An Anti-MAO Zedong Drug (from Dr JB Lim)

The blogger received the following email from Dr JB Lim the other day:

Tuesday, 13 March, 2012 10:29 PM

From: lim juboo

Whenever I come across the class of drugs called MAO inhibitors (monoamine oxidase inhibitors) prescribed to depressed patients, I always think of Chairman Mao Zedong who suppressed (not elevated the mood) all those 1.2 billion Chinese over there in China in the 1930s.

Had he not been there to suppress the mood of all those people, I think China would have long risen to be a superpower overtaking the US today.

His presence does the opposite action of what these classes of drugs are supposed to do as antidepressants.

Mao himself needed to be inhibited so that his minds worked the other way round. If he was happy, then everybody in China would long have been happy and not so depressed. A happy country is a rich and progressive nation. Mao Zedong himself must have been a psychiatric case.

I myself feel very depressed about MAO inhibitors, because they interact with certain foods and interfere with nutrition especially with amines and tyramine present in certain protein containing foods like cheese and milk.

Their drug-food interaction causes an elevation of blood pressure, escalating into hypertensive crisis which can be fatal.

In milk, cheese and dairy products the amino acid tryptophan will react with Mao inhibitors causing serotonin toxicity or serotonin toxidrome (serotonin syndrome or hyperserotonemia). This also can often be fatal.

Nutritionists are concerned of about this effect when patients are put on this class of antidepressants.

That’s why I am very depressed myself whenever I hear the word ‘MAO inhibitors’. When depressed patients are put on this medication the hyperserotonemia not only interferes with normal nutrition, and the enjoyment of a large variety of food, but it can make a person real sick. That itself further affects his nutrition in a vicious circle.

Mao Zedong is always there to create trouble, affecting food supply, nutrition and spreading hunger to his one billion people across China making them very hungry and depressed at the same time.

Only an anti-MAO political therapeutic regime can elevate mood and make people happy.

(A depressed anti-Mao nutritionist)

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In response, the blogger wrote to Dr Lim as follows:

Wednesday, 14 March, 2012 11:31 AM

Dear Great Sifu,

Please pardon me as I don't quite agree with your total condemnation of Mao Zedong.

In fact, Mao was at his best as a revolutionist in the 1930's (the period you mentioned he suppressed Chinese then), culminating in the founding of PRC in 1949.

He "turned bad" only after launching the "Great Leap Forward" in 1958 and the "Cultural Revolution" in 1966 until his dealth in 1976.

His legacy is well described as follows:

"Mao turned China from a feudal backwater into one of the most powerful countries in the World ... The Chinese system he overthrew was backward and corrupt; few would argue the fact that he dragged China into the 20th century. But at a cost in human lives that is staggering.

— Mao Tse Tung: China's Peasant Emperor, A&E Biography, 2005"

Refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

China will not become what she is today without Mao Zedong and no one can deny this fact. Nevertheless, his merit and demerit to China in the ratio of 7:3 or the reverse remain debatable until this date.

Thank you.

Regards,

T.O. Lau (an admirer of Mao's poems)