Homeopathic Feverfew

[Luckfax]

A couple of people on the SSRI board are going mental claiming it raises libido and erections significantly. However it could be linked to their low serotonin levels.

[teephos1]

Hey Luckfax,

I am a PSSD (Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction) sufferer and have been following the feverfew reports with interest (I haven’t tried it myself, yet). It is correct that several people who have tried feverfew for PSSD have experienced an improvement of their condition. We still don’t really know what exactly is going on. That said, it appears likely that if feverfew helps it does so by lowering serotonin levels, thus prompting the desensitized receptors to re-sensitize again.

PSSD is not caused by low serotonin levels, quite the contrary. It is believed that by artificially raising serotonin beyond normal levels, SSRI can lead to blunted serotonin receptors. This in turn causes PSSD.

In light of this, I’m not sure feverfew would help people with Post-Finasteride Syndrome.

Best
teephos

[golf]

actually, feverfew contains parthenolide - and according to the study below parthenolide can be used as a demethylating agent.

The active ingredients in feverfew include parthenolide and tanetin. Capsules or tablets of feverfew generally contain at least 205 mcg. parthenolide; however, it might take four to six weeks before they become effective, and feverfew is not a remedy for acute migraine attacks. Parthenolide has also been found in 2005 to induce cell death in leukemia cancer stem cells

from wikipedia

Hypermethylation of 5′-cytosine-guanosine islands of tumor suppressor genes resulting in their silencing has been proposed to be a hallmark of various tumors. Modulation of DNA methylation with DNA methylation inhibitors has been shown to result in cancer cell differentiation or apoptosis and represents a novel strategy for chemotherapy. Currently, effective DNA methylation inhibitors are mainly limited to decitabine and 5-azacytidine, which still show unfavorable toxicity profiles in the clinical setting. Thus, discovery and development of novel hypomethylating agents, with a more favorable toxicity profile, is essential to broaden the spectrum of epigenetic therapy. Parthenolide, the principal bioactive sesquiterpene lactone of feverfew, has been shown to alkylate Cys38 of p65 to inhibit nuclear factor-κB activation and exhibit anti-tumor activity in human malignancies. In this article, we report that parthenolide 1) inhibits DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) with an IC50 of 3.5 μM, possibly through alkylation of the proximal thiolate of Cys1226 of the catalytic domain by its γ-methylene lactone, and 2) down-regulates DNMT1 expression possibly associated with its SubG1 cell-cycle arrest or the interruption of transcriptional factor Sp1 binding to the promoter of DNMT1. These dual functions of parthenolide result in the observed in vitro and in vivo global DNA hypomethylation. Furthermore, parthenolide has been shown to reactivate tumor suppressor HIN-1 gene in vitro possibly associated with its promoter hypomethylation. Hence, our study established parthenolide as an effective DNA methylation inhibitor, representing a novel prototype for DNMT1 inhibitor discovery and development from natural structural-diversified sesquiterpene lactones.

jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/3 … 5.abstract