Asacol vs Azulfidine
http://www.healingcrow.com/ELF/ELF51.html
Elaine writes:
To answer your first question: the allergy testing is far from accurate and I think the doctor may have been too fast about taking you off azulfidine. I know that the Asacol seems to be without efficacy for 98% of the people to whom I speak. But the azulfidine does not breed yeast and it is one of the older and more effective drugs. I was told this story by the president of a drug company: In spite of the fact that azulfidine was the tried and tested help for almost 50 years, the patent began running out. (By the way, the azulfidine fools microbes, bacteria and yeast, into picking up a “counterfeit” molecule with which they make their own folic acid and which they need to multiply) The generic drug companies started producing azulfidine since the patent ran out and the big companies now had a competitive product, just as good, but much cheaper. So the big companies started a big hype about the azulfidine: that they had finally found out what the active component was (this was a lie, they knew for years it minimized the growth of microbes) and that this component would be put in a new breakthrough drug called 5-amino salicylic acid. You know it as Asacol and a few others.The terrible thing about this was that the active component in Azulfidine was not so much 5-amino salicylic acid as it was the sulfated form of para-amino-benzoic-acid which was designed to fool bacteria into picking it up and trying to make their own folic acid out of it (they cannot use preformed folic acid as we do). So every doctor connected with the powers-that-be went about lecturing about this new discovery. I attended a lecture while doing research in London, Ontario at St. Joseph Hospital and Dr. W. C. Watkins gave the hype on the new drug. I had learned otherwise in microbiology and I raised my hand to say ‘BUT WE DO KNOW WHICH COMPONENT IN AZULFIDINE IS MOST EFFECTIVE’ and he waved me down. So that is the story. I would call my regular GI doctor and you need not go into a whole spiel but I would tell him another doctor took you off the Azulfidine and you don’t know what to do at this point. This is a perfect example of why someone who does not know everything should take it easy. You need help. I would stay with the diet. Don’t aggravate your doctor more by trying to explain this diet; he said you could eat anythingthat agreed with you but get the colitis under control right away.
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Question: What was the more effective drug, Asacol or Azulfidine?
Elaine writes:
The Asacol which contains only an aspirinlike antiinflammatory is of little effectiveness in 98% of all people (l00′s) I’ve talked to. The azulfidine, altho it has some 5-amino-salicyclic in it also contains a bacteria fighter called a counterfeit of para-amino-benzoic acid which the bacteria are fooled into picking up and then not being able to make babies as a result. For years, it was believed that the sulfa compound in the para-amino-benzoic acid caused sensitivities; now the newer research is saying it probably is the 5-amino-salicylic acid. I do wish there were some ways for you folks to read this so I do not have to write it every day.
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