A Review of the Development of Calcium Pterins and (250:1 Mol:Mol) Calcium Folate for the Immunotherapy of Certain Diseases

The development of a class of immunotherapeutics, the calcium pterins, beginning with Ca Pterin·2Cl (Ca-Pterin) and culminating with calcium pterin6-carboxylate chelate (CP6CC) for several immunologically-related preclinicaland clinical indications is reviewed here.

Immunotherapy

A preliminary analysis of their immuno-mechanisms of action is discussed. The preclinical murine models first tested with CaPterin and dipterinyl calcium pentahydrate (DCP), a dimerized version of CaPterin, were four murine breast tumor models. These four models included: C3H/HeN-MTV+ female mice with spontaneous mammary gland adenocarcinomas; Mammary EMT6 allografts implanted in nonimmune female Balb/c mice; MDA-MB-231 human breast tumor xenographs in SCID mice; and MDA-MB-231 human breast tumor xenographs in athymic nude mice. An analysis of the differing tumor responses in these breast tumor models led to the determination that B-cell antibody-based antitumor mechanisms were involved. A transgenic hepatitis B murine model and a diabetes-induced obese (DIO) type 2 diabetes murine model were also tested with DCP, giving positive results. Read more>>>>>>>

Acute and Sub-Chronic Oral Toxicity Study of Methanolic Extract of Caesalpinia volkensii (Harms)

The ability of plants to synthesize varieties of chemical compounds gives them both physiological and pharmacological effects hence their popular use as treatment agents and food. Moreover, medicinal plants use has been accompanied by greatresearch interests, which provides scientists and policy maker accurateinformation to regulate their use.There are several plants with diverse medicinal use in Kenya. However, their safety evaluation cannot match the rate at which they are used. Therefore, there is need to bridge this gap. Only a handful of medicinal plants have undergone safety profiling. In addition, there are no elaborate regulatory bodies in place. This predisposes most of herbal users to toxicity.

Easy availability of herbal medicine has led to their increased use. This has resulted to increased reports of their suspected toxicity and adverse events. Such unwanted reactions can be due to side effects; reactions occurring as a result of overdose, over duration, tolerance, dependence-addiction; hypersensitivity, allergic and idiosyncratic reactions; mid-term and long-term toxic effects. It is such reaction that necessitates toxicity evaluation.Mechanisms of toxicity can present in several ways. One of them is on target whereby the toxicant binds to a targeted receptor with unintended high affinity resulting to untoward reaction. Off target is another mechanism whereby the toxicant binds to unintended receptor resulting to unintended reaction.(Read More)

Therapeutic Potential of Resveratrol for Cardiovascular Protection

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) including stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide and an enormous economic burden to our societies. Based onthe latest statistics for heart and stroke disease released by the AmericanHeart Association in 2016, CVD is the leading global cause of death, accounting for more than 17.3 million deaths per year, a number that is expected to grow to more than 23.6 million by 2030. An estimated 83,600,000 adults in the United State (US) (>30%) have one or more types CVD of whom more than 90% have hypertension, 18% have Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), close to 10% have Myocardial Infarction (MI) and 8% have stroke. The total direct and indirect cost in the US alone for treatment of CVD (hospitalization, drugs, home healthcare, etc.) and loss of productivity and morbidity totalled more than $315 billion US per year. 

While there was a decline in cardiovascular mortality reported in the American Heart Association 2014 update, the disease burden to society remains high. Thus prevention by better diagnosis and treatment could provide a huge saving for the health care cost worldwide. Despite advancement in modern cardiovascular medicine, the prevalence of hypertension, Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD) and stroke is still on the rise, particularly in industrialized societies and in the elderly population, and finding an optimum drug therapy to slow disease progression remains a therapeutic challenge.(Read more)