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Against the Grain with Dr. Chad Edwards | Oklahoma Prolotherapy | Podcast 5 – Part 2
Brian: Here we go again.
Chad: Exactly. That was directly from theirs, but these were safety studies. Is it safe to give it to these kids? They concluded that it was safe. There’s no studies on patients less than two weeks of old.
Brian: It doesn’t necessarily prove effective in treating the symptoms, but it’s safe.
Chad: We’ll get into that, too.
Brian: Okay.
Chad: Stay tuned. The second group, one to 12 years of age, in the studies that were performed, they got better 1.5 days faster. If you consider something like the flu, say seven to 10 days, you’ll get better at eight and a half days instead of 10.
Brian: Sounds like a miracle drug.
Chad: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Thirteen years and up, they got better 1.3 days faster. Geriatric patients, they got better one day faster. We’re talking about somebody that’s diagnosed with the flu that has had symptoms less than two days, can get a medication and it makes them better 1.3 days faster, according to the package insert.
Brian: Which, for those of us in those age categories that have children of those age, it just means that they postpone their next sickness for 1.3 days.
Chad: In that group, it’s 1.5 days.
Brian: 1.5 days. Your kid’s going to get sick again, though, with a different strand of something in literally three days.
Chad: Yeah, pretty much. Again, I think it’s important to understand that this was the data that was released by Roche [crosstalk 00:07:56]
Brian: The manufacturer.
Chad: Again, there’s a lot of controversy about this, and we’re going to go over that more specifically.
Brian: Roche, again, is the manufacturer of Tamiflu, correct?
Chad: That’s correct.
Brian: How much do you know about Roche? Is it Roche?
Chad: I think it’s Roche.
Brian: Roche, do we know anything, Marshall, about Roche?
Marshall: I don’t know anything about Roche, but I can look it up.
Brian: Let’s continue [crosstalk 00:08:16].
Chad: It sounds good. I didn’t research that.
Brian: No, no. I want to know more about this company. I really do.
Chad: I like it.
Brian: Are they a publicly traded company? What other treatments do they have? Who they are? We’ll get back to that. Marshall’s going to look it up.
Chad:Awesome. Cool. Okay, so then further things about Tamiflu … Who should take it? According to the CDC, only certain groups. Those sick enough to be hospitalized with the flu … Again, we’re looking at this because there’s potential for some harm. There’s potential.
Brian: Right.
Chad: We talked about but it’s safe. Well, the CDC says only certain groups should take it.
Brian: Can I ask a quick question?
Chad: Yeah.
Brian: What the heck is Tamiflu? Is it a pill?
Chad: Yeah. It can be a liquid. It comes as a liquid. It comes as either a … I can’t remember if it’s a capsule or a tablet. I don’t remember on that one.
Brian: Okay.
Chad: The dose for adults, 75 milligrams. You take one twice a day for five days. That’s the standard treatment dose.
Brian: You’re supposed to take it early in on the … Obviously early in on the [crosstalk 00:09:21]
Chad: The earlier, the better, at least according to those studies. Now, this stuff is relatively expensive. Some insurances will cover it, many won’t. You’re looking at about $125 for one dosepak. Five days, twice a day. That’s about what you’re looking at. I think that $120 to $125, CVS, any of those kinds of places, that’s about what you’re looking at, plus or minus a little bit. Tamiflu, it’s this medication … It’s what’s called a neuraminidase inhibitor. When you talk about the flu, you know we’ve all heard about H1 N1. The H’s and the N’s actually refer to proteins that are on the lipid envelop of this virus, the flu virus.
You have the hemagglutinins and then you have the neuraminidase. Anything that ends in -ase, medically speaking, is an enzyme. An enzyme catalyzes a reaction. It makes a reaction go from point A to point B. That reaction may or may not occur without the enzyme, but the enzyme makes it go much faster … You know, it makes it go that way. Neuraminidase is basically an enzyme that works on sialic acid and it helps with what’s called the virulence factors of flu. You have different neuraminidases. The H1 N1 is type 1 of the hemagglutinin and type 1 of the neuraminidase.
You might have H5 N3, which is a different virus structure, or at least the capsule, those proteins on the outside which make it more severe, less severe. That’s why with swine flu, the H1 N1, there was such, “Oh my gosh, this is really bad, H1 N1 is bad,” because of those virulence-type factors. I apologize for having to keep clearing my throat. Tamiflu is a neuraminidase inhibitor. It prevents that protein, that enzyme, from doing its thing. Since one of the functions of neuraminidase is enabling that virus to spread, release itself from the infected cell, and to be able to migrate through the respiratory epithelium. That’s the cells that line your nose and lungs and all those things.
That neuraminidase helps that virus propagate, go to the next cell, come out as virus particles that we can cough out and spread. Tamiflu is a neuraminidase inhibitor, so it prevents … In concept, it prevents that process. If you can prevent it from releasing from the infected cell, it can’t spread either in the host, the sick person, or going to somebody else. That’s the idea and concept.
Brian: It doesn’t kill it per se …
Chad: That’s correct.
Brian: It represses it
Chad: That’s correct. It contains it. It’s a containment strategy.
Brian: That’s important. You may get better a day and a half faster, but it doesn’t necessarily reduce your symptoms immediately.
Chad: That’s exactly right. Again, any time we’re going to use that day and a half faster, this is based on Roche’s original reported data. We’re going to come back to that. Who should take this stuff, this neuraminidase inhibitor called Tamiflu? Those sick enough to be in the hospital? If you have severe, complicated, progressive health problems such as COPD, asthma, diabetes, heart disease, a suppressed immune system, those kinds of things. Anyone less than the age of two. Pregnant women. Now this is interesting to me, because it’s a pregnancy category C.
