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Antipsychotics against covid-19
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| Antipsychotics against covid-19 |
Antipsychotics against covid-19
Patients who are treated with these drugs have a lower risk of becoming infected or have the mildest disease. Antipsychotic drugs could have a protective effect against covid-19, according to a study carried out by researchers at the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital in Seville. Antipsychotic drugs could have a protective effect against covid-19, according to a study carried out by researchers at the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital in Seville.hospitaluvrocio.es
Spanish researchers have verified the protective effect that antipsychotic drugs can have against covid-19, both against infection and the tendency to suffer the most serious symptoms of the disease.
The study was led by researchers from the Mental Health Unit of the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital in Seville, in collaboration with the Center for Biomedical Research in Mental Health Network (Cibersam), the Health Research Institute of Valdecilla (Santander), the Bioinformatics Unit of the Nucleus service of the University of Salamanca and the Higher Council for Scientific Research.
The studies have concluded that antipsychotic drugs could have a protective effect against SARS-CoV-2, after verifying that patients who are treated with these drugs have a lower risk of becoming infected or suffer the disease in a milder way in case of getting infected.
A first epidemiological study was carried out on a sample of 698 patients who are undergoing treatment with this type of drug in the Seville hospital, according to the Center for Biomedical Research in Mental Health Network (Cibersam).
“They are very interesting findings that really reflect a clinical reality where we see few patients with the severe covid-19 disease, despite having various risk factors in them,” explained Manuel Canal Rivero, a clinical psychologist at the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital and first signer of one of the two works.
The doctor has specified -informs the CIBERSAM- that in this group of people the number of patients with covid-19 is lower than expected, and in the cases in which there has been a proven infection, the evolution has been “benign” and without reaching a life-threatening clinical situation, data that reveal the protective effect of the medication.
In a complementary way, researchers have observed that many of the genes whose expression is altered by this disease are significantly downregulated by antipsychotic drugs, which are commonly used for the treatment of diseases with psychotic symptoms.
This finding has been achieved by investigating the gene expression profile (an indicator of activated biological processes) of patients with Wuhan covid-19 and of patients undergoing treatment with an antipsychotic drug from the group of the Intervention Program in the Early Phases of Psychosis that Dr. Benedicto Crespo-Facorro, current director of the Mental Health Unit of the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital, began twenty years ago at the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital in Cantabria.
“In a striking way, we have shown how antipsychotics reduce the activation of genes involved in many of the inflammatory and immunological pathways associated with the severity of the covid-19 infection “, has corroborated Professor Crespo-Facorro.
And he has highlighted that this discovery could have great significance since the treatment of covid-19 with drugs that are originally indicated for different clinical situations, (what experts call drug repositioning) has been shown as an interesting source of treatments effective for these patients.
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