PLT Test Blog

    Today’s post is about some drugs/supplements that have already been discussed in earlier posts.   Rifaximin, used in cycles, is an effective part of our reader Maja’s therapy, while Sodium Butyrate was highlighted long ago by our reader in Switzerland, Alli. I had a consultation with a gastroenterologist last week and came away with a prescription for Rifaximin, microencapsulated  Sodium Butyrate and Lactobacillus Plantarum 299v. Where we live, these are all inexpensive. Rifaximin is an antibiotic with extra benefits and costs about 7 euros (9 dollars).   A course of Rifaximin can cost $2,000 in the United States. I was pleased to read that the private equity owners of a pharmaceutical company that raised the price of a common thyroid drug by 6000% have just been fined $140 million in the UK. Advanz Pharma and former private equity owners were fined £100m by markets watchdog Perhaps some of our US readers should query the crazy price of drugs in the US...

Most types of autism can be viewed as the miss-expression of a few hundred genes, in some cases this has been caused by an initial defect in just one gene.   These single gene autisms are the ones that are usually studied. Epigenetics has been covered previously in this blog and can either be made to look ultra-complex, which is the reality, or quite simple. The simple view is that in some people genes are miss-expressed because they have been tagged with heritable and removable markers; these can be wiped away. One type of epigenetic marker can be modified by an HDAC inhibitor or HDI.   Some medical conditions featured genes turned off when they should be on. For example tumor suppressor gene (and autism gene) PTEN is turned off in the prostate of many males with prostate cancer; a neat therapy would be to switch it back on.   Deacetylation of PTEN by SIRT1 deacetylase and, by HDAC1 , can stimulate its activity , so probably a good thing for people with this kind of co...