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If you’ve ever wondered why the symbol of health is a snake spiraling a staff (the Greek god Asclepius’s staff to be specific), it’s because in Ancient Greece they used small amounts of snake venom to treat serious illnesses
We’ve come full circle
I always assumed what I felt was obvious: Numbers 21:4-9, where God instructs Moses to make a bronze serpent and place it on a pole to heal Israelites dying from poisonous snake bites.
But the symbol is explicitly non-abrahamic in origin…
Sorry but the bible is not a historic document.
If you want to read old texts a bit more grounded in reality try the Kama Sutra ... ;)
The Christian Bible is not a historical document.
It seems that it's quire more complicated than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus_as_a_symbol_of_medici...
I thought the predominant one was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius
I was taught that the symbol came from Egypt, specifically a reference to standard guinea worm treatment whereby the worm was extracted from under the skin by winding it around a stick.
I’m partial to the Guinea worm medical symbol theory, though happy to be convinced otherwise.
I suspect the symbol has deeper roots than that, though you are likely right about the snake venom being used then to treat illness.
I thought it’s a stick to pull out a tape worm. You wrap it around the worm and keep twisting to get it out.
There's a strange, quiet conflict among old school medical professionals regarding the rod of Asclepius vs the Caduceus. Interesting topic
Medicine has always borrowed from biology's more dangerous toolkit
We also recently (we think) discovered why acupuncture works. That form of medicine from 4000 years ago...
"Researchers have developed", yeah. When I read such things, I always recall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimerox - this thing promised wonders - very broad spectrum, very low toxicity - and, most importantly, it was targeting a conservative essential protein - so nearly zero resistance. And there were no updates for more than a decade.
Something developed in a lab is something we, most likely, will never see - and will never know why the thing didn't reach the 2nd stage (or the 1st).
This is because a broad spectrum antibiotic with low resistance is an essential public good that will likely rapidly be made generic by either legal action or international disregard for copyright law. So no major pharma companies will want to invest resources into the development of something like this, and governments are not under the gun enough to produce new abx to invest the billions needed to get it through the approval process. The compromise is to leave it sitting at this phase until some disaster creates enough public incentive to socialize the completion of its development.
Is this particular drug head and shoulders above other candidates? Is it possible that the reason it hasn't gotten attention is because researchers have been looking at other cheaper or more promising candidates? (I do not know, I am genuinely asking.)
Same thing - I do not know. It got pretty decent media coverage back then - and nothing since.
Similar thing, permanent anti-cavity bacteria:
https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/the-rise-and-impending-fall-of-th...
The patents expired, so nobody can raise the hundreds of millions to do the phase II/III safety trials.
It depends - if someone uses the same compound but provably for a different indication (like maybe anti-periodontic diseases or something) or for a different intake mechanism, they could get another patent and proceed with trials.
Granted, it's not going to be easy because the original patent has expired so it's going to be very easy for an upstart Indian company to conduct basic clinical trials, use part of the data of the second patent's holder to prove equivalency (they did this test so we don't need to do this test), and then get approved through an accelerated pathway in the FDA. Which is why even well-capitalized players will shy away from what could be a cash cow.
This story actually checks out, which is quite the condemnation of our American drug development system.
One thing bugs me though - why don't other countries with different research structures pick this up and run with it?
I agree... Medication Resistant bacteria is a problem everywhere. There's probably no money in a new antibiotic, but... Having something new to fight TB would be nice, and there's still prestige, even if you "just" brought it to market and didn't discover it.
I would think there are pharma teams in China or India, maybe even Russia that could replicate and further develop something like this, given the initial paper and PR.
American salaries and research funding are way bigger. The best scientists around the world have a strong incentive to emigrate. And the ones who don't, can't do much with the scarce funds they have, compared to America.
> This story actually checks out, which is quite the condemnation of our American drug development system.
Oh yeah, "corporations", "end-stage capitalism", blah blah.
The reality is that 95+% of drug candidates fail the trials. And a lot of them only fail during the Phase-3 where the efficacy is tested. It's likely that large companies tried it in-house and found that it's either too toxic or is ineffective in-vivo.
It was pretty common for message board users to come together to do group buys for novel research chemical synthesis 15-20 years ago. Not sure why things like this would be any different.
Can't make moneyz if it works too wellz.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-stranded_RNA_activated_...
This one is quite tinfoil-hat inspiring, as the research was moved to defense-focused Draper Labs and then immediately disappeared.
I imagine the long term solution to antibiotic resistance are engineered bacteriophages, either to directly attack the bacteria or to insert genes that make the bacteria susceptible to specific agents. Beyond not having to continuously develop new antibiotics or restrict treatment, these could also be much more targeted treatments with less harmful effects on a patient's microbiome. Of course scaling up to mass production on the level of say penicillin will take some time, but the same is true for new antibiotics.
But bacteria also become resistant against phages, you would still have to continuously develop new ones.
I agree phages are probably part of the answer
I have struggled with various infections over the last 15 years. One of them, among the worst being h-pylori. Of all these infections, I've been forced, due to absence of healthcare and aversion to the medical industry in general, to treat myself across the board.
H Pylori is a very interesting subject, deeply misunderstood until a certain Australian hero brute forced through the arrogance of the day by infecting himself to prove ulcers weren't the product of psychosomatics.
Ending the rant there, I discovered through research that capsaicin (only one of the virtues of peppers) has a manifold effect upon various bacteria, notably pylori. Aside from encouraging the pylori to swim away from the capsaicin, it disrupts their biofilm behavior, and empirically, can drastically help with ulcers counter to expected problems with its spicy nature.
Adjacently, it can also encourage mucosal stimulation and protection.
I've found, co administered with mastic, oregano, NAC, and a few things presently inaccessible to the ol' cabbage.... Ahh, that's one... Cabbage juice! -- the infection can be reduced to sustainable levels without conventional antibiotics. Modern research is suggesting that h pylori, partly due to its ubiquity (50% of population +) and the ravages of antibiotics, it may be best to simply reduce it to manageable levels where the immune system and general well being keep it controlled.
There is also the wonder of fermented chilies which is good for many things, includes probiotics, improves most meals and really irritates assholes, which is righteous.
Cabbage juice is very promising in helping with number of gut related issues due to it's anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory properties. Organic green cabbage, freshly juiced seems to be the most effective, but wow does it create a stink and doesn't taste great. I am not sure how someone take it regularly without crashing out and giving up.
recently here, there was an article suggesting that combining hot chilies, with mint, acentuated the anti inflamitory effects of capsaicin by 100 times, and reminds me that I was waiting for my mint to come up, which it will most definitly have done, and I have fresh chillies
so the bar is very very low to try it for taste, if nothing else.
Oh, cool, so another thing I was avoiding due to H Pylori actually could've helped... (but seriously, thanks for posting this).
I am addicted to hot peppers. What I do in the morning is get one Scotch Bonnet (or two smaller ones), two oranges, lime and a piece of ginger into a cold press and then drink it in one go.
Can't describe it exactly, but it's like being transported to another dimension for a few seconds, then there is pain, then there is relief and then a nice warm feeling in the belly.
I too am addicted to hot peppers. But doesn't this... IDK, it seems like it would mess up my stomach or esophagus lining or something. All that acid and capsaicin on an empty stomach?
I don't generally love super spicy food (the most I do like 95% of the time is the Taco Bell Fire Sauce), but every now and than I want something really spicy.
I'm not sure why this is the case, but I'll go to a place with some Habanero sauce and get that on a meal. It will hurt (and my time in the bathroom the next day might be a little unpleasant), but it satisfies the urge.
The last time I bit into a nice juicy spicy pepper in the morning, I had to crouch in pain for 5 minutes as I felt stabbed right in the heart. The pepper wasn't even spicy like a bonnet, but I had an empty stomach.
So yeah no more peppers without rice for me.
"keep in mind, so does a handgun"[0]
My favorite antibiotic is fire.
Here's me hoping this is a hint that hot peppers kill a lot of things: resistant bacteria, cancers, inflamed cells, etc. since I love them so.
Nature is probably still one of the best drug discovery libraries we have
"The team was able to isolate two colorless molecules called benzoquinones—heterocyclic compounds that do not contain amino acids"
Hats off, not only were they able to isolate just two molecules, but also established that they were colorless.
I don't think this is a usual definition for benzoquinones:
"heterocyclic compounds that do not contain amino acids".
I can smell Sam Altman's socks reading this article.
"colorless molecules called benzoquinones"
...and then dozen of words further on:
"blue benzoquinone has the capacity to act against the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, while the red one is effective against Staphylococcus aureus."
How quaint! Blue colorless molecule is different from the red colorless molecule!
The red hot chilli peppers are also good against depression so I'm not surprised
And here I was believing that psychic spices from China steal your mind's elation