Scientists have suggested that a cholesterol-lowering drug could make coronavirus as treatable as the common cold. Researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York studied the possibility of depriving the virus of the nutrients Covid-19 needs to survive.
They found that the fat that accumulates inside lung cells is a key component of what the virus needs to reproduce.
Depriving the virus of these conditions could mean that the virus could be better controlled, and the researchers say it could be reduced to something similar to a common cold.
“By understanding how SARS-CoV-2 controls our metabolism, we can regain control of the virus and deprive it of the same resources it needs to survive,” said Professor Yaakov Nahmias of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He continued: “With the rise of second wave infections in countries around the world, these findings could not come at a better time.
“If our clinical studies confirm our findings, this course of treatment could degrade the severity of Covid-19 into nothing worse than a common cold.”
During the study, which was presented by Cell Press, an editor for biomedical journals, including Cell and Neuron, the scientists analyzed drugs that could interfere with the virus’s ability to reproduce.
They found that a cholesterol-lowering medication, fenofibrate, showed promising results that allowed lung cells to burn more fat, thereby depriving the coronavirus of the conditions it needed to survive.
After five days of treatment with the drug, the researchers said the virus had almost completely disappeared in laboratory studies.
Another study published by Cambridge University Press this week found that three out of four coronavirus deaths in China had at least one underlying health condition.
More than 40 percent of them had high blood pressure and more than a quarter had heart disease, conditions related to high cholesterol.
Researchers at the University of Jerusalem hope that with clinical trials, a cholesterol treatment for the virus may be feasible to help fight Covid-19.
With a vaccine that often takes years to develop, and with no guarantees that it will be fully effective, therapeutic treatments to combat the virus are currently being investigated.
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