medicine

they used feces as medicine

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The Roman Empire built an impressive sewage network and multiple public buildings for hygiene such as baths and latrines. However, we know that they lived in high fecal contamination conditions and that Rome, despite the efforts of the Romans, it didn’t smell good. Because well, it is one thing to have an advanced infrastructure and another to have bacteriological understanding. In fact, texts by classical authors such as the naturalist Pliny the Elder speak clearly about using excrement to cure diseases. However, there was no evidence that these fecal remedies were actually applied because ancient medicine was partly a hodgepodge of theoretical formulas that did not always reach the patient. Until now: a chemical analysis of a medicine bottle from Roman times published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports confirms it: the Romans thought that excrement was medicinal. A “perfume” bottle with remains. Archeology professor at the University of Cumhuriyet (Turkey) Cenker Atila was working in the warehouses of the Pergamon Museum when he noticed that several glass jars from the 2nd century AD still contained a crust of residue, so he set out to find out what was there. After selecting a candelabra-shaped one called an unguentarium normally intended for storing perfume or makeup, Atila and his research team carefully scraped the residue and passed it through a gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometrywhich is used to analyze and quantify traces of compounds within complex mixtures with a high degree of effectiveness. What the analysis discovered. The GC-MS results returned compounds such as coprostanol and 24-ethylcoprostanol, which are biomarkers produced solely and exclusively from human and animal digestion. This finding constitutes the first direct chemical evidence that the Romans used feces for therapeutic purposes. It must also be taken into account that the bottle comes from Bergama (the ancient Pergamon), the birthplace of Galenthe physician par excellence of the Roman Empire. The famous surgeon lived there between 129 and 216 AD. C., a period that fits with the dating of the bottle. And wouldn’t that ointment smell bad? The results also showed the presence of carvacrol, which is the characteristic aromatic compound of thyme. The research team proposes that Roman doctors mixed feces with herbs with an intense aroma, such as the aforementioned thyme or oregano, to mask the smell, something that makes the treatment more bearable. It’s not that strange. Beyond the joke of imagining someone spraying themselves with feces, the reality is that excrement is currently used for healing, (in a way) in the form of fecal microbiota transplants for serious intestinal infections such as Clostridioides difficile. In this, Roman doctors were ahead of their time. In Xataka | Rome defeated Hannibal and Viriatus, but its soldiers fell to something much more mundane: diarrhea In Xataka | Depositions, excrements and other garbage: a very brief fecal history of the challenges (social and health) that remain to be resolved Cover | Clayton Majona and Heinz Schneider

the dangerous viral trend that turns a common medicine into a lethal Russian roulette

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Something that may be quite internalized in society is that taking too much of a medication Anyone can have a very harmful effect on the body, and logically we avoid taking a lot of ibuprofen or paracetamol at once. But social networks have taken this as a new challenge which consists of taking paracetamol pills in a group to see who can achieve spend more time admitted in the hospital due to the liver failure it generates. Crazy. What has been dubbed the “paracetamol challenge” on social media is becoming a real nightmare for emergency and toxicology services. And it is no wonder, since behind the false sense of security that an over-the-counter medication such as paracetamol gives, hides a mechanism of implacable toxicity capable of destroying the liver of a teenager in a matter of hours. At an international level. The phenomenon is not new, but it has raised alarm bells internationally due to its recent outbreaks. In the United Kingdom, newspapers such as The Independent have been echoed of police warnings after registering cases of teenagers intentionally intoxicated in Soutampaton due to this challenge. And, although the first thing you might think is that it is a suicide attempt, since paracetamol is one of the ways used to do it, the reality is that they do it because of a challenge seen on TikTok. This too has reached countries like Belgiumwhere health authorities have had to launch a strong alert about videos that encourage people to overdose on this medication. In Spain. Has not been left behind our country, which has also reported cases of adolescents who have followed this challenge. But to such an extent that in Malaga There have been two hospital admissions due to liver failure due to a drug overdose. The paracetamol trap. Although it is a medication that can be found over the counter, in the case of Spain, generally the dose is 500 mg, the truth is that it has a great danger behind it, since paracetamol overdose is one of the most frequent and potentially lethal pharmacological poisonings. But the great deception of this challenge is that symptoms of poisoning do not occur in the first hoursbut a teenager can ingest several grams of acetaminophen and feel at most mild nausea or vomiting. In this way, while the young man thinks that “nothing has happened” and that he has won the challenge to his friends, the liver is silently collapsing. In days. International clinical guidelines place special emphasis on this: late liver deterioration, since the symptoms of severe liver failure appear only three days after taking the paracetamol overdose. And here on many occasions it is too late to act from medicine, which causes the death of the patient. The mechanism. Playing the “paracetamol challenge” is, in medical terms, playing Russian roulette, since massive intake of this drug saturates the metabolic pathways of the liver, generating a highly toxic metabolite called NAPQI that destroys liver cells when in large doses. With a normal and scheduled intake, this metabolite is produced, but the liver can control it by transforming it into another product that it quickly discards. But when the amount is very high, the liver literally has no capacity to process it into something less harmful. The treatment. Right now, the only thing that has shown a reversal of liver damage from acetaminophen overdose is N-acetylcysteine. However, the effect decreases as time passes, and it is ideal to administer it in the first eight hours after an overdose with paracetamol. The problem is that the teenager can hide that he is beginning to feel bad because he has a feeling of guilt or even fear of the consequences that his actions may have on his parents. This is why it may be the case that you arrive late to a hospital to receive treatment and that the window available to do a stomach lavage or even for a liver transplant to arrive is very small. Raise awareness. The “paracetamol challenge” is not just another Internet hoax, but rather it is a direct fight against the biology of the human body in which the prize for “lasting longer in the hospital” can be multiple organ failure or ending up on the waiting list to receive a transplant. In this way, the most important thing is always to make minors aware of how serious it can be to take too much paracetamol, since it is possible that they do not know that something that a priori ‘cures’ their fever or discomfort can end up killing them. Images | danilo.alvesd In Xataka | Ozempic not only eliminates hunger, it is rewriting the supermarket ticket: goodbye to ultra-processed foods and spending on snacks

We have been using ginger as medicine for 2,500 years. Science has just proven us right

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Before pharmacies occupied every corner, ginger already existed. What for more than two millennia was the best kept secret of Asian pharmacies, today is undergoing the most rigorous examination of the microscope. This underground stem—technically a rhizome, not a root—has gone from being a simple cookie seasoning to becoming a protagonist in clinical nutrition. As Dr. Joshua Forman, a gastroenterologist in Maryland, says, in an interview with Washington Postsometimes we become obsessed with expensive and complex drugs while ignoring what is in front of us. “It’s funny how the simplest things go unnoticed,” reflects the expert. From the herbalist to the laboratory. “Popular wisdom” is no longer alone, science has taken over with force. A massive review of 109 clinical trials published in Nutrients confirms that ginger is not a placebo; It works, especially when the digestive system rebels. But the findings go beyond simple stomach relief. In fact, a meta-analysis in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine has brought to the table something unthinkable years ago: its ability to help regulate blood sugar and protect the heart in patients with type 2 diabetes. What does the scientific verdict say? If we look at the evidence, ginger works with almost surgical precision on three fronts. First, in pregnancy; Just 1.5 grams can change a woman’s day with morning sickness. Furthermore, a study in it Taiwanese Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology even compared its effectiveness against menstrual pain with that of ibuprofen, with astonishing results. However, the most fascinating thing happens at the cellular level. Recent research in JCI Insight They suggest that ginger could “stop” the hyperactivity of certain body defenses, something key for those who suffer from lupus. Even in the brain, the magazine Frontiers in Nutrition points to a shield effect that could delay the progression of diseases such as Alzheimer’s by reducing inflammation of neurons. The chemistry of the rhizome. The secret of ginger resides in its compounds bioactives: gingerols, shogaols and zingerones. These compounds act on nerve receptors (such as 5-HT3 and TRPV1) that regulate pain and nausea signals. Additionally, ginger is a real accelerator. In the teststhe stomachs of those who took it took only 12 minutes to empty, almost half that of the control group. Of course, a warning for sailors: it is a master at relieving nausea, but if vomiting has already started, its effect is much less. It is not a “magic” solution for everything. Despite its rise on social networks like TikTok under tags like #GutHealth, experts warn: Be careful with him Ginger Ale: Dr. Forman warns in the post That most commercial ginger sodas contain corn syrup and artificial flavorings, but almost no real ginger. The ideal is a homemade infusion (grating the root and boiling it for 10 minutes). It is not a miraculous “detox”: there is no conclusive evidence that ginger “shots” on an empty stomach detoxify the body or lose weight on their own without a balanced diet. Dangerous interactions: Because ginger inhibits platelet aggregation, it should not be combined with anticoagulants such as warfarin, as increases the risk of bleeding. Science and nature, hand in hand. Ginger has gone from being a simple home remedy to becoming an “evidence-based supportive complementary option.” While it should not replace medical treatment in severe cases, science confirms that this rhizome is one of the few “superfoods” that truly lives up to its name, offering a low-cost and highly effective solution to improve daily quality of life. Image | Unsplash Xataka | There are people taking a “shot” of apple cider vinegar in the morning. Science has an opinion on this

We have accepted that sport is “medicine” for the body. Now science is discovering its side effects

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Physical exercise can be prescribed as a drug in doctors’ offices, even though it is not packaged in a simple pill that we take. This is because the evidence behind it has made it more than clear that playing sports can prevent a large number of chronic diseasesI know even have a very good old age. But behind all this, too There is a negative part behind doing physical exercise. Its side effects. If we accept exercise as a drugwe must also accept that every drug has a leaflet, specific doses and of course some adverse effects. That is why as a society we have the problem of having begun to sell the fact of “exercising” in a generic way, ignoring the fine print that this task has, as recognized by the Spanish Heart Foundation itself. And it has a very simple solution: personalizing physical exercises per patient. The problem of metaphor. The slogan “exercise as medicine” is undoubtedly an excellent marketing campaign within the world of public health, but for science there are several important flaws. As different scientific studies point out, exercise does not act like a classic drugsince it does not have a predictable response in a patient as if it occurs as a pill. This forces us to always think that the effect can be very different for each person. In this way, by calling exercise a drug we can make invisible the diversity of individual responses. And there is no universal “squat pill”, since doing this exercise in a specific person can be very beneficial, but in another it can be be the origin of a pathology due to overload. And all because we throw ourselves into exercise without planning how to do it, since we find it very easy to pick up some weights and start building biceps. The damage numbers. We often hear that it is a great danger to stay sitting on the couch, and it is true because they are many diseases related to a sedentary lifestyle. But according to different studies done in the United States, people who meet or exceed the recommendations for moderate or vigorous exercise They have a 44 to 66% chance of developing musculoskeletal injuries. than subjects who remain inactive. In addition to this, although cardiovascular health improves with physical exercise because the heart reduces its heart rate, for example, the “maintenance cost” of the physical body increases dramatically with the amount of exercise done. A question of biases. Without a doubt, this is one of the most critical points that scientific literature reveals regarding the lack of transparency in clinical trials related to exercise. This is something that was seen in an analysis that included 103 trials on knee osteoarthritis, where it was found that 6% of the participants suffered direct damage from this exercise. But the most worrying thing is not the number, but the low information: many patients who abandon studies due to pain or discomfort are not classified as “victims of adverse effects”, which generates an artificially high perception of safety. This problem is repeated in oncology, where the motto “exercise is medicine in oncology” live with non-trivial adverse events which have forced us to propose much stricter monitoring systems to protect patients. We pass each other sometimes. The underlying problem in this case is undoubtedly recommending intensive or complex programs without a clear benefit/harm relationship compared to an alternative that is much simpler. But, on the other hand, we also fall into the phenomenon of “quaternary prevention” making medicine focus on avoiding harm from its own interventions. by overmedicalizingnullifying the benefits of physical exercise. The necessary consensus. In this way, the authors who popularized the concept of ‘exercise as medicine’ explicitly recognize that exercise is not without risks. Even the WHO itself In its guides it maintains that inactivity is the greatest population risk, but there is fine print that must be taken into account: Exercise should be ‘prescribed’ starting with a low intensity, and not opt ​​for maximum intensity from the first day. This causes a person who has spent years on a couch to begin to carry a lot of weight, for example, and end up injured. Pain is not always bad, and the patient must be educated so that they see that fatigue from the gym does not have to be medicalized with pills. Patients with cardiac risk must be evaluated to prevent uncontrolled exercise from aggravating the situation. Be supervised. The conclusion in this case is that exercise is obviously necessary and without a doubt it is one of the practices that can prevent the appearance of many diseases. But we always have to be aware of what we do. Loading the body with a large amount of exercise from minute 0 can cause significant injuries or the aggravation of diseases that are already present. In this way, the possibility of being in a gym with trainers who can advise on the progression curve that should be followed can be an interesting idea to have the benefit of exercise without the consequences of doing it aggressively. Images | Jonathan Borba In Xataka | Doing cardio or strength training: for science there is no debate about which is the ideal exercise after 50

Behind this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine there is a whole lesson in scientific policy for Spain and it does not seem that we are going to learn it

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The Nobel Prizes arrive and, like every year, the media they are filled with reports on why Spain resists the great scientific awards of the contemporary world. And it is not a lie: the last Spaniard to win one in science, Severo Ochoa, did so 66 years ago. Being a relatively important country internationally, it is a real problem. What we did not suspect is that the Karolisnka Institute was going to make it so clear how ‘real’ this problem is. A little highlighted detail. At this point in the week, the history of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine It has been counted as active and passive; But there is a detail that is worth dwelling on. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Shimon Sakaguchi discovered a subset of T lymphocytes that did not attack anyone or anything. They were a kind of “riot police” of the immune system: they suppressed the activity of other T lymphocytes. The discovery was momentous, but what came next was an enormous silence. Silence? But they just gave him the Nobel Prize! They just gave it to him now, but it was not a bed of roses. Sakaguchi’s idea made sense, but no one was quite clear why that was happening. And, in fact, many people were vehemently against his theses. It took almost a decade for two different teams to reach the same conclusion: the Japanese researcher was right and the key to everything. the problem was in the FOXP3 gene. It seems like a minor issue, but “this double discovery, the cellular discovery of Sakaguchi and the genetic discovery of Brunkow and Ramsdell, has completely changed the paradigm of immunology and has opened two great therapeutic avenues with immense potential.” The relevant question in Spain. This is all very well, but the really relevant question for our country is why in 2020, when the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded CRISPR, it did not follow the same logic. Because yes, there are big differences between one discovery and the other: while the former rewarded the technological tool, this one has rewarded the discovery of the fundamental scientific bases. But it is not lost on anyone that the narrative of the award is not just an explanation: it is a framework that justifies inclusions and exclusions. The “forgetfulness” of the 2020 Nobel Prize. Francis Mojica himself he explained to us that “when we discovered CRISPR, I said to myself: “this is going to be crazy in biology” and then absolutely nothing happened.” In fact, that “nothing” lasted for many years. Years in which CRISPR seemed like a scientific curiosity without much importance and working on the subject, as Mojica did, was seen as an eccentricity. And finally, when the award came, it focused on “the development of a gene editing method (CRISPR-Cas9)” and was awarded to the two researchers who discovered that we could use the mechanism to our advantage; but no one remembered the person who discovered this mechanism. And it would be naive not to ask ourselves why. Even if we cannot know what really happened (the prize selection process has been hidden for 50 years), it is a good time to compare the abysmal differences between the research policy of Spain and that of Japan. While in the country of the rising sun, it has been investing in “scientific diplomacy” since the 90s; while Spain has made some isolated effort, yes; but insufficient. This is not about creating intricate conspiracy theories. It is clear that we will not be able to say what would have happened if Francis Mojica were Japanese, but we can ask ourselves what extra-scientific factors intervene in this type of awards and what Spain is doing to value its contribution to current contemporary science. That is, not only what resources are dedicated to research; but what is Spain’s ‘soft-power’, what resources does it put to make our researchers visible, to spread favorable stories or to amplify the work of our teams. The answer to all this, I’m afraid, is “too little.” Image | Ryan Faulkner | Daniel Prado In Xataka | A Nobel with 30 years of history: the discovery of the “peacekeeping gene” that controls our defenses is the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine

The Nobel Prize Physiology and Medicine 2025 is for Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi

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The first 2024 Nobel Prize, the one awarded in Physiology and Medicine, has been awarded to three people: Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi for his discoveries related to peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from damaging the body. The discovery. The Committee has recognized the important role of the identification of the Guardians of the Immune System, the regulatory T cells, which feels a great investigation in the field of autoimmune diseases. The fact of knowing much more of this type of cell has opened the way to develop new treatments that are now in the clinical trial phase. What did the pools say? This year the truth is that many names arose around this award. Keep in mind that for 2025 drugs GLP-1 recipient agonists how are the famous Ozempic or the Mounjaro They are still in the mouth of many, and one more year they were very present in the pools in the scientific world after not having received the award the previous year. An award that in 2024 I fell to Ambros and Ruvkun for the discovery of RNA. There were also people who directly pointed to the New studies focused on cancer or in which it allows us to understand what happens in our brain so that neurodegenerative diseases occur. In Spain we had also two possible candidates to take an award that is undoubtedly desired by many members of the scientific community. In this case, our country does not have a Nobel since Camilo José Cela got it in 1989, and this year Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturain They pointed out that we were going to get a new award. First Nobel of the year. The prize in Physiology and Medicine is that the Great Nobel Week has traditionally opened. From this moment on, those awarded in the different disciplines where this Nobel is distributed will begin to emerge: Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences. If we focus on the prize in physiology and medicine, it should be noted that until today They have been distributed 115 awarded among 230 winners and winners since this celebration began in 1901 when Emil Von Behring premiered the category for its development of therapeutic sera to treat diphtheria. As a curiosity, the average age of the winners is 58 years, with Frederick Banting as the youngest person to receive him for the discovery of insulin in 1923. At the other extreme we have the longest with Peyton Rous, 87, who received the award for the discovery of the ability of a virus to induce a tumor (Like HPV) in 1966. Images | Undeferti sun In Xataka | The 21 grams experiment: when in 1907 a doctor tried to demonstrate the existence of the soul using a scale

In his battle for being the best back pain medicine, ibuprofen has just found a serious competitor: cannabis

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Lumbar pain is something that can be very common in society by the clinic so annoying that it has associated as the problems getting up from a chair, to walk or even to bend down. This makes research focused on seeking a treatment for this type problem that exceeds anti -inflammatory and analgesic classics. AND The key may be precisely in cannabis. A study. Recently published, an investigation whose results have been published in Nature Medicine, He has shown that a cannabis extract can reduce chronic low back pain. The drug called Ver-01 not only calms pain, but also Improves sleep and physical function. But the most important of all is that it does not create any dependence or withdrawal syndrome, so it is an interesting option to opioid analgesics such as the Tramadol. The problem. Chronic low back pain is one of the main causes of disability worldwide, By affecting more than 600 million people approximately. Those who suffer from Manudo faces a dead end in the therapeutic field by not having a healing path beyond taking NSAIDs and trying to reinforce the muscles in the gym. But the big problem is in the most powerful analgesics offered when ibuprofen does not finish working, but that creates a big dependence problem in our society. What is it. Obviously, we are not talking about smoking cannabis. Ver-01 is a highly standardized pharmaceutical product that is an ‘complete spectrum extract’ obtained from a patented strain of Cannabis sativa called DKJ127. But … What does ‘complete spectrum’ mean? With this term we refer to that in addition to its main psychoactive component, the THC, the extract contains a complex mixture and characterized by other compounds of the plant like others Cannabinoids (Cannabigerol or Cannabidiol), Terpenos and flavonoids. This integral composition could be key in its efficacy and tolerability profile. Methodology. There is a lot of fear around the ‘cannabis’ and the use that can be given because it logically He has long highlighted all the harmful effects that can have its consumption prolonged over time. But given the need to find a therapeutic alternative, a team of researchers evaluated the effectiveness of VER-01 in a phase 3 clinical trial. That is, the last stage before approved a medicine for commercialization. To do this, a Multicentric studyrandomized and placebo controlled. That is, a group of 820 patients with this pathology were divided into two groups and in this way for 12 weeks 394 participants received VER-01, while 426 received an identical placebo in appearance and flavor. Results. The study fulfilled the objective that had marked from the beginning. Patients who took VER -01 experienced an average pain reduction of -1.9 points on a scale from 0 to 10 on the NIR scale (numeric pain scale). On the other hand, for the placebo group there was also an improvement, but less accused of -1.4 points at the level of pain. The question is … Has it been for the drug? Our “great friend” statistics tell us that it is a statistically significant result. And although the figure may seem modest, in the treatment of chronic pain these levels of improvement are that they are very relevant. In fact, the effects were even more pronounced in patients with severe pain and in those with a neuropathic pain component (caused by nerve damage) and which today is about all with gabapentin. Benefits. In addition to the improvement in pain levels, there has also been an important improvement in the dream. Patients who received VER-01 as a treatment saw that the quality of sleep and their ability to do daily physical activity improved a lot. This is crucial, because they are classically the two aspects most affected by low back pain. He does not stay here, since it was also determined that patients had a less need to resort to rescue medication compared to the placebo group. Something that also points us to the effect is more elongated. Sure. One of the most important aspects when designing a new drug is that it is safe and can be tolerated. VER-01 treatment was well tolerated, and what is relevant is that no sign of abuse, dependence or symptoms of abstinence was detected, even after a sharp interruption of treatment. Although it is not 100% safe, because as any medicine can have adverse effects. The positive thing is that the vast majority were mild to moderate and transitory intensity. The most common were dizziness, fatigue, nausea and dry mouth. A hope. This study is one of the most rigorous to date on a medication based on cannabis for chronic pain. Its results show that Ver-01 not only provides a reduction means of pain, but also addresses other problems that are associated. By offering an effective therapeutic option, safe for long-term use and without the ghost of addiction, VER-01 is emerging as a fundamental tool in the future of pain management. It still remains for the market to need to have the final approval of the FDA and subsequently its arrival to the rest of the markets, provided that the new comparative studies with other opioids are satisfactory. And it is that putting an investigation date is certainly very daring, but this treatment is closer than we think. Images | Rick Proctor Sasun Boughdayan In Xataka | There are so many people growing marijuana in their homes that Endesa has a problem. And it will solve it with ia

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