Dexamethasone Declared First Drug To Save Lives Of Coronavirus Patients
The title of this post, is the same, as that of this article in The Times.
These are the introductory paragraphs.
British scientists have hailed a “huge breakthrough” in the fight against Covid-19 after a cheap drug was declared the first to save lives.
Dexamethasone, a decades-old steroid that costs about 50p per day, was found to reduce deaths by up to one third for the sickest patients. NHS hospitals were advised to begin using it immediately.
According to a retired Senior Hospital Pharmacist friend, Dexamethasone has been around a long time and is used in shock. She added “So don’t know why not tried before.”
The Times article says this about previous use.
While it had been administered to Covid patients in China and elsewhere its use was controversial, with no definitive proof that it worked.
Could it be that the research was discounted on ageist grounds against the drug?
Wikipedia also says this about the drug?
it was the 259th most prescribed medication in the United States, with more than a million prescriptions.
That is about 1-in-327 of the US population.
Dexamethasone And Coeliac Disease
Out of curiosity, I typed “Dexamethasone and coeliac disease” into Google.
I found this page on SpringerLink, which is entitled The Role of Corticosteroids In Celiac Disease.
This is the first sentence.
Since Dickie first described the benefits of a gluten-free diet in the 1940s and 1950s, this diet is the standard of care for all patients with celiac disease. For patients with a new diagnosis, dietary compliance can be difficult to achieve, possibly resulting in a clinical course marked by delayed recovery and persistent symptoms. This is of particular concern for patients in the developing world, where gluten-free food items may be difficult to obtain or to identify. While dietary modifications are likely to remain the treatment of choice in celiac disease, the use of adjuvant corticosteroids in newly diagnosed patients is a topic that has been addressed previously.
I’m no medic, so what follows in the scientific report is beyond my limited medical knowledge.
However in A Thought On Deaths Of The Elderly From Covid-19, I estimated that there are around 120,000 undiagnosed coeliacs in the UK, who are over 65. I used data from Age UK and Coeliac-UK.
According to Joe West of Nottingham University, diagnosed coeliacs on a gluten-free diet have less chance of getting cancer!
Could it be that this group of people, of which I am one, have a strong immune system?
So could the reverse be true and that undiagnosed coeliacs on a typical gluten-rich diet have a compromised immune system?
My son was an undiagnosed coeliac, with a poor diet who smoked. He died at just thirty-seven from pancreatic cancer!
Could some of the patients, who recovered from COVID-19, when given dexamethasone, have been undiagnosed coeliacs?
I, of course don’t know.
But the role of coeliac disease in the recovery from COVID-19 must be investigated.
A quick way to test my theory would be to survey the catering departments of all hospitals and see how much gluten-free food was being sent to wards, where COVID-19 is being treated.
Coeliacs, whether diagnosed by doctors or self-diagnosed, will probably be vociferous in their need for gluten-free food. I certainly was, when I had my stroke in Hong Kong.
Give me the data and I’ll analyse it!
I would also like to hear from any coeliacs, who have been given dexamethasone!
Oxford Splashes Out On £4bn Science Hub
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on page 8 of today’s copy of The Times.
Legal & General is investing the four billion in three related projects.
- Affordable homes for post-gradiates and staff.
- An innovation hub in Begbroke.
- An innovation quarter at Osney Mead.
Oxford is breaking out!
If I have one criticism, it is that Begbroke and Osney Mead appear badly placed for rail and bicycle access.
As some of the best innovators and researchers are short of money, this could be a mistake.
All our universities; large or small, ancient or modern, must come to the aid of the country!
Treatment Turns Up Heat On Tumours
The title of this post, is the same as that of an article in Tuesday’s Times.
It describes research at the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering, where ultrasound is used to heat liver cancers to over 39.5 °C. The raised temperature then triggers the release of a drug.
The last quote of the report is from a researcher involved.
We can now begin to realise the promise of precision cancer medicine.
I’ve read about other ideas with the same outcome of precision.
I suspect my grandchildren will have a much higher chance of being cured of cancer.
Keeping Your Brain Healthy
Look at any list of symptoms for coeliac disease and you’ll find a lot of them are concerned with brain or mental problems.
- Mild Depression
- Feelings of Inadequacy
- Gait Ataxia/Apraxia
- Lightheadness and Fainting
- Migraine or Persistent Headaches
- Mood Swings
- Sleep Disturbance
I used to suffer from most of these except for sleep disturbance.
Once I went on a gluten-free diet all of these symptoms cleared up. Now I know that I am a special case in that I’m a coeliac, but once the B12 levels were back up to normal, all of the symptoms disappeared. Research at Oxford University has indicated that higher B12 levels may help brain health.
It would be interesting to repeat their experiments with coeliacs. When a hospital diagnoses a coeliac, they should immediately undergo the tests before starting a gluten-free diet. And then they should be tested at intervals after starting the diet. My body actually reacted quite quickly in that my dandruff cleared up after about two weeks.
Now I know several people who have MS. One has sent me a link to an article about a new treatment for the disease called The Liberation Treatment. Here are the first couple of paragraphs.
Amid the centuries-old castles of the ancient city of Ferrara is a doctor who has come upon an entirely new idea about how to treat multiple sclerosis, one that may profoundly change the lives of patients.
Dr. Paolo Zamboni, a former vascular surgeon and professor at the University of Ferrara in northern Italy, began asking questions about the debilitating condition a decade ago, when his wife Elena, now 51, was diagnosed with MS.
He found that in some patients, the blood flow to the head was restricted and by improving this using standard surgical procedures, their health improved. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the article.
One of those patients was Buffalo resident Kevin Lipp. Lipp had MS for over a decade, and as part of the study, discovered he had five blocked veins in his neck. After undergoing the Liberation Treatment 10 months ago, he says he hasn’t had a single new MS attack.
Zamboni emphasizes that the Liberation Treatment does not make people in wheelchairs walk again. Rather, it seems to stop the development of further MS attacks, and in some cases, improves movement and decreases the debilitating fatigue that are the hallmarks of MS.
It may not cure MS, but it is all very interesting.
I tend to look on the body, as an engineer would look on a machine or a car. Machines don’t work well if they don’t have all of the things they need like fuel, electric power, oil, water and all the other necessities.
Is the body any different to my car in that respect?
And now today, it has been reported that those who develop Alzheimer’s are less likely to get cancer.
This would appear to push things in another direction, as research at Nottingham University has shown that coeliacs are less likely to get breast cancer. Diagnosed coeliacs have on the whole healthy brains because they eat well, so this research might show the opposite.
We need to do a lot more research to find all of these links.
The Anonymous Widower 