4 ms·

It looks like Azithromycin is for clearing bacterial pneumonia. Certainly this is a possible and probably common complication of viral pneumonia caused by COVID

It looks like Azithromycin is for clearing bacterial pneumonia. Certainly this is a possible and probably common complication of viral pneumonia caused by COVID-19, but I'm sure doctors are well aware of ways to treat secondary bacterial pneumonia. Just looking at what doctors are saying about Zinc, it seems like there could be something to it, especially if an individual is Zinc deficient, but it's not at all clear it's anything like a silver bullet. https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=228691 https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2... We have no idea what the mechanism of action if for HCQ. My doctor friend tried looking it up and it seemed like there are many possible pathways, many of which are still being researched, that modify immune response. There was one statement that speculated if HCQ could act directly on viral particles by changing pH near a key molecule. My attitude is, great if it works, but we still are very far from knowing that for certain. One thing that I think is worth keeping in mind is that if a medicine kills 1% of the people we give it to, and we give it to a large number of people relatively indiscriminately, it's about as bad as COVID, which kills 1-5% of victims (though as much as 15% for high risk patients).

giardini 7y ago
tehjoker says>"We have no idea what the mechanism of action if for HCQ. "< Here's one paper showing that chloroquine allows Zn++ ions to pass into the cell cytoplasm where viral replication takes place. Zinc halts viral replication: "Chloroquine Is a Zinc Ionophore": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/ (PDF version) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109180&type=printable https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...
- tehjoker 7y ago
  Thanks for the link. I looked around and I saw that 2 uM Zinc inhibited SARS-CoV-1 in vitro, while human cellular concentrations of zinc are typically in the tens to hundreds mM range. As a non-expert, there are two things that occur to me. That either something weird is going on, or zinc is very tightly controlled by the body and the range is really important. This means that taking extra dietary zinc without an ionophore probably wouldn't do much. So maybe CQ would help promote additional Zinc. According to one review article I was reading, Zinc concentration is naturally increased during immune response unless the virus hijacks the Zinc system. This information makes me open to the possibility CQ is doing something, but so far the real world results have been unclear. One study showed that CQ had no effect on patients in France. If it's the Zinc that's making the difference and they didn't give Zinc, that would possibly explain the results, but the body also has abundant supplies of Zinc and adjusting intracellular concentration by 2/1000 of the ambient concentration shouldn't be a big deal.

giardini 7y ago

tehjoker says>"We have no idea what the mechanism of action if for HCQ. "< Here's one paper showing that chloroquine allows Zn++ ions to pass into the cell cytoplasm where viral replication takes place. Zinc halts viral replication: "Chloroquine Is a Zinc Ionophore": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182877/ (PDF version) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0109180&type=printable https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/jo...

tehjoker 7y ago
Thanks for the link. I looked around and I saw that 2 uM Zinc inhibited SARS-CoV-1 in vitro, while human cellular concentrations of zinc are typically in the tens to hundreds mM range. As a non-expert, there are two things that occur to me. That either something weird is going on, or zinc is very tightly controlled by the body and the range is really important. This means that taking extra dietary zinc without an ionophore probably wouldn't do much. So maybe CQ would help promote additional Zinc. According to one review article I was reading, Zinc concentration is naturally increased during immune response unless the virus hijacks the Zinc system. This information makes me open to the possibility CQ is doing something, but so far the real world results have been unclear. One study showed that CQ had no effect on patients in France. If it's the Zinc that's making the difference and they didn't give Zinc, that would possibly explain the results, but the body also has abundant supplies of Zinc and adjusting intracellular concentration by 2/1000 of the ambient concentration shouldn't be a big deal.