Artemesia annua Ineffective Against Babesia microti?

Babesia is not very closely related to malaria - and in general there is a great deal of complexity and diversity among the apicomplexans ( the wider group of single celled parasites that they all belong to )

it means that there are considerable differences in their genetics and hence their metabolism - and therefore the drugs that successfully target parts of the metabolism of one - may do little or nothing for another - as the organisms may not have that chemical pathway in their metabolism - or if they do may not rely on it - having others that can do the same job.

in many cases we dont know exactly which pathways the drugs work on in these organisms - only that empirically they work.

because babesia hasn't been seen as a significant human illness - little work has been done into its specific sensitivities or metabolic pathways - instead - people/doctors have simply been trying drugs that work for other related organisms - malaria being the main one we have developed drugs for - on the assumption that they should work - which is not always the case.

malaria is thought to be highly sensitive to inhibition of the iron pathway that artemisinin and related compounds target - but this does not seem to be the case with Babesia.

in general babesia so far doesn't seem to have such a single sensitive pathway - so combinations of drugs often have to be used

Babesia (and theliaria) is being studied a little more now - but more as an animal pathogen - mainly because it causes economic efficiency reductions in beef farming in many regions - some drug candidates or feed additives are coming out of this research - but are not normally targeting human trials.

tafenoquine seems about the most powerful so far - typically used with things like artensuate and others to try to form synergistic combinations - but its mostly still guesswork

babesia microti has been known to be quite different to the main gruop of other Babesia organisms that infect humans (B. Duncani, B. WW1, Babesia Odecoilei, B. Venoratum etc ) - for a while now - i think it was reported that its genome is significantly smaller. historically LLMD's seem to report its actually easier to treat - eg usually with Mepron based approaches.

i would expect cryptolepis to be active for babesia of all species based on
-its historical use for blood borne diseases in Africa
and
-Buhner's writings that he had people report success from using it alone - doses were high though - 15 to 30ml of tincture a day from memory
-he also wrote that sida acuta was effective and would work wherever cryptolepis did - if not better - but again i would expect similar or even higher doses than crypotolepis to be needed - the quality of sida available on the market also seems more variable dull brownish green vs bright vivid green leaf - whereas crryptolepis root always seems to look the same regardless of source.

a word of caution though - although these plants have a long history of traditional use and are reasonably well studied in cell cultures now - its the dose that make the poison - and at these doses there is little historical use or modern experiments to evaluate long term safety

the reports of the high dose cryptolepis were only a small number of anecdotal accounts and i think for 2-4weeks max - safety beyond this are not established

sorry, i don't know much about banderol,

i think we discussed that paper here before - its interesting - but relatively few drug candidates found by such methods make it all the way to approved drugs - its usually just the first step in a multistage drug discovery pipeline process - which has a high attrition rate at each subsequent stage.
its typically used to cast the net wide and generate a high number of potential candidates that can be further refined

i have often wondered if artemisinin is active for Bartonella - but i didnt find anything definitive

i did find papers showing it was actually quite effective for borrelia - especially borrelia persister - when used in conjunction with other abx

Just a quick note: there's a huge difference between artiminisin and artemesia annual! One contains only one constituent of the herb, the other is the whole herb.

Buhner REALLY surprised me when he recommended artiminisin, he's a huge whole herb practitioner!

In my own treatment, artemesia annual was a really big part of my healing from Babesia, but I had to use many other herbs and modalities with it.

i think buhner advocated taking artemisinin with some artemisia annua whole herb as he had found literature showing that there were things in the whole herb that counteracted the super rapid increases in excretion rate when taking artemisinin alone (from memory - by day 7 of contiguous dosing blood levels are something like 1/8th of those reached on the first day - and below those expected to be useful for malaria ).

even then he advocated using it 2 weeks on maximum

loski01 said...
I was told by an ILADS doc that Microti responds to abx. Duncani better to herbals.

Artemisinin was the most “herxy” thing I’ve tried medication wise by far. Was it the bart or duncani? Idk

i always thought that you'd need antimalarials in general for babesia like f.e. atovaquone.

allthough i have experienced worsening on artemesia aswell, definitly, i am unsure if it just ramped up my th1 immune answer aswell causing further problems instead of solving them.

i recently became more a fan of classic drugs, mainly because side effects of most drugs tend to be better researched then herbals and i just get permanently weird reactions on herbals unsure if its herxes or further immune system disturbances. tetracyclines and macrolides usually dampen down the immune system so if i feel worse on them i can be more sure I am herxing atm.

and as an additional sidenote. i take citalopram regularly and took curcuma/turmeric with it for 3 days and developed a serotonine syndrome because of the turmeric. - just saying that because i think the general belief that herbs are better tolerated etc is wrong.

greetings