SSRIs used to treat Covid-19?

Martin

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Jul 23, 2019
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I don't necessarily agree with this but I do feel it's important to bring in opposing viewpoints. I recently watched a 60 minutes episode where they found an old drug called fluvoxamine that could be used to treat sepsis. This led them to look into its efficacy for treatment for Covid-19. The results of the real-world study, which were published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, showed that, of 65 of those patients who chose to take fluvoxamine, none were hospitalized, while of the 48 who declined the prescription, 12.5% ended up hospitalized, and one died. Another study was done with a larger sample size and found out of the 80 people who received fluvoxamine, none, zero of them deteriorated versus-- 8% of the people-- who got placebo. Any thoughts on how an SSRI is being used and tested for the treatment of Covid-19?
 

gaze

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some SSRIS can have beneficial effects unrelated to serotonin

"One of the many actions of the "SSRI" (such as fluoxetine, Prozac), which aren’t related to their effect on serotonin, is to increase the concentration of allopregnanolone in the brain, imitating the action of increased progesterone. Following this discovery, Lilly got Prozac approved as a treatment for premenstrual syndrome. Since the production of allopregnanolone and progesterone depends on the availability of pregnenolone and cholesterol, a low cholesterol level would be one of the factors making this an inappropriate way to treat PMS."

- RP
 
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M

Martin

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Joined
Jul 23, 2019
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33
some SSRIS can have beneficial effects unrelated to serotonin

"One of the many actions of the "SSRI" (such as fluoxetine, Prozac), which aren’t related to their effect on serotonin, is to increase the concentration of allopregnanolone in the brain, imitating the action of increased progesterone. Following this discovery, Lilly got Prozac approved as a treatment for premenstrual syndrome. Since the production of allopregnanolone and progesterone depends on the availability of pregnenolone and cholesterol, a low cholesterol level would be one of the factors making this an inappropriate way to treat PMS."

- RP
Interesting, I still find it odd that something that should make covid worse is actually being used effectively to prevent hospitalization. Curious if @haidut has any input since it seems to be one of the most effective drugs I have seen so far.
 

Perry Staltic

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I'm supremely suspicious of using serotonergic meds to treat an illness that in a lot of cases is most likely due to serotonin poisoning. However, some think its efficacy, if such exists, is due to it being a sigma 1 receptor agonist, which decreases cytokine production.
 

gaze

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Jun 13, 2019
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to clarify, i don't think using the SSRI is a good idea at all, but the point being that the medical understanding of SSRIs and serotonin is weak. some SSRIs vastly increase serotonin, some actually decrease it (while thinking they're increasing it), some increase other hormones. it's like russian roulette basically how you react to an SSRi, often times it's debilitating, but in rare cases it might have beneficial effects. i think other methods to lower serotonin are better measures for covid, such as cypro, cascara , etc.
 

Mito

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Dec 10, 2016
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I don't necessarily agree with this but I do feel it's important to bring in opposing viewpoints. I recently watched a 60 minutes episode where they found an old drug called fluvoxamine that could be used to treat sepsis. This led them to look into its efficacy for treatment for Covid-19. The results of the real-world study, which were published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases, showed that, of 65 of those patients who chose to take fluvoxamine, none were hospitalized, while of the 48 who declined the prescription, 12.5% ended up hospitalized, and one died. Another study was done with a larger sample size and found out of the 80 people who received fluvoxamine, none, zero of them deteriorated versus-- 8% of the people-- who got placebo. Any thoughts on how an SSRI is being used and tested for the treatment of Covid-19?
 

Mauritio

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Feb 26, 2018
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I'm supremely suspicious of using serotonergic meds to treat an illness that in a lot of cases is most likely due to serotonin poisoning. However, some think its efficacy, if such exists, is due to it being a sigma 1 receptor agonist, which decreases cytokine production.
Do you have a source for signa 1 receptors decreasing cytokines?

Im interested in this .
this would totally make sense and its probably one of the reasons why progesterone is therapeutic against covid ,since progesterone is also an sigma 1 agonist (just as, testosterone, pregnenolone, memantine and possibly bromantane )
 

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