he told The Guardian in 2001. “Anyone who believes in manipulating the human aging process is a terrible pessimist. I don’t want to be alive when that’s possible. I don’t want to give another Adolf Hitler, a Saddam Hussein, another 50 years of life.”
He continued, “Every time someone like that dies a natural death, people should thank their God, whoever that might be, for the phenomenon of aging.”
Having an IUD (intrauterine device) inserted for birth control is known to be potentially painful.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now recommending pain management protocols for the procedure.
Women on social media have documented their discomfort, with some TikTok users posting videos of themselves in visible pain while lying on a doctor’s table.
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One user, Sarah Warren, shared that she took ibuprofen an hour before her appointment as suggested by her doctor, but that the procedure was still painful.
“I almost passed out, not going to lie,” she said. “There needs to be better pain management for IUD insertion.”
“There needs to be better pain management for IUD insertion,” wrote one woman (not pictured) on social media. (iStock)
In a 2014 study published in the journal Contraception, health care providers were found to underestimate patients’ pain during IUD insertion.
On a 100-mm pain scale, patients in the study ranked their maximum pain at 64.8 mm, while providers rated it at 35.3 mm.
New guidance for pain relief
Following a persistent call for change from patients and doctors, the CDC released new guidance in its U.S. Selected Practice Recommendations for Contraceptive Use, 2024.
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The agency suggested that all patients should be counseled on the potential pain before the appointment, as well as on the risks, benefits and alternative options for pain management.
“When considering patient pain, it is important to recognize that the experience of pain is individualized and might be influenced by previous experiences, including trauma and mental health conditions, such as depression or anxiety,” the guidance reads.
The IUD is inserted through the opening of the cervix and into the uterus. (iStock)
Evidence suggests that using lidocaine as a local anesthetic — or using a topical gel, cream or spray — could help reduce patient pain, according to the agency.
The notice also listed misoprostol as a medication used by some providers to help soften the cervix before IUD insertion.
The CDC also mentioned a variety of alternative options, like NSAIDs, smooth muscle relaxants and analgesics, although the evidence for pain reduction is limited.
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Dr. Meleen Chuang, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at NYU Langone Hospital Brooklyn, reflected on this guidance in a statement sent to Fox News Digital.
“Many OB/GYNs have already been doing these interventions for years,” she said. “It is welcoming to see the CDC reflect the updates for guidance in accordance to our care delivery.”
“It is welcoming to see the CDC reflect the updates for guidance in accordance to our care delivery,” said one OB/GYN (not pictured). (iStock)
Using pain relief methods like lidocaine to numb the cervix or taking medications such as acetaminophen and NSAIDs can help with reducing this discomfort, according to Chuang.
Other non-invasive pain relief methods can include using a heating pad on the patient’s belly, the doctor said.
In addition to pain management, Chuang said her patients often find comfort in being “talked through” the procedure by their doctors.
Taking medications like acetaminophen and other NSAIDs can help with reducing IUD insertion discomfort, according to an OB/GYN. (iStock)
“The communication of what to expect before and during the procedure helps with the overall experience and alleviates any anxieties,” she said.
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“These are very easy things we commonly do for patients, as well as being fast/efficient in placing the IUDS, [to] make the experience much more acceptable.”
“The procedure for placement for IUD should take no more than two to three minutes in experienced hands,” an OB/GYN said. (iStock)
“We want what is best for our patients, and if there is fear or concern [about] pain … we are obligated to help our patients feel supported and at ease,” Chuang added.
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IUDs are more than 99% effective in preventing pregnancy, according to Yale Medicine.
In a statement sent to Fox News Digital, a CDC spokesperson said, “Health care providers can use this guidance to support person-centered contraceptive counseling and remove unnecessary medical barriers to accessing and using contraception.”
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