[HN Gopher] Studies suggest a drug-free nasal spray could ward o...
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Studies suggest a drug-free nasal spray could ward off respiratory
infections
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 110 points
Date : 2024-10-05 13:38 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medicalxpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medicalxpress.com)
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > They have not studied PCANS directly in humans
|
| Stopped reading there. As promising as it sounds, I'll be a lot
| more interested when this is a product that's proven to work.
|
| (Joke) Wake me when the human studies are done
| GordonS wrote:
| The article doesn't even say how long the protection lasts for,
| or mention a single one of the ingredients by name. Doesn't
| really give the reader much to go on :-/
| emmelaich wrote:
| Abstract says _PCANS suppresses pathological manifestations
| and offers protection for at least 4 hours._. I 'd like to
| read the full paper. Anyone?
| mgsloan2 wrote:
| Doesn't seem like its proven to work, but looks like it can be
| purchased, called "Profi Nasal Spray".
| EwanG wrote:
| In mice, and also using a printed replica of a nasal cavity. It
| will be a while before we even see human tests, and I'm sort of
| curious how humans will respond to feeling their noses filled
| with a gel...
| HPsquared wrote:
| I use a similar nasal spray for allergies (Becodefence).
| Basically a physical barrier coating the nasal passages. For me
| and my allergies, it's super effective.
|
| Never thought about using it to block viral infections, but it
| makes sense: coating the nasal passages with artificial "mucus-
| like substance" so particles don't reach the membranes. Makes
| total sense that approach also work for viruses.
| Nux wrote:
| Does it affect the sense of smell?
| bbarnett wrote:
| And, an artificial mucus makes me wonder if one feels as if
| they constantly need to blow their nose?
|
| Still, neat.
| xelamonster wrote:
| That was my first thought, sounds uncomfortable. Hopefully
| you'd just get used it though and to be fair, it's
| definitely less uncomfortable than dying from preventable
| diseases.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Interesting! What are the sensations / side effects?
| pkaye wrote:
| I wonder if there is something like this in the US? As an
| kidney transplant patient with immunosuppression, I've been
| super cautious to being in crowds without a mask.
|
| I feel like something like this might give me more reassurance
| if I'm meeting friends and family at parties and events without
| a mask.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Beclometasone nasal spray is what you're looking for. It's
| sort of expensive ... looks like $250-$350 per package.
| Emoticon4032 wrote:
| A couple of decades ago, I was on a commercial aircraft and sat
| next to a man who occasionally puffed something into his
| nostrils. It turned out that he was a researcher at Ft.
| Detrick, and he explained that keeping your nasal passages
| moist with saline spray helped to keep out germs. I've been
| using saline sprays ever since!
| tshaddox wrote:
| That's one of the leading explanations for why flu outbreaks
| are seasonal. Years ago I was rather surprised to realize
| that we kinda just don't know.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| That, I am afraid, sounds like utter BS. Consider the
| mechanical action at play here. (If you will delve into gross
| sticky nose stuff.)
|
| First, nasal mucus is thicker, more viscous than saline
| spray. It's produced in normal quantities by healthy people,
| but that production increases when infections or allergies
| happen, naturally.
|
| By diluting mucus, and making it runny and watery, you're
| going to defeat its purpose, which is to trap various debris
| as you inhale, and stop it penetrating further into the nose
| and body.
|
| So now your mucus defenses are down, yet you've got a little
| puffer in hand, constantly forcing saline upwards into the
| nose, more powerfully than simple inhalations. That very
| upwards and inwards motion is going to _force stuff into your
| body_ that didn 't want to go there, including germs!
|
| It's absolutely counterproductive and sounds like quackery.
|
| Now, if you already detected irritation or allergies based on
| foreign objects or germs, for example by discolored or
| thickened mucus, or more than usual, and then you proceed to
| carefully flush your passages with saline, Neti pot style,
| allowing it to _drain away and out of the nose and sinuses_ ,
| that would be somewhat effect, but you'd need to be careflu
| that you're not forcing it inwards. I mean, that is exactly
| what a runny nose is for during a cold. Don't thwart a runny
| nose, just clean it away regularly and work _with_ those
| natural defenses! UGH! (For that matter, don 't aggressively
| attack mild fevers, because fevers are part of an immune
| response, not the lethal brain-cooking threat we all fear.)
|
| I wonder if this military researcher was consciously aware
| that he was spreading misinformation to ordinary civilians...
| hmm
| orbisvicis wrote:
| Airplanes bleed external air from the engines into the
| cabin, which leads to an extremely dry environment.
| Possibly dry enough to harden and crack mucus. Or perhaps
| in dry environments the body just decides not to waste
| water on mucus generation. I have no idea.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This sounds science-y.
|
| In fact, I use NeilMed, a commercial saline & bicarb powder
| together with distilled water, and I know from past
| exchanges on HN that lots of others here do, too. My own
| doctor said it was fine and lots of her patients do it. The
| solution runs out the other nostril, which is gross so you
| do it in private.
|
| I have very few colds, allergies, or sinus infections since
| starting it, although it doesn't eliminate them all.
|
| This Fort Detrick guy, though... that might be
| misinformation. I use the spray once a day, twice if I have
| a cold. Definitely not constantly.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| > The solution runs out the other nostril
|
| Exactly the key for this treatment, indeed.
|
| Sure, in many applications, such as congestion where you
| can't breathe, you'd need to break up the mucus and
| eliminate it, without snarfing it in. Your solution
| sounds wonderful for doing just that.
|
| I happen to sport a full beard, and I'm rather pleased
| with zero coronavirus infections in five years, not to
| mention a low incidence of colds and influenzas. A beard
| represents a man's unique natural defenses against all
| enemies, foreign and domestic, of the respiratory and
| digestive systems. Oiling, cleaning, and combing the
| beard are integral parts of that defense.
|
| But, simply Use As Directed, because as we've seen with
| talc, oxygen, and religion, if/when people misuse/overuse
| them, turns into cancer...
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I should have mentioned that sometimes afterwards, some
| solution drips out of your nose when you incline your
| head forward. Super-embarrassing.
| iandanforth wrote:
| I will admit to following the swab-nose-with-neosporin protocol
| following a previous mouse study with similar results. I use this
| during travel and have had no short terms ill effects and caught
| no infections while following it. (Not a doctor, not well
| controlled, just a random internet guy).
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/publicatio...
| ted_dunning wrote:
| That also sounds like a recipe for inducing antibiotic
| resistance in the staph in your nose.
| ulbu wrote:
| yes, really, don't do it. it's a danger not only to yourself,
| but to others as well.
| blamazon wrote:
| I'm busy so I didn't read the paper - is there a reason to
| use neosporin instead of petroleum jelly? In addition to your
| concern, many people are actively allergic to the ingredients
| in neosporin.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| You think putting neosporin in your nose a few times will get
| someone infected with antibiotic resistant staph?
| dbreunig wrote:
| Mice != Humans
| scheme271 wrote:
| Probably best not to do that. Neosporin is somewhat infamous
| for causing allergic reactions and repeated use increases the
| chances of getting an allergy to it.
| johnohara wrote:
| From the study, to your point:
|
| > To assess the translational potential of the intranasal
| neomycin approach in humans, we conducted a small pilot
| randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving
| healthy human participants.
|
| > For the experimental arm (n = 12) > For the placebo arm (n
| = 7)
|
| > One out of 21 participants experienced signs of an adverse
| event after 2 doses which self-resolved after a few days and
| self-withdrew from the study early. Upon examination of their
| medical record, it was found that the participant had a
| history of allergic reactions to various medications (not
| specific to study drug). Another participant's nasal samples
| could not be used due to technical issues. All other 19
| participants tolerated the treatment well and did not
| experience any adverse events from the study.
| iandanforth wrote:
| This is a good point! I've got a few decades of tolerating
| neosporin for normal uses so wasn't overly concerned.
| hedora wrote:
| I wouldn't do that. All sorts of stuff will permanently kill
| your sense of smell.
|
| One common one (this keeps getting reinvented, then banned in
| the us) is zinc nasal spray.
|
| Zinc lozenges seem fine. Both are effective at shortening
| colds.
| nikolay wrote:
| Only if it's zinc acetate, which is rare!
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Why not use an N95 mask? I use it on movie theaters, subways
| and airplanes.
| iandanforth wrote:
| Yes, mask first, this is a second line of defense. (Again,
| maybe, could do nothing or be harmful)
| nayroclade wrote:
| When I read about something like this, my first thought is
| always, is this something we could have evolved ourselves? And if
| so, what haven't we? Thicker mucus seems like something we have
| evolved, so was there some survival trade-off, perhaps in terms
| of general quality of respiration, that meant we didn't?
| biosboiii wrote:
| Evolution isn't nearly as perfect as you think it may be.
|
| For an example, check your feet.
| electronbeam wrote:
| I'm looking at them, they're nice.. be more specific?
| danielbln wrote:
| Yeah, our legs and feet provide a pretty sweet and
| effective kinetic chain. What's not to love.
| adrianN wrote:
| They start to hurt around year fifty.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Hard to blame evolution for that given that reproduction
| is much rarer after age 50.
| pcl wrote:
| Routing the plantar nerve around a bunch of ligaments that
| swell with use seems like a pretty horrible idea, for one!
| janice1999 wrote:
| We have lots of defenses. Unfortunately viruses evolve a lot
| faster than we do.
| throwaway918299 wrote:
| And our immune systems evolved before we had airplanes.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I forgot what scientist said this but "survival of the fittest"
| is a misnomer and it's more about straight up surviving. You
| need to have tolerable constant pressure for evolutionary
| traits to propagate. Also, its very possible we already
| developed thicker mucus than our ancestors millenniums ago.
| dinfinity wrote:
| I can imagine this (and thicker mucus in general) negatively
| affecting olfaction, which is pretty important for survival.
| smartmic wrote:
| It is not so long ago since we are exposed to so many different
| viruses. I think way to less time for evolution to be
| effective.
|
| Our ancestors a few thousand years ago still lived in largely
| isolated, at least not as extremely mobile and transcontinental
| communities as we do. And in terms of the number of
| generations, that is so few that we can say we are at the very
| beginning of an evolutionary development .
| samatman wrote:
| 61 million years ago, a branch of the mammalian family tree had
| a gene break, called GLO. Since then, those mammals have been
| unable to synthesize Vitamin C. That branch includes humans.
|
| There's no upside to this. Vitamin C is crucial, it isn't
| especially easy to get sometimes, and it would most definitely
| improve survival. We just... can't make it. That's all.
| rsync wrote:
| "There's no upside to this."
|
| Of course there is an upside to this.
|
| We may not value that upside and we may not ever learn what
| it is but ALL traits have _both_ benefits and costs.
| wvbdmp wrote:
| While I doubt that's true in general, I could fantasise
| that this somehow, in a roundabout way, contributed to our
| intelligence because it may have increased selection for
| better vision, pattern matching etc. to gather (edible)
| fruit.
| arisAlexis wrote:
| I am using iovir it has some read algae in supposedly does kind
| of the same thing
| eth0up wrote:
| As is often the case, I'm unsure why you're d'voted.
|
| There's a patented nasal product containing a modified
| carrageenan which has had substantially beneficial results in
| many subjects. When coupled with various (non-
| prescription/natural) anti-xyz ingredients, it can be really
| effective.
|
| I've been making my own nasal formula for over 8 years, which I
| discovered 7 years ago has been patented by one of the big
| pharmas. It works.
|
| There's a lot of potential here, and algae is definitely on the
| list.
| pstuart wrote:
| Care to share the details?
| eth0up wrote:
| Not sure exactly what you're looking for, but a cursory
| search on the carrageenan nasal spray found this:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8493111/
|
| If I'm not mistaken, Betadine had a version that used
| something else with the carrageenan, but it was removed
| from the US market and I don't remember the ingredients.
|
| As for _my version_ , the HN environment is a bit too
| vicious to discuss my personal health methods. I've not
| been in the mood for phatic intellectual combat for a while
| now.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| > PCANS nasal spray could effectively block infection from an
| influenza virus (PR8) at 25 times the lethal dose
|
| A certain amount of influenza virus acts as a toxin and just
| kills you?
| jfengel wrote:
| The paper says that 100% of the control group died. (This is a
| mouse model and a virus specifically selected to be deadly.)
|
| So, not "toxic", and not the usual LD50 that's often
| misreported as "lethal". But still, the language seems
| appropriate.
| analog31 wrote:
| When I saw "drug-free" the first thing that jumped to mind was a
| placebo. Which would not have shocked me.
| phony-account wrote:
| > When I saw "drug-free" the first thing that jumped to mind
| was a placebo. Which would not have shocked me
|
| Because people dying of covid are just "imagining it"?
| analog31 wrote:
| I hope you don't think that covid is imaginary.
|
| The article explains well enough that "drug free" doesn't
| mean inactive. So it's more a matter of what a "drug"
| consists of.
| hedora wrote:
| In this context, "drug-free" should probably be read as
| "they got permission to skip clinical trials, drug
| manufacturing oversight, Drug Facts labeling laws, and so
| on".
| analog31 wrote:
| Ah, then maybe "placebo" wasn't such a bad guess after
| all.
| pulvinar wrote:
| The article doesn't say how the spray affects the sense of smell,
| which I'd guess it diminishes or blocks. We evolved that sense
| for good survival reasons.
| asimpletune wrote:
| I love the elegance of a simple solution like this to solve
| seemingly much more sophisticated problems.
|
| This is very good engineering imo.
| drunkonvinyl wrote:
| Modeled on (and improved) the booger!
| OutOfHere wrote:
| The article is useless because it says nothing about what the
| active ingredients are. The corresponding reference is also
| equally useless since it's paywalled. Nothing to see here.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You forgot the /s. Or at least I deeply hope you forgot the /s.
| sampo wrote:
| I think I found the preprint of the article. Of course, the
| final published article has gone through some further editing.
| Anyway:
|
| > To ensure safety during daily or repeated use, PCANS was
| meticulously designed as a "drug-free" formulation,
| incorporating biopolymers, surfactants, and alcohols that are
| listed in the inactive ingredient database (IID) or generally
| recognized as safe (GRAS) list of the Food and Drug
| Administration (FDA), and are present as excipients in
| commercially available nasal/topical formulations. These
| components and their unique concentrations were identified via
| a highly iterative approach aimed at maximizing sprayability,
| mucoadhesiveness, the capture of respiratory droplets, physical
| barrier property, pathogen neutralization activity, and nasal
| residence time.
|
| > To prepare PCANS, gellan and pectin solutions were mixed in a
| ratio of 1:1, followed by the addition of tween-80 (Sigma
| Aldrich). The solution was then supplemented with benzalkonium
| chloride (BKC) (Sigma Aldrich) and subjected to immediate
| mixing by pipetting up and down several times. Finally,
| phenethyl alcohol (Sigma Aldrich) was added, and the pH of the
| solution was adjusted to 5.5.
|
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.02.560602v1....
| OutOfHere wrote:
| They seem to already have a commercial product named "Profi"
| with these ingredients, although the fact that it hasn't been
| tested in humans makes me trust it less.
| magicmicah85 wrote:
| While cool, studies like this always remind me that we
| deliberately breed and infect animals to see if they suffer and
| die from the disease or the cure.
|
| No need to remind me that without this we wouldn't have all our
| medical advancements, it's just a sad footnote to all of modern
| medicine, that's all.
| havaloc wrote:
| Shields up: "PCANS forms a gel, increasing its mechanical
| strength by a hundred times, forming a solid barrier"
|
| I wonder if it feels unpleasant
| wojciii wrote:
| Or .. you could use salt spray .. the kind of designed for kids.
| Its just salt and water.
|
| I stopped using other kinds of spray since discovering that it
| fixes my sinus infections in a matter of a day or two.
| hedora wrote:
| Yeah; my doctor recommends neilmed sinus rinse, in the little
| squirt bottle and powder packet form factor. I keep a gallon of
| distilled water in the bathroom. Problem solved. (Avoid the
| maximum strength formulation unless you want to use osmotic
| pressure to reduce swelling -- ouch!)
|
| If you go for the carbonated mist spray stuff, note that you
| get a lot less volume of water per dose, so it's a bit less
| reliable (but much more convenient since you don't need to
| worry about sterilizing anything).
|
| Regarding the article: Unless you're using this when completely
| symptom free (or have some condition where your sinuses are
| chronically dry), there's probably already more crap in your
| sinuses than you need. I'm skeptical of this new technology.
| quercusa wrote:
| On the other hand, don't think you can get away _without_ the
| salt packet either. I think that 's worse than too much salt.
| rcpt wrote:
| Any information about nettie pot vs the squirt bottle you
| use?
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Gravity vs. active pressure.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| That's it exactly for me. Squirt bottle seems more effective
| than Neti pot, just because there's some force in the water.
|
| You DO need the powder, though; otherwise the water burns
| like hell.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| Same here. I find saline sprays and saline netipot solutions to
| be very effective at preventing infections of taking hold.
|
| If you want to boost the effectiveness I've found a few drops
| op goldenseal extract also helps. It contains Berberine which
| is a mild antibacterial.
| squillion wrote:
| COVID is airborne, it doesn't spread via droplets. It's not clear
| whether this spray can also block airborne viruses or it only
| works on droplets.
| croes wrote:
| https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/indoor-air-and-co...
| nikolay wrote:
| Such spray [0] has been on the market by multiple brands and is
| backed by studies [1]. It has a throat spray and lozenges, too.
| There are some other patented variants with a different type of
| carrageenan.
|
| [0]: https://www.carragelose.com/
|
| [1]: https://www.carragelose.com/en/publications
| jonplackett wrote:
| I remember reading a while back that your eye is actually a big
| vector for getting viruses. We all touch surfaces and then touch
| our face and eyes a lot more than we realise.
| codethief wrote:
| This reminds me of this absolutely fantastic podcast episode by
| Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame):
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MzzD2F73iGU
| jayess wrote:
| I do a povodone/saline nasal spray rinse when flying. Then use my
| navage to clear out my sinuses when I arrive at my destination.
| Can't tell you if it works, but I historically have gotten sick
| when I travel and I've noticed a reduction in getting sick since
| I started this protocol.
| emmelaich wrote:
| So, internal disinfectant. Who'd have thought.
| helph67 wrote:
| Vitamin D daily may provide protection from viruses and skin
| cancers. https://scitechdaily.com/study-finds-
| vitamin-d3-important-fo...
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36580363/
| hypochondricdev wrote:
| If pure saline solution is too watery, couldn't I just add
| hyaluronic acid to make it more viscous?
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