APHRODISIAC, HOSTETTMANN, FUNGAL INFECTIONS, NATURAL PRODUCTS by Paul Spencer Sochaczewski

Published in Earth Times
6 February 2001

SWISS RESEARCHER INVESTIGATES NATURAL TREATMENTS FOR FUNGAL INFECTIONS, IMPOTENCE

Lausanne, Switzerland

Kurt Hostettmann is a world expert on natural aphrodisiacs.

But what really gets him excited is fungus.

Professor Hostettmann, who teaches at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, has isolated a potent anti-fungal from the root bark of a widely distributed tropical African tree, Bobgunnia madagascariensis.
Traditional healers use the roots of the tree to treat leprosy and syphilis. The plant's chemicals are said to deter termites. Chemicals in the fruits effectively kill schistosomiasis-transmitting snails.

And now this multi-purpose plant might give the world a compound to treat mycosis.

Does the world need a new antifungal?

The new compound, "quinone methide" diterpene, which has received a United States patent, will help the millions of AIDS sufferers who suffer from Candida albicans and Cladosporium cucumerinum fungal infections.

Candida albicans is the widespread fungus that is implicated in vaginal yeast infections; approximately 25% of women without disease symptoms have this organism present, according to the Medical Encyclopedia.

In immuno-compromised individuals, however, Candida may cause life-threatening illness.

Fungal infections are one of the major causes of death among AIDS patients, Hostettmann explains. "They frequently develop a mycosis in the mouth that often expands into the esophagus, eyes, even the liver."

Medscape notes that "for many [people with AIDS] a Candida fungal infection will be their first HIV-related opportunistic event [and] the first sign of impaired immune function. The severity of the fungal infections increases as the immune system becomes more dysfunctional.

Medscape adds that candidemia is associated with a mortality rate of 50%, with higher mortality likely when the diagnosis of fungal infection is not made early enough to treat the infection.

Welcome to the increasingly visible world of natural product chemistry.

Chatting with a visitor in his moderately cluttered office Hostettmann
easily shifts from fungus to aphrodisiacs. His recent book, Tout savoir sur les aphrodisiaques naturels (Everything About Natural Aphrodisiacs, Editions Favre, Lausanne, ISBN 2-8289-0625-6) has made him a media celebrity.

The basic question. Does this stuff work?

The basic answer. Depends.

Many traditional aphrodisiacs, he notes, are based on the doctrine of signatures, in which a substance is said to have an effect on the part of the human body which it resembles. This is nonsense, according to Hostettmann. So don't waste your money (or kill an endangered species) by buying rhino horn (the affect is like eating your fingernails) or tiger's penis.

But there are three natural aphrodisiacs which work just fine, he notes: yohimbine, Spanish fly, and papaverine.

Yohimbine is an alkaloid derived from various trees, particularly Pausinystalia yohimbe, a West African tree. It achieved notoriety when a Stanford (California) University researcher published that rats that were given yohimbine achieved up to 50 erections in one hour. Hundreds of Stanford students then clamored for a place in the human trials. Who would have thought that college students would be so keen to further the cause of science?

Spanish fly isn't a fly at all, but an emerald-colored Mediterranean-region scarab beetle or "blister beetle", sometimes called Lytta vesicatoria (from the Greek lytta, meaning rage, and the Latin vesica, meaning blister) and sometimes Cantharis vesicatoria. Hippocrates and Pliny the Elder noted the aphrodisiac power of the compound cantharidin, which is obtained by crushing the dried beetles. The Roman empress Livia (58 B.C. - AD 29) purportedly slipped it into the food of other members of the imperial family to stimulate them into committing sexual indiscretions that could later be used against them.

Papaverine is an alkaloid derived from Papaver somniferum, the infamous opium poppy. It only works when injected into the base of the penis.

And of course there's vuka-vuka.

Vuka-vuka (pronounced VOO-ka VOO-ka) is the vernacular name of an herbal concoction widely available in Zimbabwe. The natural aphrodisiac, which means "wake up" in Ndebele, surged to fame when CNN broadcast a feature on George Moyo, a traditional healer near the town of Bulawayo, promoting Moyo's success in treating his patients with vuka-vuka. To illustrate the concoction's efficacy Moyo shows visitors photos of his 23 children. One researcher claims that vuka-vuka's active component is cantharidin, derived from dried beetles of the genus Myalabris.

Professor Hostettmann has given one of his researchers a budget of several thousand dollars to order vuka-vuka, and other aphrodisiacs, over the internet. The student then analyzes the ingredients in the hope of developing a quick analysis system that would protect consumers.

There's not shortage of choices. An internet search through Google resulted in 277 vuka-vuka hits -- with one company offers 20 tablets for US$ 24.95.

Isn't that a good thing - guaranteed erections for the general public?

"Not really," Hostettmann says. "We feel it's dangerous. You don't know you're getting when you buy these concoctions. They might mix in yohimbine or Spanish fly without telling you and you'll have no way of knowing how that's going to hit you," Hostettmann says.

And they might mix in other harmful chemicals. The United States Food and Drug Administration warned that Legendary Sex Exciter pills, allegedly containing Spanish fly, also contained strychnine.
"Spanish fly is prohibited for human use in Switzerland," Hostettmann adds, noting that many incidences of priapism (a painful, prolonged erection that sometimes has to be deflated by draining the blood in the penis; the term derives from Priapus, the Greek god of male procreative power) and toxic kidney reactions have resulted from an overdose. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine reports that cantharidin can cause severe abdominal pain, burning of the mouth, vomiting, bleeding, and painful urination.

"Spanish fly can show up in strange places," Hostettmann notes, telling the story of the one hundred French legionnaires in North Africa who, in the 1850s, suffered dramatic and serious priapism. The army doctor who examined the men found that they had all eaten frogs legs, and that the frogs had eaten blister beetles - Spanish fly. The cantharidin accumulated in the frog's muscles. The result of the gastronomic feast was a lot of unhappy soldiers.

And Thomas Eisner of Cornell University noted that in Benin, West Africa, cantharidin-rich scarab beetles are eaten by wild geese. Men who then ate the geese had the surprising - and painful - side effect of persistent erections.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the University of Lausanne researchers seem a happy lot. In the common room used by several grad students a high shelf running along all four walls is lined with empty Champagne bottles -- Moet and Chandon, Veuve Cliquot, Laurent Perrier -- peer down on researchers working on computers and thumbing through technical journals. Perhaps the scientists have been taking their homework home with them, dining with their partners on frogs' legs and goose liver pâté and celebrating the results with the bubbly.