COVID therapeutics Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Top Israeli Doctor Says Ivermectin Could Help Treat COVID, Urges More Research

AHA Publisher — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 07:00:32 +0000

Chris Mitchell via CBN News – JERUSALEM, Israel – In the battle against COVID-19, most of the world has turned to vaccines as the main line of defense. Still, a number of doctors and hospitals are looking for other options that could potentially play a role in defeating this global pandemic. Several treatments have seen success in treating the disease, such as Regeneron and Remdesevir. The drug Ivermectin also continues to generate interest. While the FDA and other organizations advise against it, one Israeli doctor is reporting positive results in clinical trials. Professor Eli Schwartz is with the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, considered one of the world’s top hospitals. For decades, Prof. Schwartz has traveled the world fighting outbreaks like Dengue Fever and Ebola. He also began the Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease Institute at Sheba. At the beginning of the pandemic and months before any vaccine, Israel’s Defense Ministry assigned Schwartz to find a medical solution for COVID-19. Professor Eli Schwartz. Photo: CBN News “Since Ivermectin is one of the drugs that we are using in daily life in the Tropical Institute, I knew it. I know the safety profile of it. And since there was some hints of in-vitro studies, which show the efficacy against specifically, even against COVID-19, we decided to go for it.” That meant putting the drug through a clinical trial that lasted ten months. “Our study, which was done here, it’s a randomized controlled trial, double-blind. It’s really, I would say, this is the best method that you are doing studies. And our conclusion is that it really has antiviral activities,” Shwartz told CBN News. From his international experience in the field, Schwartz knew Ivermectin targeted parasites. Since its development in 1987, nearly 4 billion doses with few side effects and at low cost have protected millions of people from insidious parasitical diseases like River Blindness and Elephantiasis. That success won its developers the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2015. Schwartz’s study made headlines in Israel when his trial showed Ivermectin to also be anti-viral. “This is the first drug to show antiviral activity. And then, I think, there’s a good reason to continue with a much more thorough investigation to see, for example, whether people who are at high risk, may not deteriorate to be hospitalized, to be mechanically ventilated, or to death.” Schwartz’s clinical study found that by day four, 86% of his patients who took ivermectin recovered. By day six, 94% recovered. “The bottom line is that … Ivermectin decreased faster the viral load, and also sterilized the culture much better compared to the placebo,” he said. Schwartz explained to CBN News this means Ivermectin killed the virus and his patients were non-infectious. Schwartz says this could save lives and reduce quarantines by days. “It’s a huge change in life. It’s a huge change for the patient. It’s a huge change for his family. And from the economical point of view, it’s a dramatic change. You know, it’s how much money you can save for the economy of the country, if you can shorten the isolation time,” he said. But ivermectin is not accepted by the global health establishment. A major FDA concern is that a number of people have tried to self-medicate using a form of the drug intended for livestock. “Don’t do it. There’s no evidence whatsoever that it works and it could potentially have toxicity, as you just mentioned, with people who have gone to poison control centers because they’ve taken the drug at a ridiculous dose and wind up getting sick,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci. The World Health Organization advises “that Ivermectin only be used be used to treat COVID-19 within clinical trials.” The National Institutes of Health says, “Ivermectin is not approved by the FDA for the treatment of any viral infection” and that “well-conducted clinical trials are needed to provide more specific, evidence-based guidance on the role of ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.” For studies to be accepted by the broader medical community, it must be peer-reviewed and published in a medical journal. That’s where Prof. Schwartz hit a roadblock. Several journals turned him down, but one is currently reviewing his study. “It’s something really very odd. I mean, in my career, I published, I think at least 300 papers and chapters, and I never heard the story that they have with Ivermectin. I think that this kind of international campaign, anti-Ivermectin; same that we have anti-vax, anti-vaccine, we have anti-Ivermectin. I don’t understand,” said Schwartz. Schwartz added that while many health agencies want better studies, no large-scale trials on ivermectin happened until Oxford University began one in June of this year. “I mean, it took them 18 months from the beginning of the pandemic to try to do it. I mean, people dying all over the world. And you have drug under your hand and you have to wait so long until you get any conduction of a good study,” he said. Now, the pharmaceutical company Merck, which developed Ivermectin, and Pfizer are in a race to produce an oral anti-viral drug for COVID that some believe is what Ivermectin could do already. “In my view, the whole story of Ivermectin is much beyond Ivermectin. It’s even beyond the corona. The problem is that we are in the arms of the pharma and the pharma is looking for new drugs. And, therefore, all old drugs which might be with a good potential to use it for whatever you’re looking for, there’s not any parents to push for it,” Schwartz claimed. Prof. Schwartz advocates the use of Ivermectin but also believes in the vaccine. “Most of the world, still vaccine is not available. So, if we have a medication that can try to reduce the magnitude of the pandemic in the meantime, that’s absolutely needed, but when, if I have to compare the vaccine and Ivermectin for prevention, no doubt the vaccine. This is the solution, the international solution,” he said. Schwartz hopes more research will prove the drug can help fight this pandemic and that it will eventually be allowed to treat patients on a widespread basis and not just within clinical trials. To read the original article click here.

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Curcumin Nanosystems Could Be Powerful COVID-19 Therapeutics

AHA Publisher — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 07:00:10 +0000

Dr. Liji Thomas, MD via News-Medical – With new variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerging, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is far from over. While the global vaccine rollout has moved at an impressive speed, the search for new safe, effective, and targeted therapies is still on. Now, a new study in Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy reviews the potential for curcumin, a natural alkaloid derived from turmeric, and nanosystems to treat COVID-19. The Need for Therapeutics Though vaccines have been approved for emergency use, their efficacy against some of the new variants has been questioned. Moreover, vaccination coverage of at least 70% of the population in all the countries of the world is likely to take a long time, considering the current pace of vaccination, the shortfall in vaccine production, and logistical challenges. The world will still need effective and safe drugs, therefore, to intervene in serious illness caused by this virus. The current review focuses on the individual and synergistic activity of curcumin and nanostructures against the virus. Curcumin Curcumin is a polyphenolic compound isolated from the rhizome of the turmeric plant, Curcuma longa. It makes up the major curcuminoid in this plant, at 77% of the total, while the minor compound curcumin II makes up 17%, and curcumin III comprises 3%. Curcumin has been characterized and studied thoroughly, as a natural molecule with medicinal properties. Its tolerability and safety have been well documented, with a maximum dose of 12 g/day. Its uses have been described as anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antioxidant, as well as antiviral. Curcumin has been suggested as a molecule with the potential to heal pulmonary edema and other injurious processes that lead to lung fibrosis following COVID-19. Curcumin Inhibits Viral Enzymes This is thought to be due to its ability to inhibit the virus itself, as well as to modulate inflammatory pathways. It regulates viral transcription and regulation, binds with high potency to the viral main protease (Mpro) enzyme that is key to replication and inhibits viral attachment and entry into the host cell. It may also disrupt viral structures. Its range of antiviral targets includes the hepatitis C virus, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the Epstein-Barr virus and the influenza A virus. It has been reported to inhibit the 3C-like protease (3CLpro) more effectively than other natural products, including quercetin, or drugs like chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. This could allow the reduction of viral loads within the human cell much more rapidly than other less inhibitory drugs, and thus prevent disease progression to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). It also inhibits papain-like protease (PLpro) with a 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 5.7 µM that surpasses quercetin and other natural products. Curcumin Inhibits Host Cell Receptor The virus attaches to the human host target cell receptor, the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Modeling studies have shown that curcumin inhibits this virus-receptor interaction in two ways, by inhibiting both the spike protein and the ACE2 receptor. However, curcumin has low bioavailability, because it does not dissolve well in water and is unstable in aqueous media, especially at higher pH. When orally administered, it undergoes rapid metabolism by the gut and the liver. This obstacle may be overcome by using nanosystems. Many different nanostructured carriers may be used for this purpose, such as nanoemulsions, microemulsions, nanogels, micelles, nanoparticles and liposomes. Such carriers prevent the metabolic breakdown of the curcumin, increases its solubility and help it move through biological membranes. Three or more nanostructure-based curcumin products are already commercially available, but few studies have examined their efficacy against COVID-19 in vivo. These showed the ability of the formulations to modulate immune responses and to reduce the symptoms of the disease, and perhaps hasten recovery. Nanoparticle Advantages Nanoparticles (NPs) are one category of nanostructures that can be functionalized with ease, and have a wide potential range of materials and structures. This could allow them to be designed for specific viral targets within and outside the host cell. The addition of functional groups on the surface of the nanoparticles, such as antibodies, heparin and sugars, can enlarge the range of activity of the nanoparticle. Independent NP Mechanisms of Antiviral Activity NPs act in many ways, such as inactivation of the viral particle, inhibition of viral attachment and entry, and preventing viral replication. Depending on the functional group and the type of NP used, they can alter the viral capsid structure and thus reduce the viral load. By interacting with the SARS-CoV-2 spike, they can inactivate the virus, as shown earlier with metallic NPs, both preventing spike-ACE2 binding, and viral internalization. The occurrence of electrostatic interactions between charged NPs and the virus abolishes the effective charge on the latter, causing viral aggregation. With viral particles within the cell, the NPs can engage the viral RNA and prevent replication, followed by viral propagation to neighboring cells. Combined Formulations Thus, curcumin may inhibit viral targets, while the NPs may enhance the blockade on virus entry or use other inactivation mechanisms, depending on the functional group. Earlier studies show that silver NPs loaded with curcumin led to increased antiviral activity compared to either curcumin or silver NPs in isolation, with reduction of cell-cell fusion and syncytium formation. Curcumin-carbon dots are another option found to be effective in inhibiting entry by the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, again a coronavirus. Implications and Future Directions These findings indicate the potential for the investigation of both curcumin and nanosystems for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2. Further studies are needed to validate the anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of both these molecules, and their efficiency and synergism in vitro and in vivo, followed by clinical trials. Curcumin-NP formulations may be at the forefront of such investigations since they are already approved for therapeutic use. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here.

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