By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben
If you’re on the prescription drug Zoloft, it’s a good thing you’re not a fungus! Scientists experimenting with the effects of the best-selling anti depressant have discovered that the well—known pharmaceutical has a major toxic effect on yeast cells. It distorts their normally curved membranes and triggers the cell to start eating themselves. According to pharmacologist Ethan Pearlstein of Princeton University, yeast doesn’t have any serotonin, so there’s no reason to expect any effect, let alone such a bizarre suicidal one. According to Pearlstein, a molecule of Zoloft “…should be completely innocuous to a yeast cell, the way an antibiotic would be innocuous to a viral infection”.
What exactly the clinical implication are, of this self destructive response to Zoloft, for patients taking the drug, remains to be seen, but the unexpected findings has pharmacologists salivating at the prospect of new targets for the next generation of anti-depressants. In the words of author Pearlstein: “Altogether, our work suggests that the serotonin-based theory might be an oversimplification and that the cause of depression is not a closed story.” The question of whether or not this toxic effect on yeast can make Zoloft an effective anti-fungal agent has not yet been addressed, but it may be something that pharmaceutical companies will be looking into for future research.
In a paper published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, doctors describe the fungicidal effects of Zoloft on three patients being treated for depression with concomitant vaginal yeast infections. Apparently all three patients experienced improvements in symptoms associated with their fungal infections while taking the anti-depressant medication. The researchers concluded: “The potential offered by sertraline (Zoloft) against fungi is sufficiently great to merit further studies by investigators in the field of infectious diseases…To support potential systemic use, animal models and clinical trials are highly warranted.”
If you are one of the multitudes of mademoiselles dealing with HMB, (whose symptoms include migraines, lethargy and anemia, in addition to heavy bleeding), and you don’t want to deal with drugs or the other unenlightened medical protocol used to treat this condition, a hysterectomy, which 60 per cent of patients will undergo, your best nutritional bet is Essential Fatty Acids. 
This interesting electric phenomenon has been exploited by computer engineers for its information storing properties (as always electricity equals information), And now its being explored as a way to manipulate the cholesterol adhering properties of artery walls. It seems that cholesterol also has an electric nature and this may be one of the reasons it “sticks” to arteries. And this is what has cardiovascular researchers so excited. Scientists in Portugal are reporting in this month’s version of Advanced Functional Materials that amino acids in the aorta, the heart’s most important artery, are also potentially electric and it is believed that this may impact the of the formation of aortic cholesterol plaques. Considering that plaque formation and hardening of the arteries are the leading cause of heart disease and death, these findings may lead to important advances in cardiovascular health. In fact, some researchers believe that a future generation of cardiovascular drugs may work by changing the electric properties of the vessels of the heart, rendering them inhospitable to cholesterol “sticking”. According to Jiangsu Li a scientist at the University of Washington, it’s possible that “drugs of the future could have a certain electric charge that could be transferred to an artery wall.”
And they’re very, very important, although they are not essential. Taking a nice daily dose of DHA and EPA is probably a good idea but certainly not in lieu of ALA, which is only found in a relatively few places, seeds like flax chia and hemp being the most well known sources. Now DHA and EPA, those are typically found in sea creatures. Until Krill, the only place to get DHA and EPA in a concentrated form was through fish oil or cod liver oil. (Interesting fact: snake oil contains high amounts of EPA and the old exaggerated claims that have it given it it’s pejorative idiomatic meaning probably derive from hyperbolic claims made for what is in actuality nothing more than a good nutritional supplement). And, because of the inherent instability of these molecules, fish oil wasn’t stable of nutritional supplements. There are lots of horror stories of fish oil and cod liver oil samples with elevated levels of free radicals an indication of rancidity, an oil gone bad.
Toxic air can be filled with literally hundreds of deadly and carcinogenic compounds, (some like chemtrails intentionally deposited there for no “known” reason), not to mention radioactive waste from disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. When human fat biopsies are performed styrene, dioxins, xylene and dichlorobenzene among other unsavory, unhealthy and potentially carcinogenic chemicals shows up in 100% of cases. There are deadly chemicals in water too, fluoride and chlorine may arguably provide benefits, but no one can discount their truly toxic nature. Water is also a source of other unpleasant drinking material including prescription drugs and industrial (and even human) waste. Pesticides are an especially serious problem. Measurable levels have been found in breast fluid from mother’s milk around the world, including Eskimos living in the North Pole, thousands of miles from source of the nearest farm or fruit orchard. Internally there is no way to know exactly how much toxicity we’re dealing with, but it’s safe to say the average person’s detox system is probably being overloaded. Food, stress, trauma, experiences in addition to interfacing (really integrating) with our toxic external environment can put quite a load on the body’s ability to clean itself out and over time lots of nasty stuff can end up in various bodily fluids and tissues.
