Statins for Bird Flu?
With ominous lack of antivirals, and no vaccine in sight, scientists are looking at other drugs to mitigate the effects of Avian Influenza in humans. One class of drugs being looked at are Statins, or cholesterol lowering meds, that inhibit the inflammatory response that may induce the dreaded Cytokine Storm.
Cholesterol drugs flu-busters?
Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins might help fill a void in the global medicine cabinet during a flu pandemic, a U.S. scientist argues in an upcoming issue of a medical journal.
The drugs, which appear to fight inflammation and the damage it can inflict, might be useful to help modulate the impact if the virus that causes a future flu pandemic is one that induces an overactive immune response, said Dr. David Fedson.
"The next influenza pandemic may be imminent. Because antiviral drugs and vaccines will be unavailable to people in most countries, we need to determine whether other agents could offer clinical benefits," Fedson wrote in the July 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
"They (statins) might be the only agents that could alter the course of a global pandemic."
Right now, all of this is speculative. Dr. Fedson is calling for more research. Unknown is how long a person must be taking Statins before any positive effects might be achieved, and just how effective the statins would be in reducing the the cytokine storm.
The abstract for his recently published paper is below.
Pandemic Influenza: A Potential Role for Statins in Treatment and Prophylaxis
David S. Fedsona
The next influenza pandemic may be imminent. Because antiviral agents and vaccines will be unavailable to people in most countries, we need to determine whether other agents could offer clinical benefits. Influenza is associated with an increase in acute cardiovascular diseases, and influenza viruses induce proinflammatory cytokines. Statins are cardioprotective and have anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects, and they thus might benefit patients with influenza. This hypothesis should be evaluated by using administrative databases to search for reduced rates of hospitalization and death due to influenza-related conditions among people taking statins. These studies should be followed by laboratory studies of statins in animal and cell-based models of influenza virus infection and, later, by clinical trials. Positive results from such studies would provide physicians in all countries with something to offer patients for treatment and prophylaxis of pandemic influenza. Generic statins will be widely distributed and inexpensive. They might be the only agents that could alter the course of a global pandemic.
The primary advantage of statins, over other flu fighting drugs, is their availability and affordability. Generic statins are available, and are widely produced worldwide.
A lengthy discourse on this proposed treatment is on the wiki
http://www.fluwikie2.com/pmwiki.php?n=Forum.StatinsRevisited
While it is too soon to know if this may be a viable treatment for H5N1 victims, it does, at least on paper, show some prospects.
