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Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

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Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#201
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydroxychloroquine seems like a weird example to bring up now, since it's been completely debunked. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-c...

I've read a debunking of that as well, which was basically that the study uses poisonously high levels of HCQ (much higher than normal or required), and that it uses no zinc. Zinc is the actual virus killer, HCQ just lets in into the cell (it's a zinc ionophore).

This is a distressingly common technique for making studies say what you want them to say. I've dug into several dietary studies over the years claiming how this or that diet is good or bad for you, and a lot of them basically involve feeding the worst-possible $DIET_X to one set of mice and the best possible $DIET_Y to the other, and lo, $DIET_Y wins. So, for instance, you can feed a "low carb" diet that fills in the fats with a ton of transfats or with good fats, and you can feed a "high carb" diet that has a lot of whole grains or has a whole lot of bleached, refined flour, and produce whichever results you want. This is a non-trivial part of the reason why "peer reviewed" studies keep continuously putting out what seems like contradictory results.

Unfortunately, it means just "trusting a peer reviewed study" is even harder than it should be. You have to dig into the study to see if it even makes any sense which can be very difficult. And you have to follow the money, not "even" if the study says what you think it ought to say, but especially when it says what you want it to say.

Very disappointing when you go digging in.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#202

FLCCC and doctors now labelled quacks have been pushing this for months. Clinical successes of alternative, outpatient treatments have been directly disparaged by the FDA. I have zero trust in the institutions meant to protect us. Dr. Pierre Kory has been using this for months to treat both long-covid patients as well as vaccine injured patients. I hate to bring this stuff up on a technical forum like this, but some…

If you are suggesting that there is a conspiracy to keep inexpensive drugs from being used to treat covid, then I would like to point out that corticosteroids - an inexpensive and widely available generic medication - are an accepted part of treatment for people hospitalized with covid, and has been for some time now. There is no conspiracy.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would caution against anyone supplementing with NAC for general health reasons (e.g. other than a specific condition like bronchitis). In mice, very high doses of NAC causes tumors to form. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/n-acetyl-cysteine-... More broadly, there is a lot of emerging evidence against directly taking antioxidant supplements. For example, it is well established that antioxidant supplementat…

I am not sure how well known it is, but I already have known this. Immunostimulants are not necessary a healthy thing either, especially not for people with an autoimmune disorder. It can cause flare-ups for example. There is a case of a woman whose condition deteriorated rapidly after having consumed some common herbs and died within a day or two. I think she had MS. Another example: it has been known that many subs…

>There is a case of a woman whose condition deteriorated rapidly after having consumed some common herbs and died within a day or two. I think she had MS.

I'm so, so glad I can finally downvote friend-of-a-friend rumourmongering like this. Maybe this is something legitimate, but handwaving an entire anecdote on a forum like this, with no definite information except "a case" involving "a woman" and her "condition", is baffling.

Maybe don't listen to this user's suggestions about NAC without verifying something about it, which was too much trouble for them.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#205

Glad to see this being spoken about! I’ve been assisting with data analysis for an eclectic group of people (who funded this study). Been really disheartening to watch the politics around alternative treatments. Personally, I expect this to be attacked as well, but am hopeful! The stuff really does seem effective, particularly when combined with other drugs...

You have it backwards.

This will be attacked by the alternative crowd.

Alternative medicine is nothing more than medicine that isn’t tested, because once it’s tested and proven it becomes, medicine.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#206
post #47

Glad to see this being spoken about! I’ve been assisting with data analysis for an eclectic group of people (who funded this study). Been really disheartening to watch the politics around alternative treatments. Personally, I expect this to be attacked as well, but am hopeful! The stuff really does seem effective, particularly when combined with other drugs...

I hope this isn't attacked, because this isn't an "alternative" drug. Things move from "alternative medicine" to being "medicine" when people do good, peer-reviewed science to actually study the effects and find them to be effective. "Alternative medicine" like ivermectine or hydroxychloroquine have no scientific, properly studied basis for being used.

Things go from “under investigation” medicine to medicine once good peer reviewed science shows them to be effective.

If the peer reviewed research shows them to not be effective, and if snake oil salesmen figure out a business model to fleece people with it, that’s when it becomes “alternative” medicine.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what my first thought was. Treating a viral infection with an anti depressant means to me that you just won't notice how sick you are.

In that case alcohol would do the job just as well

Not sure what you guys are talking about. It's just going to make you feel worse. You want to be sick and drunk/high? Sounds miserable

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure how well known it is, but I already have known this. Immunostimulants are not necessary a healthy thing either, especially not for people with an autoimmune disorder. It can cause flare-ups for example. There is a case of a woman whose condition deteriorated rapidly after having consumed some common herbs and died within a day or two. I think she had MS. Another example: it has been known that many subs…

>There is a case of a woman whose condition deteriorated rapidly after having consumed some common herbs and died within a day or two. I think she had MS. I'm so, so glad I can finally downvote friend-of-a-friend rumourmongering like this. Maybe this is something legitimate, but handwaving an entire anecdote on a forum like this, with no definite information except "a case" involving "a woman" and her "condition", is…

I am too lazy to look for it. It is on PubMed. In any case, there are many cases of n=1 on HN. Plus, it is not unheard of that immunostimulants may be quite harmful for people with an autoimmune disorder, say, MS. I merely mentioned this case because it is an odd one. She was fine. She took some herbs, and her condition worsened until she died like a day after. I will never forget it. Too bad I cannot seem to find it.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure how well known it is, but I already have known this. Immunostimulants are not necessary a healthy thing either, especially not for people with an autoimmune disorder. It can cause flare-ups for example. There is a case of a woman whose condition deteriorated rapidly after having consumed some common herbs and died within a day or two. I think she had MS. Another example: it has been known that many subs…

“ There is a case of a woman whose condition deteriorated rapidly after having consumed some common herbs and died within a day or two. I think she had MS.” I have M.S. What herbs did she take?

Sadly I cannot remember. The story stuck with me because of the quick deterioration. Unfortunately I cannot even remember enough to find it! :(

I have MS as well. Propolis seems to be fine as immunomodulation goes. I also take ALA. There are conflicting results with regarding to resveratrol. You could take a look at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6311642/ if you have not yet done so.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#210
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. " Ivermectin is currently not approved in the UK for the prophylaxis or treatment of COVID-19," [1] There are no good studies demonstrating the validity of Ivermectin, and the Oxford study is not complete and there's no indication results are positive. Why are people so crazy about this drug? It doesn't look like it works, though there is some possibility it will, but we'll only know when the Oxford trial is comp…

> It doesn't look like it works, though there is some possibility it will, but we'll only know when the Oxford trial is complete. Given the knowledge we have today, it just isn't a therapy for COVID. There's a big trial ongoing, and the rest of the evidence is mixed. You can't say that "it doesn't look like it works"...we just don't know. I personally put the prior probability of any intervention working for any illn…

"and the rest of the evidence is mixed."

That means it (probably) doesn't work.

They've given Ivermectin to a lot of people by now - if it was a solution, then it would stand out.

The Oxford trial will give us a better answer but I'm doubtful.

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