upper respiratory Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Study Suggests Potential Role for Probiotics in Preventing Respiratory Infections

AHA Publisher — Mon, 17 May 2021 07:19:30 +0000

Digestive Disease Week via News-Medical – Daily probiotic use was associated with fewer upper respiratory symptoms in overweight and older people, according to a study that suggests a potential role for probiotics in preventing respiratory infections. The study was selected for presentation at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2021. “This is not necessarily the most intuitive idea, that putting bacteria into your gut might reduce your risk of respiratory infection, but it’s further evidence that the gut microbiome has a complex relationship with our various organ systems. It doesn’t just affect how our gut works or how our liver works, it affects aspects of how our whole body works.” (Benjamin Mullish, MD, lead researcher on the study and clinical lecturer in the Division of Digestive Diseases, Imperial College London, England) Researchers re-analyzed detailed daily diaries of 220 patients who participated in an earlier double-blind placebo-controlled study on probiotics and weight loss. Reviewing the entries for common symptoms of upper respiratory infection, including cough, sore throat and wheezing, researchers found that participants who took probiotics during the six-month study had a 27 percent lower overall incidence of upper respiratory tract symptoms compared to the placebo group. The effect was largest among participants who were aged 45 years or older, as well as those with obesity. People with obesity are at higher risk for respiratory infections. Previous research has shown that probiotics reduce upper respiratory infections in healthy adults and children, but little data exists on this vulnerable population of older, overweight and people with obesity. “These findings add to growing interest in the gut-lung axis — how the gut and the lungs communicate with each other,” Dr. Mullish said. “It’s not just the gut sending out signals that affect how the lungs work. It works in both directions. It adds to the story that changes in the gut microbiome can affect large aspects of our health.” The researchers did not measure immune response, only respiratory symptoms. Future randomized clinical trials could help identify the mechanisms related to the reduction in respiratory symptoms and explore the possible impact of probiotics on the immune system, Dr. Mullish said. To read the original article click here.

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Australian Scientists Develop a Nasal Spray That Could Stop SARS-CoV-2 Infection

AHA Publisher — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 07:00:21 +0000

Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo, BSN via News-Medical Net – As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), continues to wreak havoc globally, scientists race to develop an effective medicine or vaccine to fight the infection. With more than 33.5 million people infected since the pandemic started in December 2019, finding a treatment for those infected is crucial to stemming its spread. Now, a biotech company in Australia, Ena Respiratory, said that a nasal spray it is developing might help boost the human immune system to fight flu and common colds, significantly reduced the growth of the coronavirus in a recent study in animals. The potential nasal spray may not only help treat COVID-19 but also prevent it. The Nasal Spray The novel product, called INNA-051, is being developed by Ena Respiratory, and laboratory experiments have shown that it reduced viral replication by as much as 96 percent in the animal study. Spearheaded by Public Health England’s (PHE) Deputy Director, Professor Miles Carroll, the new study described the potential treatment and has been published in the open-source preprint server bioRxiv*. Used as a nasal spray, it aims to boost the natural immune system of the body to fight common colds and flu. It works by triggering the innate immune system, which is the body’s first line of defense against infection from a pathogen. When the drug has enhanced the immune system, it also prevented the infection and replication of SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory. The Study Respiratory tract diseases, including those that cause flu, common colds, and the coronavirus infection, represent major ongoing global health threats. These viruses have caused outbreaks to pandemics, endangering the lives of those who are at higher risk, such as children, older adults, and those who are immunocompromised. The SARS-CoV-2 infection is actively spreading worldwide, and it spreads quickly from one person to another through close contact and respiratory droplets. One of the biggest threats of the current pandemic is that several people infected with the virus are asymptomatic, which means that they do not know that they carry the virus. As a result, they are called silent spreaders. The research team from the National Infection Service, Public Health England (PHE) wanted to develop the nasal spray to prevent the replication of the virus in the nasal area, the most common point of entry of the virus. To test the nasal spray, the team obtained nasal wash and throat swab samples four days before the viral challenge. Upon analyzing the viral RNA in nasal wash samples, the team confirmed infection in all treatment groups, with lower viral RNA levels seen in the INNA-051 treatment. The team has found that prophylactic intra-nasal administration of INNA-051 in the SARS-CoV-2 ferret infection model has reduced levels of viral RNA in the nose and throat. “The results of our study support clinical development of a therapy based on prophylactic TLR2/6 innate immune activation in the URT to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission and provide protection against COVID-19,” the team wrote in the paper. Further, the research team added that the prophylactic approach is important to people at a high risk of community transmission or development of the severe disease from COVID-19, such as older adults, people with comorbidities, and those who are immunocompromised. “We’ve been amazed by just how effective our treatment has been. By boosting the natural immune response of the ferrets with our treatment, we’ve seen a rapid eradication of the virus,” Christophe Demaison, the Ena Respiratory Managing Director, said. “If humans respond similarly, the benefits of treatment are two-fold. Individuals exposed to the virus would most likely rapidly eliminate it, with the treatment ensuring that the disease does not progress beyond mild symptoms. This is particularly relevant to vulnerable members of the community. In addition, the rapidity of this response means that the infected individuals are unlikely to pass it on, meaning a swift halt to community transmission,” he added. *Important Notice bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here.

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Urgent Warning About Ventilator Use on Coronavirus Patients, New Research Study

AHA Publisher — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 07:00:59 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – In the United States alone, over 105,000 people have died with a COVID-19 infection since the pandemic began in December 2019. And, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges that some of these deaths have been “misclassified” – perhaps more than many people realize – it’s certain that many people are getting sick and suffering from this viral infection. Yet, the main “treatment” of this illness – the use of a ventilator – is being seriously questioned. No doubt, there are many healthcare providers working tirelessly to discover the best way to treat COVID-19, as well as what the ideal “medical management” of patients should be. But as more research and data comes out, many medical experts now worry that the use of a ventilator could cause more harm than good. A new analysis sheds some important light on this controversial issue. New Study Suggests Many COVID-19 Deaths May Have Been Hastened or Brought on by Inappropriate Mechanical Ventilation In April, the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene published a paper summarizing the best available evidence for respiratory care in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. That data reveals doctors and physicians should re-evaluate their reliance on mechanical ventilation for this population, and stop being so quick to intubate people. The reason: it appears mechanical ventilation can damage the lungs of very ill (and especially elderly) COVID-19 patients – in other words, it can cause more harm than good. This is likely due to an as-yet poorly understood function of the new disease, which seems to behave differently than other respiratory illnesses. Possible theories include: Lungs of severely ill COVID-19 patients are often covered with a thick mucous, preventing the lungs from being able to uptake any oxygen (even if it’s being forced into the lungs via a vent). Healthy lung tissue sitting nearby damaged tissue is elastic, making it susceptible to inflammation, tissue damage and other types of “ventilator-induced injury” when exposed to high pressure forced oxygen-enriched air (imagine filling a balloon with an air hose used for car tires) It’s a bit ironic, of course, to see medical professionals voicing their concerns over the excessive use of ventilators just weeks after the media was in a fury over ventilator “shortages” and lambasting state officials for failing to procure enough machines for their hospitals. Bottom Line: Mechanical Ventilation are Likely to Be Overprescribed as Doctors Scramble to Figure Out Other Medical Options To be clear, there are some COVID-19 patients for whom mechanical ventilation seems appropriate – for example, people who are deteriorating quickly and experiencing severe respiratory failure, despite being given excessive noninvasive respiratory support first (such as high flow oxygen via a nasal cannulus). But this new research indicates that intubating someone simply because their blood oxygen levels are low, for example, is unwarranted and “jumping the gun,” to say the least. We are now hearing reports from doctors around the world who are left awestruck by their hospitalized coronavirus patients who seem to be tolerating extremely low levels of oxygen. Many point out that because seriously ill patients are the ones that should be put on ventilators, this could at least partly explain why 50 percent or more of COVID-19 patients who end up on ventilators die. That is, their critical illness coupled with underlying health conditions would likely have led to their demise anyway, with or without mechanical ventilation. But sadly, this correlation may not explain away all the ventilated COVID-19 deaths. Many doctors now suspect that too many COVID-19 patients have been put on ventilators even when it wasn’t medically indicated. It may be some time before we learn the true impact of this tragic medical misstep. Sources for this article include: WebMD.com, AJTMH.org, Statnews.com, Worldometers.info, CDC.gov, NIH.gov, Lung.org, MassGeneral.org To read the original article click here.

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