Chris
Senior Member
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- 845
- Location
- Victoria, BC
Artesunate--again
Hi all; I posted here a while ago to say that I had been having a rough patch, and had stopped taking Artesunate for the time being; Maxine (Hysterical Woman) has also been taking it, and has also hit a rough patch. Kim has kindly put the latest review by Efferth on The Toxicity of the Antimalarial Artemisinin and its Derivatives into the Research Library, and so though I posted a few conclusions taken from the abstract on this thread a while ago, I have now read the full text, and can report here on its findings.
One difficulty is that most of the trials of Artesunate have been short term anti-malarial dosings, and though the stuff is being actively pursued for its anti-cancer possibilities, there is little information from those trials yet. There are a good many animal studies.
In the short term human trials, at daily doses roughly equivalent to one or two 500 mg capsules of Artesunate, there have been very few serious side effects, and some of those have been difficult to distinguish from the effects of the malaria the drug is counteracting; common were nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, which are also symptoms of malaria. Tenesmus (painful spasm of the anal sphincterI may have suffered that for a few days) did occur in some patients who were given Artemisinin via suppository (not my case!); this is described as associated with IBS, which I think I had for the first time in my life. At least I had painful and obvious gut problems on a scale I have never before experiencedmaybe the Artesunate was killing off both good and bad bugs in my gut? The problems have now resolved, with help from Oil of Peppermint and some probiotics.
Some neurotoxicity has been described, and may be due to the Reactive Oxygen Species that artemisinins cause, and which is part of how they kill parasites and other bugs. In animal studies (using much higher doses than we would normally take) neural damage was found, including to the auditory and vestibular systems. In human studies, ataxia and slurred speech have been found, but were assigned to disease rather than the artemisinis. Some degree of ataxia (gait and movement disturbance) is common in CFS, but I think I noticed an increase during the last two months, now thankfully retreating. Hearing deficits and ataxia, nystagmus and slurred speech have been described after wormwood (artemisinin) treatment for breast cancer. All these effects were reversible upon discontinuation.
There is documented embryotoxicityyou would not want to get pregnant while on Artesunate--attributed again to increased Reactive Oxygen Species. It is also potentially genotoxic and mutagenic. Toxicological studies show that an acute dose produces neurological symptoms and cardiotoxicity and some negative effects on red blood cells.
In dogs, Arteether (another artemisinin derivative) caused progressive cardiorespiratory collapse and deathbut the dose was 20 mg/kg/day, equivalent to a 70 kilo (154 lb) human taking 1,400 mgs per dayapprox 3 x 500 mg capsules. The same dose produced a prolongation of the QTc interval on ECG, together with bizarre ST-T segment changes. During February I did have some alarming blood pressure spikes, and what felt like cardio problems, but ECG produced no disturbing signals, and since these are symptoms I have had before starting any artemisinins, I hesitate to ascribe them directly.
Cheney has been testing his patients for liver function, it seems, and at his current dose of 500 mg three times a week has found no liver toxicity. This does not appear to be a trouble spot with Artemisinins at these doses.
How to sum up? Cheney reports that he has found reversal (I take it diminution rather than total disappearance) of diastolic dysfunction in some of his patients with Artesunate, and that is excitingit implies a corresponding diminution in OI, a primary symptom, and perhaps eventually of PEM too, though he has not written about that as far as I know.
I seemed to be improving slowly on it until mid January or so, and indeed an echocardiogram in January showed a slight improvement in E/A wave ratio over one I had in Oct 2008, one sign of improving diastolic function. I have to assume that Artesunate was attacking viruses successfully, and there is good evidence for its power to do that. So the diastolic dysfunction so many of us experience should be attributed to viral attackor mito degeneration maybe caused by viral attack-- rather than to simple aging, as cardiologists tend to assumeat least in my experience. As Cheney points out on his DVD, cardiologists have no answer for diastolic dysfunction.
But I cannot deny my own experience, which suggests that there may be danger in using it long term, even at the modest dose Cheney suggests. I cannot know for sure whether my symptoms over the last months had anything to do with Artesunate; I can say that I now seem to be improving after taking myself off it for nearly a month. My mistake may have been to take Artemisinin for some months before starting on Artesunate; that may have prepared the way for some damage. Efferth is clear that the evidence points to long term use rather than short term intensive use as the danger, and I think he is right.
For the time being I shall focus again on those things that seem to help the immune system fight off bugswhey, curcumin, NAC all have documented power to raise glutathione, and whey and mushroom beta glucans seem to help Natural Killer cell function. Maybe I will try inosine again, or make another attempt to get Immunovir or LDN. And then maybe in another month or two give Artesunate another try, on a shorter time frame. The stuff is potent enough to demand respect.
Best, Chris
Hi all; I posted here a while ago to say that I had been having a rough patch, and had stopped taking Artesunate for the time being; Maxine (Hysterical Woman) has also been taking it, and has also hit a rough patch. Kim has kindly put the latest review by Efferth on The Toxicity of the Antimalarial Artemisinin and its Derivatives into the Research Library, and so though I posted a few conclusions taken from the abstract on this thread a while ago, I have now read the full text, and can report here on its findings.
One difficulty is that most of the trials of Artesunate have been short term anti-malarial dosings, and though the stuff is being actively pursued for its anti-cancer possibilities, there is little information from those trials yet. There are a good many animal studies.
In the short term human trials, at daily doses roughly equivalent to one or two 500 mg capsules of Artesunate, there have been very few serious side effects, and some of those have been difficult to distinguish from the effects of the malaria the drug is counteracting; common were nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, which are also symptoms of malaria. Tenesmus (painful spasm of the anal sphincterI may have suffered that for a few days) did occur in some patients who were given Artemisinin via suppository (not my case!); this is described as associated with IBS, which I think I had for the first time in my life. At least I had painful and obvious gut problems on a scale I have never before experiencedmaybe the Artesunate was killing off both good and bad bugs in my gut? The problems have now resolved, with help from Oil of Peppermint and some probiotics.
Some neurotoxicity has been described, and may be due to the Reactive Oxygen Species that artemisinins cause, and which is part of how they kill parasites and other bugs. In animal studies (using much higher doses than we would normally take) neural damage was found, including to the auditory and vestibular systems. In human studies, ataxia and slurred speech have been found, but were assigned to disease rather than the artemisinis. Some degree of ataxia (gait and movement disturbance) is common in CFS, but I think I noticed an increase during the last two months, now thankfully retreating. Hearing deficits and ataxia, nystagmus and slurred speech have been described after wormwood (artemisinin) treatment for breast cancer. All these effects were reversible upon discontinuation.
There is documented embryotoxicityyou would not want to get pregnant while on Artesunate--attributed again to increased Reactive Oxygen Species. It is also potentially genotoxic and mutagenic. Toxicological studies show that an acute dose produces neurological symptoms and cardiotoxicity and some negative effects on red blood cells.
In dogs, Arteether (another artemisinin derivative) caused progressive cardiorespiratory collapse and deathbut the dose was 20 mg/kg/day, equivalent to a 70 kilo (154 lb) human taking 1,400 mgs per dayapprox 3 x 500 mg capsules. The same dose produced a prolongation of the QTc interval on ECG, together with bizarre ST-T segment changes. During February I did have some alarming blood pressure spikes, and what felt like cardio problems, but ECG produced no disturbing signals, and since these are symptoms I have had before starting any artemisinins, I hesitate to ascribe them directly.
Cheney has been testing his patients for liver function, it seems, and at his current dose of 500 mg three times a week has found no liver toxicity. This does not appear to be a trouble spot with Artemisinins at these doses.
How to sum up? Cheney reports that he has found reversal (I take it diminution rather than total disappearance) of diastolic dysfunction in some of his patients with Artesunate, and that is excitingit implies a corresponding diminution in OI, a primary symptom, and perhaps eventually of PEM too, though he has not written about that as far as I know.
I seemed to be improving slowly on it until mid January or so, and indeed an echocardiogram in January showed a slight improvement in E/A wave ratio over one I had in Oct 2008, one sign of improving diastolic function. I have to assume that Artesunate was attacking viruses successfully, and there is good evidence for its power to do that. So the diastolic dysfunction so many of us experience should be attributed to viral attackor mito degeneration maybe caused by viral attack-- rather than to simple aging, as cardiologists tend to assumeat least in my experience. As Cheney points out on his DVD, cardiologists have no answer for diastolic dysfunction.
But I cannot deny my own experience, which suggests that there may be danger in using it long term, even at the modest dose Cheney suggests. I cannot know for sure whether my symptoms over the last months had anything to do with Artesunate; I can say that I now seem to be improving after taking myself off it for nearly a month. My mistake may have been to take Artemisinin for some months before starting on Artesunate; that may have prepared the way for some damage. Efferth is clear that the evidence points to long term use rather than short term intensive use as the danger, and I think he is right.
For the time being I shall focus again on those things that seem to help the immune system fight off bugswhey, curcumin, NAC all have documented power to raise glutathione, and whey and mushroom beta glucans seem to help Natural Killer cell function. Maybe I will try inosine again, or make another attempt to get Immunovir or LDN. And then maybe in another month or two give Artesunate another try, on a shorter time frame. The stuff is potent enough to demand respect.
Best, Chris
