Posted on 04/12/2021 9:53:48 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
...Some drugs that neutralize stomach acid, such as famotidine, are associated with reduced severity, but others, such as Prilosec, correlate with higher infection rates and risk of death, at least in patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 infections.
In a retrospective analysis posted on medRxiv of roughly 1,300 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, Nakaya and colleagues found that individuals taking proton-pump inhibitors, including Prilosec, had a two- to three-fold higher risk of death compared with hospitalized patients not taking those drugs. This observation falls in line with a study published in late August in the American Journal of Gastroenterology by doctors in the US that also found people taking a proton-pump inhibitor twice a day for acid reflux had higher odds of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared with individuals taking that type of drug once a day or individuals who took a histamine-2 receptor blocker such as Pepcid AC.
Proton-pump inhibitors “may undermine the gastric barrier to SARS-CoV-2 entry and reduce microbial diversity in the gut,” increasing patients’ risk getting COVID-19, the US-based team writes in its report.
Another retrospective analysis published online in Gastroenterology in May found that in a cohort of 1,620 hospitalized patients, proton-pump inhibitors had no relationship to the patients’ outcomes. Meanwhile, famotidine, which blocks the histamine-2 receptor on cells, correlated with a reduced risk of patients being intubated or dying from COVID-19.
...Additional evidence for famotidine’s role in fighting viruses has surfaced. A past study published in 1996 had shown that famotidine could reduce viral replication of HIV, and a more recent computational analysis published in May also suggested that the histamine blocker could have some antiviral properties—specifically, that it might inhibit a protease that processes proteins vital for SARS-CoV-2 replication.
(Excerpt) Read more at the-scientist.com ...
You can safely take 40mg of pepcid per day. Maybe you weren’t taking enough. You can take it all at once, or take 20mg. twice daily. I take 40mg at bedtime, because I get acid in my throat while I’m asleep at night, but my stomach doesn’t bother me during the day.
Tagamet is a drug similar to pepcid, and it is over the counter, but you probably weren’t taking enough pepcid. My doctor okayed 40mg per day, which was the IV dose we used to give in the hospital. Pepcid works great for me IF I take 40mg.
I take 20 mg of famotidine everyday.
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