Testing the Inosine+DMAE formula

In the series "Immunovir versus Inosine Revisited", I discussed the antiviral drug Immunovir (Isoprinosine) as well as the possibilty of a homemade substitute. While Isoprinosine is made from inosine and dimethylaminoisopropanol (DMAIP), from reading the patent it seemed the general idea was to use an amino alcohol to alter the way the inosine is absorbed into the body, and while DMAIP is preferred it seemed like dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) could have similar effects. DMAE, but not DMAIP, is available as a nutritional supplement, along with the inosine. If one can't get the real Isoprinosine tablets, mixing inosine and DMAE might be a good alternative.

I purchased bulk DMAE bitartrate and inosine from iHerb.com, brand name Life Extension. A common dose of Iosprinosine is 3000mg per day (six 500mg tablets), so to make roughly 3000mg of the inosine+DMAE combination, I mixed 1 and 3/8 teaspoons of the DMAE bitartrate and 1/4 teaspoon inosine (plus an extra little pinch of inosine) into 1.5 cups of water. The water is cloudy at first but with a minute or two of stirring it gradually becomes clear. This gives three doses of a half cup each.

In order to test for side effects and what not I decided to take only one dose on one day, then the next two doses the following day. So the first day I drank my half cup, and I gulped it down pretty fast. The taste is very acidic even though it is supposed to have a neutral pH. I ended up with some pretty severe acid reflux that lasted for almost the rest of the day. I also got a slight headache which could due to either the purported antiviral effect or just a side effect of the DMAE. Excitation and insomnia are two known side effects of DMAE but I did not really experience that (I have occasional insomina anyway). I did have some more-vivid-than-usual dreams and paradoxically actually felt I slept better.

The next morning I took another dose with similar results as the first day. Slight nausea, stomach upset, acid reflux, slight headache. That evening, I decided to only take half of a dose and got the symptoms again only not as bad.

Okay, so I decided to take a break for a few days and try to figure out a way to mitigate the gastro-intestinal side effects. Eventually I tried again, only this time I cut the DMAE bitartrate down to 1 teaspoon and increased the inosine to 3/8 teaspoon, again mixing into 1.5 cups of water. However, this time, when it came time to take each half-cup dose, I diluted each dose again into another cup of water and drank it slowly over the course of about 30-40 minutes. This time I had no acid reflux at all and only very minor stomach upset from the acid taste. It seems the extra dilution and drinking much more slowly instead of gulping it down helped tremendously. Isoprinosine comes in tablets so it probably takes at least 30 minutes for them to dissolve in your stomach anyway, maybe longer. Hopefully I can increase the DMAE again back to the original level and still keep the GI effects at bay by diluting it more and drinking it more slowly.

In addition to buying the ingredients in bulk and mixing them into water, one could also mix the dry ingredients only, add a filler of some type, and stuff it into capsules. It seems like it would be necessary to dissolve them together, but the original patent claims that the inosine and amino alcohol can be given separately, "as long as they have a chance to get together in the body of the animal." An even more convenient (but less flexible) way would be to take about 250mg of inosine and enough DMAE bitratrate to equal about 250mg DMAE by buying tablets and capsules in the necessary size. Usually inosine is sold in 500mg tablets so they would need to be cut in half. Source Naturals sells DMAE capsules in a size that gives 351mg DMAE bitartrate (130mg DMAE). So for each dose, one could take half a tablet inosine and two capsules of the Source Naturals DMAE, and this would equal a total of 952mg; approximately equivalent of two 500mg tablets of Isoprinosine.

Note that the amount of DMAE is much higher than someone would ordinarily take if they wanted to take a DMAE supplement. Whether this would result in side effects, or if the side effect profile of the inosine+DMAE combination is different than each component given separately, remains to be seen.

I am still debating whether to take the homemade version full time or if I should figure out a way to get the real Isoprinosine. But it requires a prescription, would cost several hundred dollars a month, and might be ceased by customs when attempting to import it. On one hand, I'd love to save the money and hassle by making my own, but on the other, I don't want to waste time taking something that might not work as well. Either way, I definitely think this is a much closer substitute for the real thing than merely taking inosine alone despite what Doctors DeMeirleir and Cheney have said.