January 01, 2019 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Alkaloids in Cinchona
The fact that the bark of Cinchona bark
contained active ingredients in the form of alkaloids such as quinine and
quinidine came to be known much later.
These are not the only alkaloids that this
plant provides us with.
It also contains cinchonine, cinchonidine,
dihydroqiuinine and dihydroquinidine among others.
So what exactly are alkaloids?
Alkaloids are defined quite vaguely as
naturally occurring organic compounds (please make a note all of you are
believe in naturopathy and ayurveda) that contains basic nitrogen atoms.
This definition is indeed vague as it does
distinctly demarcate the boundary that separates alkaloids from other
nitrogen-containing natural compounds such as amino acids, peptides, proteins,
nucleic acids and even antibiotics.
Some chemists and biochemists even consider
alkaloids to be a special sub-category of amines.
Please allow me to list out other alkaloids
that are extracted from various natural organic sources (besides plants the
other providers are bacteria, fungi and animals) and exploited by us apes for
their medicinal properties.
The list of alkaloids includes morphine,
ephedrine, piperine, cocaine, caffeine, nicotine, atropine, tubocurarine,
thebromine and many more.
Some of these may be familiar to you and
many but not all of these organic alkaloids are used by us humans in one form
or the other and often abused as smokers amongst you would unhesitatingly
testify.
It is this science of chemistry that
dispels the magic and mumbo jumbo and precisely points out what it is that
works in the bark and how it works both at the biochemical and cellular level.
There is no balderdash involved here as the
explanation that chemistry provides for medicine to work has to be within the
fundamental laws of physics that are more often than not written down in the
language of mathematics.
We have found no better universal language
than mathematics to explain the workings of nature.
This plant Cinchona till this very day
remains the primary and economically viable source of quinine that till this
day serves us in treating patients afflicted with Plasmodium falciparum.
Plasmodium falciparum in its turn is the
deadliest of all the species of Plasmodium that cause malaria in humans.
The other alkaloid derivative quinidine (a
stereoisomer of quinine – the magic of chemistry is everywhere) was found to
have this strange property of prolonging the cardiac action potential which in
lay man terms translates into slowing down of heart.
The story of action potential is a
fascinating one and it is one of those phenomenons that is occurring in our
body all the time perennially and is keeping not only us alive but also our thoughts
and our dreams alive.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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