Hebrew University team say new treatment could be key to saving COVID patients. ‘All patients were discharged in under a week.’
Arutz Sheva Staff , Aug 23 , 2021 9:02 AM
Doctors at Assaf Harofeh Hospital treat coronavirus patient
The SARS-CoV-2 virus has infected over 212 million people worldwide causing nearly 4.5 million deaths. Recent vaccination efforts have been hindered by multiple coronavirus variants that challenge current vaccines. While infection generally produces a mild disease, in some patients it can develop into a severe inflammatory COVID-19 requiring medical intervention.
Recently, Professor Yaakov Nahmias’ team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) reported that the new coronavirus causes abnormal accumulation of lipids, which are known to initiate severe inflammation in a process called lipotoxicity.
The team identified the lipid-lowering drug TriCor (fenofibrate) as an effective antiviral last year, showing it both reduced lung cell damage and blocked virus replication in the laboratory.
These results have since been confirmed by several international research teams.
An observational study carried out in multiple clinical centers in Israel was reported last October to support the original findings.
The team then launched an interventional clinical study to treat severe COVID-19 patients at Israel’s Barzilai Medical Center with support from Abbott Laboratories.
Now, the HU team is reporting promising results of an investigator-initiated interventional open-label clinical study led by Nahmias and coordinated by Prof. Shlomo Maayan, Head of Infectious Disease Unit at Barzilai.
In this single-arm, open-label study, 15 severe-hospitalized COVID-19 patients with pneumonia requiring oxygen support were treated.
In addition to standard of care, the patients were given 145 mg/day of TriCor (fenofibrate) for 10 days and continuously monitored for disease progression and outcomes.
“The results were astounding”, shared Nahmias. “Progressive inflammation markers, that are the hallmark of deteriorative COVID-19, dropped within 48 hours of treatment. Moreover, 14 of the 15 severe patients didn’t require oxygen support within a week of treatment, while historical records show that the vast majority severe patients treated with the standard of care require lengthy respiratory support,” he added. These results are promising as TriCor (fenofibrate) was approved by the FDA in 1975 for long-term use and has a strong safety record. “There are no silver bullets”, stressed Nahmias, “but fenofibrate is far safer than other drugs proposed to date, and its mechanism of action makes is less likely to be variant-specific”.
“All patients were discharged within less than a week after the treatment began and were discharged to complete the 10-day treatment at home, with no drug-related adverse events reported”, noted Maayan. “Further, fewer patients reported COVID-19 side effects during their 4-week follow-up appointment,” he added. These preliminary findings offer promise to relieve the substantial health burdens experienced by patients who survive the acute phase of COVID-19.
The investigators stressed that while the results were extremely promising, only randomized placebo-controlled studies can serve as basis for clinical decisions. “We entered the second phase of the study and are actively recruiting patients”, explained Nahmias, noting that two Phase 3 studies are already being conducted in running South America, the United States (NCT04517396) and Israel (NCT04661930).
The findings were released on Research Square and are currently under peer-review.
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Many promising medical research ideas are coming from Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah.
Excellent use of recent findings on the role that the blood cholesterol/triglycerides play in predicting the severity of disease(94% severely ill had high LDL/TRI). A corollary to this study and the recent findings that is not expressed anywhere that I have seen, however, is that you can naturally reduce these indicators(LDL/TRI) that result in an increased chance of severe Covid illness, and many other diseases, is by reducing your body fat.
It seems ridiculous to have to suggest this as we face this untreated pneumonia with anything but leaky vaccines, but healthy lifestyles including exercise and weight loss can reduce your blood (LDL)cholesterol and triglycerides and reduce these risk factors. It should be noted that there is no study that shows exercise reduction of LDL/TRI will achieve the same effect as pharmacologic use of fenofibrate, so it may be that a differing mechanism is associated with this treatment, but exercise will still increase your chances of surviving any severe illness including Covid.
Exercise naturally increases the immune system by, among other things, supporting the cardiovascular systems(blood and heart). Exercise also reduces what is known as the bad form of cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides, which is the function of the drug in this study, fenofibrate(sidenote: it should be noted that fenofibrate can cause complications when used with anti-clotting medications). Likely, one of the reasons they are not advocating exercise is that it would increase people’s desire to go to the gym. Take a walk, go for a run, visit the beach. Exercise does not require the enclosed facilities or treadmills. It is very important and can help with survivability of a host of illnesses beyond the Covid nightmare.
Even if they impose lockdowns, and especially if they impose lockdowns, your health is what you make of it, and exercise will secure the muscle weight and reduce the body fat that is associated with the ridiculous lockdowns that trap people indoors where infections are most likely to be transmitted and your Vitamin D levels(vitally important in surviving Covid) are left to drop, reducing the immune system’s ability to respond to anything. I am no health nut, myself, and I personally hate exercising, but it has become vitally important since the govt will not allow effective treatments that we each be in the best health possible when we eventually become infected with either the virus or these shots.