Israel, US researchers find cholesterol drug can help downgrade COVID-19 to common cold

Researchers from Israel and the United States have found that the effects of the COVID-19 infection can be limited with the use of an existing cholesterol-lowering drug. The use of this medicine, as a result, could help downgrade the threat of the new coronavirus infection to a common cold, which could make managing the infection a lot easier in patients.

Professor Yaakov Nahmias of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel's second oldest university led the research in Jerusalem, and according to him, the results from early lab tests of the drug fenofibrate suggest that it can be used to treat patients with COVID-19. The findings have been published in the scientific journal Cell Press Sneak Peak.

Professor Nahmias and Dr. Benjamin tenOever of the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City have been researching the SARS-COV-2 virus for more than three months, the COVID-19 causing coronavirus, which has led to nearly 15 million people becoming infected globally along with more than 617,000 people who have died due to the illness.

It has already been established how the SARS-CoV-2 virus makes changes in the lungs of COVID-19 patients to replicate in the body. The researchers made a major breakthrough by finding that the new coronavirus stops the regular burning of carbohydrates. As a result, large amounts of fat or fat accumulate in lung cells. According to the study, the SARS-COV-2 virus needs this condition to make its copies.

Researchers involved in the study say that this new information about the SARS-CoV-2 virus will help understand why high blood sugar and cholesterol uptake are particularly known to be serious threats of COVID-19.

It is already known that viruses are parasites that cannot increase their numbers on their own. They use human cells under their control to make their own copies in order to replicate. "By understanding how SARS-CoV-2 controls our metabolism, we can fight back against it and regain control and remove the virus from those things. This virus is dependent on survival," Prof Nahmias said.

The study was based on the trial of FDA-approved drugs to see which of them were effective in negating the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the body, and a study in the lab showed that out of them, fenofibrate, sold in the market under the generic name 'tricker', had very reliable results against the ability of the virus.

With the help of this drug, the lungs managed to burn fat, because fenofibrate had broken the grip of the virus on the cells, as it could not replicate any more. Researchers claim that the virus completely disappeared within five days.

As the medical and scientific community works tirelessly around the world towards developing treatments, medications and vaccines targeted at the pandemic-causing viral infection, there have also been reports about those who have developed immunity against COVID-19 through antibodies may also lose it over time.

Health experts say that if the coronavirus returns in the future, people may need to apply the vaccine again and again. In such a situation, blocking the ability of the virus from spreading the infection may be a better option.

"If the results of our study are proven in clinical studies also, then this method of treatment can reduce the risk of COVID-19 so much that it can become a minor common cold and not a severe disease," Prof Nahmias said.