What Are the Dangers of Quinine?
Quinine is derived from tree bark and has been used for more than 200 years to treat malaria. While the drug has been proven to effectively kill the malaria disease and still works in its synthetic form today, scientists still do not understand its full effects on the human body.
Normally, quinine causes a condition known as cinchonism, due to its natural toxicity, but a variety of other side effects have been confirmed, such as sometimes fatal kidney problems and heart arrhythmias. The FDA has only approved quinine as a treatment for certain malaria cases and does not recommend it for leg cramps.
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History
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Quinine was a drug used first as a natural derivative and then developed synthetically to treat disease, most often malaria. It is an alkaloid that was first discovered in the bark of a South American tree, along with several similar chemicals, one of which is used to treat cardiac arrhythmia. Its popularity grew when it was first mixed with soda water and sugar by British soldiers, who were using it for malaria prevention.
The drug was used from the 1700s to the early 1900s, and although the FDA has allowed synthetic quinine sulfate to be used as a treatment for simple types of malaria in America, it has decided that the drug does not show positive results for other diseases. Despite this, quinine is also used to treat leg cramps.
Composition
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Quinine is made of two main chemical parts. The first is quinoline, an aromatic organic compound that can be derived separately from coal tar and has a molecular formula of C9H7N. The second part is quinuclidine, another organic compound that can be used separately as a catalyst for other chemical reactions, with a formula of C7H13N. Fused together, they form the alkaloid C20H24N2O2, quinine.
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Effects on the Body
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Because quinine is an alkaloid, it is naturally dangerous to the human body in large doses. In small doses it can have a variety of effects, depending on your particular physiology and tolerance. Noted dangerous side effects include visual and hearing problems, kidney complications, hypersensitivity, thrombocytopenia and cardiac arrhythmias.
Part of the drug acts as a muscle relaxant in low doses, which is why it is used unofficially as a treatment for leg cramps. Quinine can be both taken by mouth or injected into the bloodstream, where it causes a fatal reaction in malaria parasites. Because of its complex and still unknown actions, it took scientists about 100 years to create the synthetic version of quinine used today.
Considerations
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In very small doses, such as the small amount of quinine added to tonic water, the chemical has almost no effect on the human body. In medical doses, it can cause cinchonism, which is the body's reaction to the poisonous alkaloid, usually made up of a variety of systems, from headaches and temporary hearing loss to sweating and digestive problems. Cinchonism can lead to death if the symptoms become severe.
More troubling are the other side effects of quinine that include hypoglycemia and kidney failure, which are due to the inherent poisonous qualities of the drug. The FDA acknowledges 93 reports of quinine-caused deaths within the last 40 years and hundreds of permanent complications. There are attorneys whose specialty is to represent victims or family members who have suffered from a severe quinine reaction.
Alternatives
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Other drugs have been developed to more effectively fight malaria without the poisonous side effects, such as chloroquine. These drugs are used in most malaria cases, with quinine reserved for more extreme cases. There are also more effective and approved muscle relaxants available to treat leg cramps that may cost more but come without the dangerous side effects.
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