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A 2026 review of how ivermectin poisons the nervous system: usually safe at approved doses, but encephalopathy, seizures, coma and death have followed high doses, and the pump that keeps it out of the brain is the key factor.
The review integrates controlled human trials, pharmacovigilance, case reports and animal studies, and finds that early placebo-controlled studies in healthy volunteers showed ivermectin well tolerated even at doses well above approved levels, while post-marketing surveillance has identified rare but severe neurotoxic events, including encephalopathy, seizures, coma and death, after supratherapeutic exposure and, in susceptible people, at standard doses (Yilmaz toxicity review 2026). It identifies impairment or saturation of P-glycoprotein-mediated efflux at the blood-brain barrier as the central determinant of neurotoxicity, and records that the COVID-19 pandemic brought a substantial increase in toxic exposures, especially to veterinary formulations, without demonstrated clinical benefit (Yilmaz toxicity review 2026).
Explains why a patient on cancer drugs that inhibit P-glycoprotein or CYP3A4 is at higher risk from ivermectin than a healthy volunteer, and why veterinary doses are dangerous.
Shares Pharmacokinetics (PK), half-life and exposure, Ivermectin.
Shares Pharmacokinetics (PK), half-life and exposure, Ivermectin.
Shares Pharmacokinetics (PK), half-life and exposure, Ivermectin.