P.S. Please do not use this as a basis for deciding change your diet or medications in any way. Consult your physician! I'm not a healthcare professional. Thanks.
Posted by lpkayak (Member # 5230) on :
Please tell me what it says in a sentence or two-affected how...good or bad
Posted by Sonatina (Member # 45056) on :
Good.
The study used Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast) but also found similar effects in Candida glabrata and a strain of aspergillus.
Caffeine was used to "perturb" the cell wall of the fungi. This was found to allow higher accumulation of chloroquine within the yeast cells, thus boosting the effect of the chloroquine and making it more toxic to the yeast.
They also mention that there have been other reports of antifungal effects of chloroquine.
Interesting. I'm curious to know whether caffeine would have a similarly boosting effect used with diflucan or other azole anti-fungals, but they didn't test this.
Posted by lpkayak (Member # 5230) on :
Please tell me what it says in a sentence or two-affected how...good or bad
Posted by Sonatina (Member # 45056) on :
The study found that caffeine + chloroquine had anti-fungal effects.
Posted by lpkayak (Member # 5230) on :
Does chloroquine have another name
Posted by Sonatina (Member # 45056) on :
Aralen is another name for chloroquine.
Other drugs from the same class include: - Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) - Mepron (atovaquone)
both of which are often prescribed to Lyme/TBD patients.
Posted by Judie (Member # 38323) on :
I'd avoid chloroquine. It's a quinolone. I took primaquine (another quinolone) and it caused me to be refloxed a month after levaquin (another quinolone).
These drugs are very strong and caused permanent damage for me that was worse than the infections.
Side effects of Chloroquine (I have some of these that are now permanent from quinolones):
Judie, The FDA warning is about fluoroquinolone antibiotics, such as Cipro, Levaquin, Factive, Avelox.
I could be wrong but my understanding is that chloroquine & the other anti-malarials are a separate group of drugs from the fluoroquinolone antibiotics. The anti-malarials include drugs commonly prescribed to treat Babesia.
Do you have a source you can post?
Thanks. S.
Posted by Judie (Member # 38323) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sonatina: Aralen is another name for chloroquine.
Other drugs from the same class include: - Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine) - Mepron (atovaquone)
both of which are often prescribed to Lyme/TBD patients.
From what I understand Mepron (and malarone) are not in the same class as chloroquine, however they are both used as treatments for babesia.
Posted by Sonatina (Member # 45056) on :
The sources I can find list all 3 drugs (chloroquine, plaquenil, and mepron) as aminoquinolines, which is a group of anti-malarial medications.
At least as far as I can tell, they are a separate group of drugs from the type of antibiotics (fluoroquinolones) the FDA was warning about.
The FDA's warning is for drugs like cipro, levaquin, factive, and avelox, b/c that drug group has been linked to tendon injuries.
If you have other info feel free to post.
Posted by Judie (Member # 38323) on :
Quinolones were causing the problems before fluoroquinolones were made (by adding fluoride to quinolone). They are both derived from quinine.
Here's further reading if you're interested. Can't type much more because of tendon damage/nerve pain in my fingers from these drugs (thanks levaquin and primaquine).
You can do a google search for "dangers of non-fluorinated quinolone" is you want to read more.
"Quinolones are synthetic compounds containing the 4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinoline skeleton that may be written as the tautomeric 4-hydroxyquinoline (Figure 3). They are mostly used as antibiotics [16]."
Caffeine is also known to kill GOOD bacteria.
Posted by Sonatina (Member # 45056) on :
The FDA warning seems to be specifically for the fluoroquinolones, which are the ones that have been linked to tendon damage (cipro, levaquin, etc).
Not to say that other types of anti-microbials or quinolone-derived drugs are risk-free. They ALL can potentially cause adverse effects.
For a patient with "just" candida infection, diflucan is likely a safer -- and certainly a much better studied -- option.
But for someone with Babesia AND candida infections, the possibility of knocking out both with an anti-malarial might at least be worth a discussion with their doctor.
Again, I am just posting the abstract info. I found. I do not know whether this would help anyone or what the downsides would be. Please do not make any decisions based on my postings and consult your doctor with any questions. Thanks.
Posted by Judie (Member # 38323) on :
The abstract in the original posting appears to be from a publication called: Farida Islahudin, et al. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2013 August;57(8):3889-3896.
A lot of these drugs are used for several things, not just as antibiotics and anti-malarials.
Levaquin and Chloroquine are chemotherapy drugs (they destroy the DNA of the infection and the DNA of the host).
I'd rather deal with yeast in other ways than take another chemotherapy drug.