Why do some people pop a pill or get a shot with no ill effects, yet others are left with lifelong side effects or even die? A growing field called epigenetics may offer clues. It’s how your unique life exposures flip genetic switches on or off, turning safe treatments risky for some. Today, we hear more from an epigenetics researcher.
The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.
More than two decades ago, researcher Antonei Csoka zeroed in on a hidden toll of long-term drug side effects. He noticed patients on SSRIs—common antidepressants—grappling with sexual issues that lingered after they quit the medicine.
Antonei Csoka: The sexual dysfunction was on the label. It has been on the label for quite some time, but it’s not described as persistent sexual dysfunction after discontinuation. So that’s really the sort of heart of the issue. I published some case reports with a psychiatrist— this was in the early to mid-two thousands— and also started to look at the epigenetic effects of SSRIs a little while later on human cells and culture, and found that the drugs can actually cause epigenetic changes in cells.
“Epigenetic changes” are like invisible tweaks to your DNA controls. Your genes are silenced or activated by daily assaults: toxic chemicals in food, polluted air and water, chronic stress, smoking, or prescription medicine.
Csoka: You know, our exposure to different environments can alter our epigenetics.
Sharyl: Something that might not go wrong in your body normally, could be triggered by a medicine or a treatment?
Csoka: Exactly.
Sharyl: Like the sexual dysfunction?
Csoka: Exactly.
Experts now suspect epigenetics may explain why some drugs spark irreversible changes in vulnerable patients—long after the last dose of medicine. Genes get rewired, refusing to reset.
Take Accutane, the acne fighter infamous for triggering depression, suicidal urges, sexual problems, joint pain, and inflammatory bowel disease emerging months or years after the medicine is stopped.
Propecia or Proscar to treat hair loss can unleash enduring sexual dysfunction, depression, suicidal thoughts and other psychiatric conditions, muscle weakness, and brain fog.
Cholesterol lowering statins like Lipitor, Zocor, and Crestor can cause persistent muscle pain, weakness, kidney failure, cognitive issues, and nerve pain.
And besides sexual dysfunction, SSRI antidepressants like Paxil can cause flu-like symptoms, and ongoing anxiety, mood problems, and insomnia years later.
Sharyl: In the bigger picture, do you think what’s being learned about medicines impacting genes turning on or being damaged or harmful things happening may explain a lot of chronic disorders and lingering side effects people have from medications?
Csoka: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
Sharyl: How important is that area of research, do you think?
Csoka: I think it’s hugely important, massively important. And I think that it’s not just medications. It’s also, you know, chemicals, viruses, probably can have epigenetic effects. There’s, you know, so-called post viral syndromes that are being described now.
Researchers are still learning how Covid and Covid vaccines have caused changes in people’s bodies in the long-term. Ill effects can persist, or even surface for the first time, years after the vaccine or infection— perhaps explained by epigenetics.
Sharyl: What is your sort of takeaway?
Csoka: I think scientists and clinicians need to pay more attention to this. Also there should be more public awareness campaigns I think. Pharmacology arguably has been an oversimplification in the sense that it’s not just a matter of putting a chemical into somebody or on cells and something has changed, you remove it and everything goes back to normal, everything reverses. I think that’s an oversimplification. Things can leave an imprint, you know? Like a hand in clay or something like that.
Sharyl (on-camera): Csoka is part of an active citizen petition that asks the FDA to revise the warning labels on SSRI antidepressants to note that sexual side effects may persist after patients stop taking the drugs and may even be permanent.
Watch video here.
