Medicines at a deeper level - antiinflammatory benefits of some of our medicines

[Alchemica]

This year, there have been a couple of articles focusing on the immunological and whole body aspects of Sceletium. This extends it's use beyond depression, anxiety and cognitive decline to a greater context of stress, obesity, diabetes and hypertension.

Sceletium tortuosum may delay chronic disease progression via alkaloid-dependent antioxidant or anti-inflammatory action.

 

Sceletium may be beneficial for the attenuation of cytokine-induced depression, as well as in systemic low-grade inflammation. Sceletium tortuosum extracts may be employed as either a preventative supplement or complimentary treatment in the context of obesity and diabetes

See also here

 

We also see immunological benefits, ultra-potent blockade of proinflammatory markers like TNF-α at pM levels (sub-psychoactive doses) with some 5-HT2AR agonists like ®-DOI which is promising on many levels, it plays a key role in inflammation, its production and signaling contribute to many inflammation related diseases.

 

An exciting new therapeutic avenue in which 5-HT2A agonists might be employed is the modulation of inflammation. While most of their research is based on ®-DOI, they are currently testing for the impact psilocybin and other tryptamines.

 

"We have shown that 5-HT2A receptor stimulation with the agonist ®-DOI rapidly inhibits a variety of proinflammatory markers mediated by TNF-α acting at its receptors, including ICAM-1, VCAM-1, and IL-6 gene expression, NOS activity, and nuclear translocation of NF-κB, with IC50 values of only 10-20 pM. Significantly, proinflammatory markers also can be inhibited by ®-DOI many hours after treatment with TNF-α. With the exception of a few natural toxins, no current drugs or small molecule therapeutics demonstrate a comparable potency for any physiological effect.

 

TNF-α and TNF-α receptor-mediated inflammatory pathways have been strongly implicated in a number of diseases including atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, type II diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, and septicemia (e.g., Reimold, 2002; Popa et al., 2007; Williams et al., 2007). Significantly, TNF-α and other cytokine induced inflammatory pathways also have been linked to psychiatric conditions such as depression and bipolar disorder (Dunn et al., 2005; Kim et al., 2007), as well as schizophrenia (Saetre et al., 2007), and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and stroke (Tweedie et al., 2007).

 

...therapeutic strategies that are aimed at blocking the TNF-α receptor-induced signal transduction pathways by 5-HT2A receptor activity would aim at any tissue cell expressing TNF-α receptors, which include most cell types in the body (e.g. smooth muscle cells, neurons, skin cells).

 

Their strategy is to develop 5-HT2A receptor agonism as a viable treatment modality against asthma and other inflammatory disorders.

 

See patent

 

There's plenty of other plant medicines like this, we need to see plants medicines beyond neurotransmission and reductionist terms to a more holistic view, another one that interests me is Ashwagandha. Withaferin A, often considered a less desirable withanolide found in the leaves to a high level, can be used against innate inflammations via TLR4, this is intriguing as these sorts of things drive lots of pathology, for example an immunological aspect seems to strongly drive addictive behaviours. TLR4 is a novel regulator of neuronal physiology and associated drug-reward learning. TLR4 acts as an amplifier for addiction to a wide variety of substances. Altering TLR4 signalling attenuated alcohol abuse behaviour, with extension to opioids, cocaine, and methamphetamine.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Alchemica