Medicine
Honey as Antimicrobial Wound Care
Honey has been used on wounds for 3,000+ years and is FDA-cleared since 2007 as medical-grade wound dressing (Medihoney, Manuka). Active via low water activity, hydrogen peroxide release, methylglyoxal, low pH, and osmotic effect. No documented bacterial resistance after millennia, and sub-inhibitory doses can reverse resistance to other antibiotics.
Angel's Glow at Shiloh
After the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh, ~16,000 wounded soldiers lay in cold mud for 2 days — some wounds glowed faintly blue, and soldiers with glowing wounds had lower infection rates. Solved in 2001 by two Maryland high school students: the bioluminescent bacterium Photorhabdus luminescens, usually killed by body heat, colonized hypothermic soldiers' wounds and produced antibiotics that knocked back pathogens.
Hydroxocobalamin: The Vitamin B12 Cyanide Antidote
Hydroxocobalamin (Cyanokit) is a vitamin B12 precursor with higher affinity for cyanide than cytochrome c oxidase — it rips cyanide off the mitochondrial electron transport chain and the resulting cyanocobalamin is literally just vitamin B12, excreted harmlessly in urine.
Clascoterone (Winlevi): First-in-Class Topical Androgen Receptor Inhibitor for Acne
Clascoterone 1% cream (Winlevi) is the first topical drug to directly block the androgen receptor in skin, FDA-approved in 2020 after Phase 3 trials showed roughly triple the treatment success rate of vehicle — a mechanism previously only available via oral spironolactone or isotretinoin.
Darobactin (Antibiotic from Photorhabdus)
Darobactin is a new antibiotic class isolated from Photorhabdus in a 2019 Nature paper — the first truly new gram-negative antibiotic class in over 50 years. It kills E. coli, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter including multi-drug-resistant strains by binding BamA, an essential outer-membrane chaperone, with a mechanism hard to evolve resistance to.
Carboxyhaemoglobin: Binding, Half-Life, and Reference Levels
Non-smoker baseline 1–3%, heavy smoker 10–15%, generally lethal above 50% but potentially lethal at 10–30% with heart disease. Elimination half-life is 4–5 hours on room air, 40–80 minutes on 100% oxygen, about 23 minutes hyperbaric — which is why airing out a room doesn't clear your blood. Foetal haemoglobin binds CO even more avidly, and significant exposures carry a 10–30% risk of delayed neurological sequelae days to weeks later.
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: Why You Cannot Build Useful Tolerance
CO binds haemoglobin ~200× more avidly than oxygen, left-shifts the dissociation curve so the oxygen you do carry isn't released, and inhibits cytochrome c oxidase — three simultaneous attacks with no adaptive lever. The one documented human acclimatisation worked by raising red cell mass, which increases baseline carboxyhaemoglobin and dulls the warning headache while doing nothing against an acute dose. The intuitive lever pulls the wrong way.
Evidence-Based First-Line Interventions for IBS
Before reaching for research-chemical peptides, IBS has a short list of interventions with high-quality trial evidence: low-FODMAP diet, enteric-coated peppermint oil, Saccharomyces boulardii, soluble fiber, and ruling out SIBO and celiac.
Tamponade Physiology in Trauma
When bleeding into an enclosed tissue space, blood accumulates until tissue pressure equals arterial pressure (~100 mmHg) and bleeding stops. The hematoma organizes into scar. This saves many stab-wound and penetrating-injury patients — but has three catastrophic traps: compartment syndrome, pseudoaneurysm rupture hours/days/weeks later, and infected hematoma.
Catgut Absorbable Sutures
Catgut sutures — despite the name, never from cats (probably corrupted 'kitgut') — are made from the serosa and submucosa of sheep or cow intestine. Body proteolytic enzymes digest the collagen over 60-120 days, so the suture dissolves as the wound heals. Galen used catgut internally and linen externally — the same absorbable-vs-permanent distinction that structures modern surgery.
Scalp Condition Misdiagnosis (Dandruff vs Dry Scalp vs Seborrheic vs Psoriasis)
Four distinct scalp conditions get conflated as 'dandruff': dry scalp (small dry flakes, needs moisture), dandruff proper (oily flakes, Malassezia), seborrheic dermatitis (yellow flakes + redness), and scalp psoriasis (thick silvery flakes, autoimmune). Each requires different treatment — antifungals on dry scalp make it worse.
Psilocybin Misconceptions: Case Reports, Blinding, and Headline Inflation
Double-blind does not mean blinded when the experience is unmistakable; statistically significant MADRS differences of 3–4 points are clinically modest; COMP006 compared 25 mg against 1 mg rather than placebo. There is no Huntington's trial, only a protocol, and 'new hope for Huntington's' headlines are usually about AMT-130 gene therapy. The Alzheimer's result is a single uncontrolled case being circulated as though it were a trial.
Why GLP-1 Agonists Work Where Absorption Blockers Failed
Semaglutide and tirzepatide produce 15-25% weight loss not by blocking absorption but by mimicking the body's own satiety hormone, suppressing appetite centrally and slowing gastric emptying — working with the body's regulatory loops rather than against them.
Anti-Obesity Drug Graveyard
Five decades of attempts to build a 'calorie-blocking pill' have produced one tolerable-but-modest survivor and a long list of withdrawn drugs — fen-phen, sibutramine, rimonabant, lorcaserin — pulled for cardiac, psychiatric, or cancer effects.
Chronic 10,000 IU Vitamin A: The Inadvertent Low-Dose Isotretinoin
Sustained oral Vitamin A at 10,000 IU/day delivers roughly 3mg of retinol — chemically and pharmacologically close to low-dose isotretinoin (Accutane), meaning long-term supplementers are unwittingly running an unmonitored retinoid protocol with the same toxicity risks.
Moldy Bread as Pre-Modern Antibiotic
Long before Fleming, mouldy bread, fermented foods, and specific plant preparations were applied to wounds across cultures — Ebers Papyrus (Egypt ~1500 BC), Galen (Rome 2nd century AD), Serbia, rural France, Indigenous Australia, Nubian beer (tetracycline-laden). Folk medicine noticed the pattern thousands of years before science explained it.
Pre-Antibiotic Wound Care Meta-Pattern
Every time modern microbiology has looked carefully at pre-antibiotic wound care folklore — moldy bread, honey, sphagnum moss, Angel's Glow, maggots — it finds real mechanism underneath. Folk medicine noticed patterns our ancestors couldn't explain; modern science keeps confirming them. Useful heuristic for evaluating other traditional remedies.
Ketoconazole for Hair Loss
Ketoconazole 2% shampoo (Nizoral) is primarily a dandruff antifungal, but it partially inhibits 5-alpha-reductase — the enzyme finasteride targets — and reduces scalp DHT by 12-16% after 4 weeks. A 1998 study showed hair-density gains similar to 2% minoxidil, and a 2020 systematic review confirmed significant regrowth vs controls.
Psychedelics for Neurodegeneration: Huntington's, Dementia, and the Evidence Gap
No clinical trial of psilocybin in Huntington's disease exists — only a proposed protocol in an undergraduate research-protocol journal and review-level speculation, plus a search hazard where 'new hope for Huntington's' headlines are usually about AMT-130 gene therapy. The dementia coverage traces to a 2026 n=1 case report with no imaging, no standardised scales and explicitly transient improvements, plus an ongoing pilot that targets depression rather than dementia pathology.
Larazotide: Zonulin Antagonist Stuck in Regulatory Limbo
Larazotide acetate is a synthetic peptide that blocks zonulin to tighten intestinal junctions; it completed a 525-patient Phase 3 celiac trial in 2022 but results remain unpublished and the drug is not FDA approved. It is widely sold as a research chemical for unproven IBS and 'leaky gut' use.
BPC-157: FDA Category 2 Safety Risks and the Compounding Pharmacy Ban
BPC-157 was placed on the FDA's Category 2 'Bulk Drug Substances List — presenting significant safety risks' in late 2023, making it illegal for licensed compounding pharmacies to produce despite zero completed human trials. Sold widely as a research chemical for gut healing.
High-Dose Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid) for Acne: The Leung Hypothesis
Gram-level oral pantothenic acid (B5) for acne traces to a 1995 Leung paper proposing CoA deficiency drives sebum production; subsequent small RCTs show meaningful lesion reduction at 2.2 grams/day with an unusually clean safety profile even at 10 grams.