Opened a new medicine against herpes
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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At a renowned US research university in Utah, a group of virologists randomly discovered that a heart medication helps cope with the most common herpesviruses.
Currently, there are no effective drugs that can completely destroy the virus in the body and after infection, a person becomes a source of infection.
Spironolactone is a potassium-sparing diuretic and has been used in medical practice for more than half a century. As studies have shown, spironolactone effectively suppresses the growth of herpes viruses.
According to the head of the research group Sankara Swaminatan, such fundamental research clearly shows that some things can not be detected in the usual way. According to scientists, they managed to find a possible solution to the problem of herpes, which worries thousands of people. As a rule, observations of how different medications affect viruses and bacteria sometimes lead to unexpected results, as it has now.
Infection with the herpes virus occurs imperceptibly for a person. The most common among the herpes virus family is the Epstein-Barr virus, it is transmitted with saliva, in some cases with blood transfusions. Most patients tolerate the disease well, the virus does not cause any characteristic symptoms, a serious danger to human health and life is the complications of the infection - in some cases, the virus can provoke malignant diseases of the lymphoid tissue, infectious mononucleosis, multiple sclerosis, certain cancers.
Now there is no effective vaccine against the Epstein-Barr virus, according to scientists, the main problem is that in the protein structure of the virus there are significant differences at different stages of his life. For the treatment, the preparations of the cyclovir group (valacyclovir, ganciclovir) are used.
Dr. Swaminathan and his colleagues noted that herpesviruses are able to develop resistance to drugs, it's only a matter of time, and now the efforts of many specialists are aimed at finding new drugs that could replace cyclovir.
Swaminathan group conducted experiments on cells infected with the herpes virus and accidentally revealed an unusual property of spironolactone (in modern medicine this drug is used to reduce pressure and reduce fluid in the body, accumulated due to heart problems). Further work in this direction showed that spironolactone is able to suppress the growth of the virus inside cells, which ultimately stops the spread of the infection throughout the body.
Scientists noted that the antiviral effect of spironolactone is not associated with its effect on the heart and kidneys, so it is theoretically possible to create a similar drug that will suppress the reproduction of herpes and not affect other organs and systems. Sankara Swaminathan also stressed that the analogs of spironolactone will help to treat not only the Epstein-Barr virus, but also other types of herpes, including the well-known "cold" on the lips.
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