Lamivudine, a generic HIV/AIDS medication significantly reduces age-related inflammation in old mice

[RYO]

https://neurosciencenews.com/alzheimers-hiv-drug-10697/

https://www.futurity.org/hiv-drug-age-inflammation-1975872/

Very interesting article about anti inflammatory effects of lamivudine. I couldn't help but think about potential pathophysiology of ME/CFS especially with Dr Jarred Younger's findings of neuroinflammation. Perhaps he can add lamivudine as an existing drug that may be useful in reducing neuroinflammation in ME/CFS patients.

Perhaps in ME/CFS patients, a viral trigger activates L1 retrotransposons which leads to "the interferon response" resulting in chronic inflammation in neural tissue.

I am still trying to understand this article. I would appreciate if someone could further explain or elaborate on these ideas.

Other thoughts... Is there a way to analyze cerebral spinal fluid samples from ME/CFS patients to see if there is greater retrotransposon activity?

 

[Hip]

Epivir (lamivudine) is one of the drugs that Dr Chia uses to treat enterovirus infection. Dr Chia says 1 in 3 ME/CFS patients respond to Epivir. 1 However, I believe even for those ME/CFS patients it does work for, the benefits of Epivir are relatively mild.

Dr Chia also uses the antiviral tenofovir for ME/CFS, but again he finds less than one-third of his patients respond to this drug. Although when tenofovir works for a patient, the benefits are significant. 1 2

 

[Pyrrhus]

Epivir (lamivudine) is one of the drugs that Dr Chia uses to treat enterovirus infection.

I'm not sure that the lamivudine and tenofovir effects have anything to do with the enteroviral infection. If I'm not mistaken, lamivudine and tenofovir are inactive against enteroviruses in vitro. It seems more likely that any positive effects they have must be due to some other mechanism...

 

[Hip]

I'm not sure that the lamivudine and tenofovir effects have anything to do with the enteroviral infection. If I'm not mistaken, lamivudine and the two ingredients of tenofovir are inactive against enteroviruses in vitro. It seems more likely that any positive effects they have must be due to some other mechanism...

Yes, there are not studies showing these two drugs work against enterovirus, but I read some time ago that Dr Chia thinks Epivir may have some antiviral or immunomodulatory effects against enterovirus (can't find a ref at the moment). If you search @Patrick*'s blog for Epivir, there's some info on Dr Chia's use of Epivir.

Chia also uses tenofovir for ME/CFS, though again the mechanism is not clear. It is a potent inhibitor of IL-10 (a Th2 cytokine), so it may be that tenofovir works as a Th2 to Th1 immunomodulator. The blog has some details.

Tenofovir also has an effect against HERVs, and Dr Brigitte Huber showed that there is increased HERV-K18 activity in the post-mononucleosis subset of ME/CFS. So for that subset, tenofovir's anti-HERV effects could conceivably be helping.

Other ME/CFS doctors have found tenofovir an effective treatment, including Dr Weir and Dr Deckoff-Jones. I know two forum members who did well on tenofovir, and the interesting thing is that in both cases the improvements appear permanent even after stopping the drug.


By the way, Valcyte and tenofovir do not mix. 1

 

[RYO]

@Hip
Can you elaborate on the specifics of improvements forum members experienced while taking Epivir or Viread?

 

[RYO]

@Rose49
Janet,
Would it possible for Ron or someone on his team to review the article in this thread? Perhaps Dr Younger can add lamivudine on the list of anti-inflammatory compounds to study in ME/CFS patients.

 

[Hip]

Can you elaborate on the specifics of improvements forum members experienced while taking Epivir or Viread?

One tenofovir improvement story is given here — this ME/CFS patient went from approximately severe ME/CFS to moderate ME/CFS (on the scale of mild, moderate and severe) after taking a course of tenofovir for 12 months.

The other member taking tenofovir I am in touch with by email, and he said that after a few months of tenofovir 150 mg daily (half a tablet), he found that "PEM is a thing of the past".

There are also reports from Dr Chia, who says that only one-third of his patients respond to tenofovir, but when it works for a patient, the benefits are significant. Refs: this post and this post.


Dr Weir in the UK reports:

I have prescribed the antiretroviral, tenofovir, in the treatment of ME/CFS. I have three patients with ME/CFS who recovered whilst being given this drug. Signs of recovery did not appear until the third/fourth month.

I have also had to stop 
the tenofovir in 3 other patients in whom there was no beneficial response after 5 months.

Ref: here.

Epivir (lamivudine) benefits appear to be milder, from what I have read; it's probably not a drug that is going to move you up one level on the scale of severe, moderate, mild and remission like tenofovir can. One report of Epivir's use is given here.

Chia says:

1 out of 3 patients respond well to lamivudine ("if you're responding you'll be able to tell").

I believe the timeframe for responding to Epivir is in the order of a month or so.


I've summarized all the info I could find on Dr Chia's enterovirus treatments in the coxsackievirus B and echovirus treatments section of the roadmap document.

 

[Cipher]

@Hip Is there any advantage in combining tenofovir and Epivir or should they be taken separately?

 

[Hip]

@Hip Is there any advantage in combining tenofovir and Epivir or should they be taken separately?

Dr Chia often tries both of these drugs as ME/CFS treatments, but I don't know if he combines them. Tenofovir and Epivir are sold as a combo pill for HIV, so I don't think there would be an adverse drug interaction between these two.

I believe he usually combines oxymatrine, inosine and Epivir (see this article).

 

[godlovesatrier]

So to add to this. Dr chia in the polybio interview with Proal discusses these drugs again. At timecode 46:56 he discusses giving Andrew (his son) epivir and seeing his cognitive dysfunction resolve completely. Andrew goes on to read 25 pages in a medical textbook understand it all and be able to tell his dad all about it. Whereas it took Dr chia days to do this he says.

So it seems that if you're suffering with very bad brainfog that epivir could be vital.

Now it's not very clear whether the epivir came before or after the Equilibrant.

However we have another of Dr chias patients on this thread https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/list-of-me-cfs-recovery-and-improvement-stories.80502/ mentions that the drug appears to be given after Equilibrant is started.

Not sure if this had been captured from the interview so thought I'd post it.