Diet could combat adverse side-effects of quinine

Scientists at The University of Nottingham say adverse side-effects caused by the anti-parasitic drug quinine in the treatment of malaria could be controlled by what we eat. The research, carried out by Nottingham scientists on the University's campuses in the UK and Malaysia, indicates that natural variation in our levels of the amino acid, tryptophan, has a marked bearing on how we respond to quinine treatment. It appears that the lower our levels of tryptophan the more likely it is that we would suffer side-effects. And because tryptophan is an essential amino acid the body cannot produce it — we get it from the food we eat. Discovered back in the 1600s, quinine is still used for anti-malaria treatment. However, it is associated with a long list of side effects ranging from sickness and headaches to blindness, deafness and in rare cases death. This latest study, published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy , could offer a cheap and simple way of combating our adverse reaction to quinine treatment and improving the performance of this important drug.