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LEFT.HANDED AND
RIGHT.
HANDED
DRUGS HAVE
ENTIRELY
DIFFERENT
PROPERTIES
As
many
vital biologically active
compounds
are highly
specific
in
action,
it
would be interesting to take a look
at
the
rationale
for
their choice by Nature.
We can now see
that
Mother Nature
is
so intelligent - even
if
the same com-
pound chosen most appropriately
but
with the inappropriate "hands" (rotation
of
the compound
to
the
right or
the left),
the action would
be
completely
differ-
ent or nullified altogether. For example,
all
amino
acids (building
blocks
of
protein)
inside
our
body
are
"levo-
rotating",
no
amount
of
"dextro-rotating"
amino acids can be metabolized. Even
for daily living,
it
really
pays
for us to
take
a
close look
at
the fact that
even
common drugs taken
lor
specific dis-
eases
require the same specificity. For
example, one
of the
drugs
for
Parkinson's disease was levo-Dopa,
or
the left-rotating-Dopa,
a
compound that
worked well
for
the disease but Dextro-
Dopa,
orthe
right-rotating
form
of
Dopa,
would actually
produce
very
serious
side-effects as
the
body
is
unable to
metabolize
it
at
all.
The
excess dextro-
Dopa
would
just accumulate progres-
sively
in
the
body as
a
toxic substance.
The
"dextro"
lorm
of
some anti-cancer
drugs, e.9., cyclophosphamide, is
2
times
more active than
the
"levo" form.
Even
the
famous
Thalidomide tragedy
(babies born without limbs) was traced
to a mix up on
the
rotation ol the same
compound!
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