For carlnpa (babesia related)

Hey carlnpa,

There's this drug someone else was talking about on a different forum called Imatinib (originally a drug for cancer). This person said their doctor had seen remission in some MCAS patients by using this.

I looked into it and found out it appears to work for Malaria (in only 3 days for uncomplicated Malaria), but it gets more interesting.

So first, I wanted to share this link with you: https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/q3/malaria-treatment-shown-to-be-100-effective-in-phase-2-trial.html

Check out this part specifically:

"Malaria infects human red blood cells, where it reproduces and eventually activates a red blood cell enzyme that, in turn, triggers rupture of the cell and release of a form of the parasite called a merozoite into the bloodstream. Low and his colleagues theorized that by blocking the critical red blood cell enzyme, they could stop the infection. The data from the drug trial confirms that."

Now here's the interesting part. I looked up this enzyme process and it says this:

" Organisms whose life cycles rely on this process include Theileria, Babesia, Plasmodium, and Toxoplasma gondii."

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/apicomplexan_life_cycle

On the other hand, there is also this which might be somewhat contrary: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1925019/

Maybe it's because this person didn't use anything besides the Imatinib.

So I figured I'd share and also ask what your thoughts are on all of this, if any?

Also, I hope that you are doing well !!

so is it that the study that found it helped - used it as an adjunct to block a particular part of the apicomplexan lifecycle - but alongside typical antimalarial - and got better rests than when using those antimalarials on their own
and
in the study where babesia was present even after a year of using the drug - it was used as a stand alone therapy for something other condition - so not combined with antimalarials

if i am following correctly - this would all be consistent with it being useful as an adjunct to other anti babesia meds - but not on its own

for this reason i would imagine it would combine well with atovaquone or tafenoquine -

but babesia is turning out to be quite a complex beast - even compared to malaria - and info on what exactly is going on in it metabolically (and therefore its drug susceptibility) when it sequesters - is thin on the ground.

still the more different mechanisms that can be targeted at once the better

interesting find Rainy

carlnpa:

No problem and thank you for the insight! I was thinking that maybe even if it doesn't completely cure the Babesia this might be able to lower the pathogen load some. I looked up the interactions between Tafenoquine and Imatinib and it says here there are none:

https://www.drugs.com/interactions-check.php?drug_list=1321-0,3928-0

I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts! If and when you have the time of course.

By the way, I noticed it's on buy-pharma and the other usual places for sale. I'm going to give it some thought on maybe trying it, but I'm not sure yet.

Garzie, I like this point that you made: "if i am following correctly - this would all be consistent with it being useful as an adjunct to other anti babesia meds - but not on its own"