Gastrointestinal detoxification

Treatment of acute toxicosis involves gastrointestinal detoxification followed by the administration of potassium to counteract the hypokalemia. 

Detoxification. Early gastrointestinal detoxification using cme aclivaled charctral, and osmotic cathartics markedly improves the survival tate-... 

Following gastrointestinal detoxification and the administration of activated charcoal and osmotic cathartics, fluid diuresis should be instituted for 24 hours. 

Adsorbents are chemically inert powders that have the ability to adsorb gasses, toxins, and bacteria. The fine state of subdivision of these powders facilitates their high adsorptive capacity. Only certain materials that possess chemical adsorptive properties lend themselves to gastrointestinal detoxification. These substances include kaolin, or kaolinite, and magnesium trisilicate. 

Like most halogenated hydrocarbon pesticides, very little of the chlordecone or its metabolites is excreted via the urine. Because of the apparent enterohepatic recirculation of chlordecone and chlordecone alcohol, most experimental approaches to chlordecone detoxification have focused on limiting reabsorption from the gastrointestinal tract using cholestyramine (Boylan et al. 1978 Cohn et al. 1978), liquid paraffin (Richter et al. 1979), and chlorella and chlorella- derived sporopollenin (Pore 1984). No information was found that indicated that mirex undergoes enterohepatic recirculation, so it is not known whether use of these therapies would be effective in reducing absorption of mirex. 

This difference could be due either to a lack of absorption of sila-meprobamate when given orally or to a different detoxification pathway. Fessenden und Ahlfors, who investigated the metabolic fate72 of 64b, 66b and 71b after peroral application in rats, could show that sila-meprobamate is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. After oral application of 66b, 60—90% of the ingested silicon was found in the urine within 3 days. On the basis of spectral evidence, Fessenden postulated the structures 79 and 80 for the isolated metabolic products (Scheme 5) ... 

Biotransformation, especially phase I metabolic reactions, cannot be assumed to be synonymous with detoxification because some drugs (although a minority) and xenobiotics are converted to potentially toxic metabolites (e.g. parathion, fluorine-containing volatile anaesthetics) or chemically reactive intermediates that produce toxicity (e.g. paracetamol in cats). The term lethal synthesis refers to the biochemical process whereby a non-toxic substance is metabolically converted to a toxic form. The poisonous plant Dichapetalum cymosum contains monofluoroacetate which, following gastrointestinal absorption, enters the tricarboxylic acid (Krebs) cycle in which it becomes converted to monofluorocitrate. The latter compound causes toxicity in animals due to irreversible inhibition of the enzyme aconitase. The selective toxicity of flucytosine for susceptible yeasts (Cryptococcus neoformans, Candida spp.) is attributable to its conversion (deamination) to 5-fluorouracil, which is incorporated into messenger RNA. 

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