Even cough syrup might actually work against Coronavirus

[Elderberry]

JoNova 9/2/2020

I didn’t think cough syrups even worked against coughs, but one new paper suggests that bromhexine in common cough syrups reduces both Covid-19 rates of ICU and of mortality.

The era of antivirals has come, not that Big Pharma want you to know that cheap out-of-patent drugs might help. But for years we were told that medical science didn’t have an answer to viruses.

Bromhexine was patented in 1961 and is commonly found in OTC pharmacy cough syrups with names like Bisolvon, Robitussin, and Duro-Tuss (Wiki has a long list).

Theoretically Bromhexine sabotages one of our molecules — with the snappy name of TMPRSS2 (which is shorter than saying Transmembrane protease S2).  A protease is a fancy pair of molecular scissors, it chops or tweaks the viral spike and if that doesn’t happen, the virus can’t get into the cell (at least not through its favourite path).

The nice thing about an antiviral acting against our  molecules, rather than against the virus itself, is that it’s harder for the virus to mutate to get around it. That means it’s less likely the virus can develop resistance. The downside of targeting our own molecules is that it might fritz things up. Presumably this protease does something useful sometime. To that end, mice that don’t have this protein at all, seem to do OK. And then, there is fifty five years of drug store sales. How bad can cough syrup be?

It is not at all certain that this drug would thwart the virus. Viruses can get into cells through another method called endocytosis. Possibly bromhexine might not make much difference.  Luckily for us, a group in Iran were desperate enough to try it in a small, but reasonable trial, and the results are enticing.

Basically, 39 people were picked at random out of 78 to try the bromhexine. In the half that missed out on Bromhexine, 11 went on to need ICU and 9 died. In the half who got the bromhexine, only 2 went into ICU and none died.

We might feel a bit sorry for the nine in the first trial that didn’t get lucky. We won’t know how unlucky until someone has done a bigger trial. For the moment the p value of avoiding ICU was 0.007. And a p value of 0.027 for avoiding death.

More: http://joannenova.com.au/2020/09/even-cough-syrup-might-actually-work-against-coronavirus/

[Idiot]

JoNova 9/2/2020

I didn’t think cough syrups even worked against coughs, but one new paper suggests that bromhexine in common cough syrups reduces both Covid-19 rates of ICU and of mortality.

The era of antivirals has come, not that Big Pharma want you to know that cheap out-of-patent drugs might help. But for years we were told that medical science didn’t have an answer to viruses.

Bromhexine was patented in 1961 and is commonly found in OTC pharmacy cough syrups with names like Bisolvon, Robitussin, and Duro-Tuss (Wiki has a long list).

Theoretically Bromhexine sabotages one of our molecules — with the snappy name of TMPRSS2 (which is shorter than saying Transmembrane protease S2).  A protease is a fancy pair of molecular scissors, it chops or tweaks the viral spike and if that doesn’t happen, the virus can’t get into the cell (at least not through its favourite path).

The nice thing about an antiviral acting against our  molecules, rather than against the virus itself, is that it’s harder for the virus to mutate to get around it. That means it’s less likely the virus can develop resistance. The downside of targeting our own molecules is that it might fritz things up. Presumably this protease does something useful sometime. To that end, mice that don’t have this protein at all, seem to do OK. And then, there is fifty five years of drug store sales. How bad can cough syrup be?

It is not at all certain that this drug would thwart the virus. Viruses can get into cells through another method called endocytosis. Possibly bromhexine might not make much difference.  Luckily for us, a group in Iran were desperate enough to try it in a small, but reasonable trial, and the results are enticing.

Basically, 39 people were picked at random out of 78 to try the bromhexine. In the half that missed out on Bromhexine, 11 went on to need ICU and 9 died. In the half who got the bromhexine, only 2 went into ICU and none died.

We might feel a bit sorry for the nine in the first trial that didn’t get lucky. We won’t know how unlucky until someone has done a bigger trial. For the moment the p value of avoiding ICU was 0.007. And a p value of 0.027 for avoiding death.

More: http://joannenova.com.au/2020/09/even-cough-syrup-might-actually-work-against-coronavirus/

Heck...drink enough and you won't even care that you have Covid....LOL.

[jmyrlefuller]

Forget hydroxychloroquine. You mean, we could have treated this the whole time with over-the-counter cough syrup???