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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

#171

Post by johnisgood »

argonaut wrote: post #154
johnisgood wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NAC has many other health benefits. It helps your liver, for example. It is given for acetaminophen overdose, FWIW.

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 substances do prevent, but if you already have cancer, than your condition will worsen.

Back to NAC: it is healthy for you in the typical doses which is about 200-1000 mg I would say. If you take acetaminophen on the daily, then it is especially recommended.

In any case, I do not recommend taking it long-term, or not without breaks in-between. Take it for 2 months, stop for a month, take it for another 2 months, then stop for a month and so forth. You can do 1 month on then off, and so on. Up to you.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#172

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

useragent86 wrote: post #147
nuerow wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are more than 60 peer reviewed studies showing positive effect for ivermectin. I couldn't help but notice your use of purposely vague and misleading weasel words such as "positive effect". Meanwhile I recall reading one of those ivermectin studies presented on another discussion on HN, and it certainly raised some red flags regarding how it was put together. For instance, if my memory doesn't fail me, it reli…

So you start by accusing him of being purposely misleading. He mentions 60 studies (which he didn't cite specifically, but at least offered a link which one could use to verify his claims). But then you pull a bait-and-switch in your own comment, complaining about just one study, which you completely neglect to cite (so it could be made up, for all we know). You subtly outsource your opinion, trying to lend it an air…

Neither poster cited anything though, so they both could be making shit up. Why not accuse both of propaganda techniques?

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#173

Post by wesleywt »

lettergram wrote: post #46

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...

There is no such thing as alternative medicine. If the drug is tested and found to be effective then it is medicine. But you must expect rigorous analysis and provide significant evidence to support you claims. This is how it works. If you can't handle it then you are in 'alternative' medicine, which is not real.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#174

Post by [deleted] »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #145
onion2k wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It might not be an alternative drug but it's certainly an alternative narrative. The momentum for the jab is all but unstoppable at this point. The continued talk of jab passports, and such. Once a narrative becomes normalized it's difficult to change. Note: This isn't a political statement or criticism. It's Human Comms and Human Behaviour 101.

[deleted]

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#175

Post by nuerow »

honkdaddy wrote: post #170
nuerow wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are more than 60 peer reviewed studies showing positive effect for ivermectin. I couldn't help but notice your use of purposely vague and misleading weasel words such as "positive effect". Meanwhile I recall reading one of those ivermectin studies presented on another discussion on HN, and it certainly raised some red flags regarding how it was put together. For instance, if my memory doesn't fail me, it reli…

It's not very helpful to just describe a study you simply recall based on memory. If you have an actual link to it, myself and others may take you more seriously.

> It's not very helpful to just describe a study you simply recall based on memory.

Actually it is. The whole point of that was to illustrate the importance of actually looking into what these papers actually said, if they exist at all, instead of pulling the appeal to authority card with numbers pulled out of thin air.

The OP asserted that ivermectin worked. He proceeded to state that 60 papers report it. Well... Where are they? Can anyone like me actually take a look at one of these supposedly decisive papers? I'd be happy if I could just check the best one out of the hypothetical 60.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#176

Post by _ywdj »

spamizbad wrote: post #130
m0zg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDA banned OTC NAC sales after it found out it might help with COVID [1]. Can't have that. And yeah, I know you're suggesting it for something else, but it's hard to get now. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7649937/

The FDA didn't ban it: it just cannot be marketed as a health supplement. Mostly because it was originally approved as a drug back in the 1960s. It would be like selling Tylenol as a vitamin. A dumb technicality that'll likely be reversed. And you can still purchase it online: https://www.bulksupplements.com/products/n-acetyl-l-cysteine... https://www.lifeextension.com/vitamins-supplements/item01534... https://www.th…

There are many brands listed on iHerb (all with "dietary supplement" prominently listed in the product description), though most of the items are marked "out of stock", so it looks like many people have been stocking up.

https://www.iherb.com/c/n-acetyl-cysteine-nac

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#177

Post by phonypc »

argonaut wrote: post #154
johnisgood wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NAC has many other health benefits. It helps your liver, for example. It is given for acetaminophen overdose, FWIW.

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'm not sure you can apply those findings regarding antioxidants. NAC isn't itself an antioxidant, but a prodrug for an amino acid that is the rate limiting factor in producing glutathione, the bodies primary endogenous antioxidant. Presumably if you're already "full" on glutathione, the NAC does nothing.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#178

Post by _ywdj »

DantesKite wrote: post #62
_ywdj wrote: post #44

From my own experience I can very much believe an SSRI could have an effect on the immune system and/or the respiratory system. I was a heavy cigarette smoker in my 20s, and over those years, I experienced worsening asthma and also worsening anxiety and depression. Eventually I was prescribed an SSRI (Zoloft), and found that not only did my mood change, my asthma completely abated, even though I was still smoking jus…

If you continue having issues, consider taking NAC. It's very commonly used to treat bronchitis and my asthmatic mother has had tremendous success with it.

Cheers. I take a small selection of supplements - mostly minerals/vitamins and digestive support but also some amino acids. Not NAC these days, but I may again. My main antioxidant supplement at the moment is Alpha-lipoic Acid.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#179

Post by nuerow »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #172
useragent86 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you start by accusing him of being purposely misleading. He mentions 60 studies (which he didn't cite specifically, but at least offered a link which one could use to verify his claims). But then you pull a bait-and-switch in your own comment, complaining about just one study, which you completely neglect to cite (so it could be made up, for all we know). You subtly outsource your opinion, trying to lend it an air…

Neither poster cited anything though, so they both could be making shit up. Why not accuse both of propaganda techniques?

> Neither poster cited anything though, so they both could be making shit up. Why not accuse both of propaganda techniques?

I suppose it would be easier to just point out a single paper out of said 60 that supported the thesis that ivermectin works.

Somehow, in spite of the claim that there are so many papers, it seems it's impossible to actually find a single one that does support the claim.

Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19

#180

Post by fnord77 »

_ywdj wrote: post #44

From my own experience I can very much believe an SSRI could have an effect on the immune system and/or the respiratory system. I was a heavy cigarette smoker in my 20s, and over those years, I experienced worsening asthma and also worsening anxiety and depression. Eventually I was prescribed an SSRI (Zoloft), and found that not only did my mood change, my asthma completely abated, even though I was still smoking jus…

my AD/immune system anecdote: I have an autoimmune disease. Some ADs make the disease flare up. Some (particularly tricyclics) improve the disease's symptoms.
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