Posted by alucard on April 29, 2008, at 16:54:32
In reply to Re: A few Cyprenil (liquid selegiline citrate) ?s, posted by bulldog2 on April 29, 2008, at 8:40:10
> What is your liquid selegiline like? Is it an oily yellowish liquid, or does it seem more like water?
undopaminergic - The Cyprenil I'm taking is a clear liquid the consistency of water that has a slightly bitter citric taste to it, so it's not the freebase.
>On a more disconcerting note: Discovery, who made the first liquid depreynyl citrate which is now off the market claims that selepryl and cyprenil are fakes and are just liquid selegiline hcl.
I wrote the company that makes these meds and asked them about that and have not heard from them yet.bulldog2 & undopaminergic & everybody - I too read Discovery's claim that Cyprenil and Selepryl were actually just liquid selegiline HCl intentionally mislabeled as the citrate, and I read that BEFORE I ordered the Cyprenil. Here's my thoughts on it:
First of all, as Discovery mentions on their website, they never actually made the liquid deprenyl citrate (LDC from now on) themselves, they contracted with a Mexican pharmaceutical company called Cyto-Pharma to make it for them. Apparently Discovery developed the PROCEDURE to make LDC, but then they licensed the use of that procedure to Cyto-Pharma so it could be made cheaply and then imported through Discovery. This is important because one of the so-called "fake" LDCs (Selepryl) is produced by a Mexican pharmaceutical company called...Cyto-Pharma. When Discovery's offices in Florida were raided and they were shut down in 1993, do you think all the chemists at Cyto-Pharma's lab in Mexico suddenly forgot the LDC manufacturing procedure? Definitely not, and on top of that chemists keep very detailed records of procedures. Furthermore, in the Mexican pharmaceutical market matters of licensing, patents, etc. are basically ignored, so Discovery getting shut down was actually just a free pass to Cyto-Pharma to sell their product directly to the American consumers of LDC under their own brand name (Selepryl instead of Discovery) with no competition (until Cyprenil came along of course).
Secondly, Discovery's claim that nobody else in the whole world has figured out how to make selegiline citrate is just plain ridiculous and insultingly unscientific, along with quite a few other claims on their website. I majored in organic chemistry in college and I can tell you this with certainty: practically any freebase that can be stabilized with hydrochloride can also be stabilized with citrate. Or, for that matter, with hydrogen cyanide (not that you'd want to use that particular one for ingestion), or any of a dozen other similar molecules. There are a few exceptions to this, BUT if one chemist can stabilize selegiline freebase with citrate, then so can anybody else with a year or two of organic chemistry training. It's just not that complex. So if Discovery can make selegiline citrate, then so can anybody else.
While we're on the subject of Discovery's claims about LDC, I may as well address this one too: Discovery claims that selegiline citrate is a "different chemical entity" than selegiline hydrochloride. This is technically TRUE, and it definitely matters when discussing subligually-absorbed selegiline. It doesn't matter if you simply swallow the LDC, because your stomach is filled with hydrochloric acid which will convert LDC to LD-Hydrochloride before it is absorbed. BUT if you absorb LDC through the mucus membrane under your tongue and in the rest of your mouth, you bypass that conversion to the hydrochloride form and allow the citrate form to go more or less directly into your bloodstream. Why is this important? Because sometimes stabilizer molecules (citrate, hydrochloride, hydrogen cyanide, etc.) have medically important effects themselves, and/or they interfere with the effect of the drug they are stabilizing. The stabilizer molecules can also aid or hinder absorption and use of the drug they are stabilizing. This can be seen most commonly in vitamins. Calcium citrate, for example, is better absorbed than tri-calcium phosphate, and is thus a better form to take if you must get your calcium from a pill. Both forms are "calcium", but they can technically be called "different chemical entities" because they absorb differently and are processed differently by your body. The same is true for selegiline citrate vs. selegiline hydrochloride, but ONLY when used sublingually or injected.
The Discovery scientists, while they were certainly pioneers of brilliant alternative therapies for many different ailments, appear to have become possessed by the persecuted-savior-complex. I have no doubt that they were intentionally screwed over and discredited by the FDA & Friends, but that doesn't mean that they are 100% correct about everything and beyond reproach. A good portion of their science and information is sound (including the majority of their "conspiracy" theories, in my opinion), but some of it is just a hysterical temper tantrum thrown by a toddler who's been treated unfairly. Like their claim that other people who are making LDC are liars and fakes. It sounds to me like they're just pissed that not only do they no longer have the LDC market cornered but they don't even have a little PIECE of that market any more. However, I have a hard time understanding why they don't just relocate to a foreign country if they really believe everything they write on their website. You'd think if you really believed you had cures for cancer and AIDS and old age, you might try a little harder to get them to the rest of the world? The FDA has no jurisdiction in Mexico or Canada or ANYWHERE except the U.S., and I hear Europe in particular is a lot more friendly to alternative medicine, but maybe I missed something...
Hope that was helpful and not too long or technical! For the record, I'll be ordering a few bottles of Selepryl to try after the Cyprenil runs out in 2 months and I'll post if I notice any subjective differences.
poster:alucard
thread:825078
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080420/msgs/826322.html