Lots of long COVID patients reporting major improvements with lactoferrin

[shakyradical]

A number of long COVID patients are reporting substantial improvements from the supplement lactoferrin. See these threads reporting major benefits (the brand and type used is indicated):

• Incredible recovery with lactoferrin! — Aug 2023 Jarrow apolactoferrin
• Has anyone tried BOTH lactoferrin and dandelion? That combo made a massive difference for me — Jul 2023 Jarrow apolactoferrin
• Lactoferrin working great but causing some GI issues — Jun 2023 Life Extension apolactoferrin
• Lactoferrin and l-arginine plus vitamin c is making me feel normal again — Jun 2023 Life Extension lactoferrin
• From Laying in a Dark Room to Going for Walks in the Sunshine: The Simplest & Most Effective Recovery — May 2023 Life Giving Store lactoferrin + apolactoferrin
• Apolactoferrin showing significant results for me — May 2023 Jarrow apolactoferrin
• Lactoferrin is helping me with PEM and tremors — May 2023 Jarrow apolactoferrin
• Lactoferrin is a miracle supplement for me — Mar 2023 Vitamatic apolactoferrin
• Lactoferrin Improvement; Connection with Menstrual Cycle and Viral Reservoir? — Feb 2023 Humanx lactoferrin
• Feeling fully recovered after 8 months — Jan 2023 Brand unknown Update after 5 months
• Lactoferrin high dose succesful — Nov 2022 Brand unknown
• I would say I am probably back to normal — Feb 2022 Humanx lactoferrin

Lactoferrin is a protein found in mother's milk which has antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties.

Typically long COVID patients start on low doses of lactoferrin (250 mg daily), and over a few days titrate up to higher doses (1500 mg or more daily). Taking too much too soon may cause increased symptoms or a Herx.

Most lactoferrin supplements you buy are in fact apolactoferrin, a synthetic form of lactoferrin. Though you can also buy lactoferrin. This article states that the "apo" form has additional benefits over regular lactoferrin (for example apolactoferrin is a better antimicrobial).

Apparently both lactoferrin and apolactoferrin increase iron absorption from the diet. This article says lactoferrin helps normalise iron metabolism: "though lactoferrin is both an iron scavenger and donor (depending on the cellular environment), it has been found to scavenge or donate iron at the appropriate times when the body is in need of the reaction."

One study found lactoferrin binds to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, although a placebo-controlled clinical trial did not show benefits for patients hospitalised with moderate-to-severe COVID-19 (though the authors state lactoferrin potentially might be useful in earlier phases of COVID-19).

One study found lactoferrin was effective for two children with long COVID who had gastrointestinal symptoms.

Lactoferrin appears to have positive effects on the intestinal mucosal immune system.

A study found lactoferrin binds to and neutralises bacterial LPS and stops it from activating inflammatory TLR-4 signalling pathways.



Interestingly, this long COVID patient found that cheaper brands did not work as well as the more expensive Jarrow brand of apolactoferrin:


Someone else on Reddit echoed this experience:

thanks so much for sharing this.

I tried it awhile ago and didn't notice much, though I didn't go past the dose on the bottle.
gonna try again .

 

[godlovesatrier]

Great work Hip, my god these prices are insane, I thought vivomixx was bad. Will be getting on this, I don't have any adverse effects to lactoferrin, so very easy one for me to take daily.

Funny how mega dosing seems to be important. Before I deleted twitter one person was saying there LC improved by taking mega doses of probiotics, like 800 billion of 1.6trillion cfus which is about 4 sachets of vivomixx a day. Prob £200 a month.

Jaime found out that if you mega dose solgar q10 it works vastly better than if you just take 300mg, mega dosing is 2 to 3g of q10 - generally for emergencies but buffers PEM very well, sometimes completely.

And of course you found flax seed oil high doses help with anxiety, whereas a lot of the ALA supps are only dosing at 200mg.

btw lactoferrin does increase serum iron, I have the blood tests to prove it.

 

[godlovesatrier]

For those of you in the UK life extension lactoferrin from dolphin fitness comes out at £47 and you can take 1.2g a day which equals 12 days worth. I think that might work out the cheapest one.

 

[hapl808]

Funny how mega dosing seems to be important. Before I deleted twitter one person was saying there LC improved by taking mega doses of probiotics, like 800 billion of 1.6trillion cfus which is about 4 sachets of vivomixx a day. Prob £200 a month.

Jaime found out that if you mega dose solgar q10 it works vastly better than if you just take 300mg, mega dosing is 2 to 3g of q10 - generally for emergencies but buffers PEM very well, sometimes completely.

And of course you found flax seed oil high doses help with anxiety, whereas a lot of the ALA supps are only dosing at 200mg.

I've used probiotics and Q10 and lactoferrin, but haven't really megadosed any of them. I've heard about the megadosing Q10 for buffering PEM (or in muscular illnesses) - have you found that beneficial? Any specific forms or combinations for absorption - bioperine, d-limonene, etc?

 

[godlovesatrier]

Yes 2g q10 works fora bout 6 to 8 hours depending on intensity of activity. You have to take solgar q10.

I'ev bought the lactoferrin, should arrive tomorrow and then I can start taking it.

 

[hapl808]

Yes 2g q10 works fora bout 6 to 8 hours depending on intensity of activity. You have to take solgar q10.

It has to be Solgar, or just that's the one you've tried? Looks like they're just using Kaneka Q10? How did you find 2g to be effective - and is 1g effective for half the time, or not effective at all for you?

Here's the highest dose Solgar I found, so it would be 10 capsules I think?

https://www.amazon.com/Solgar-Megasorb-CoQ-10-Supplement-Count/dp/B000CESR7W

 

[godlovesatrier]

@Hip Are you able to add this one please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/LongHaulersRecovery/comments/191vlka

He says he didn't have any OI or pots, was suffering from profound fatigue/PEM and lots of other smptoms. He is taking a german probiotic called omni-biotic 10 AAD (which has a uk link if you google it) it's 10 billion cfu's of strain specific bacteria, but vivomixx has 400 billion cfus per sachet so not sure that his is better. He also buys and takes liquid colostrum which he says is very expensive (might be by script not sure). The german OTC apothek website prob has some of these things I expect.

He says is fight or flight being over active was better pre lactoferrin but that lactoferrin got rid of it completely. He says he got abdominal pain from high sugar fruit like bananas.He took the jarrow brand of lactoferrin. He cut out dairy and he meditates (as most of them seem to) for HPA axis dysfunction - they call it fight or flight but it's the same issue.

He noticed about a week or worsening symptoms with initial dosing then felt a lot better.

**

Are you able to tell me if any of the people taking lactoferrin saw amelioration of dizziness/pots/OI?

 

[godlovesatrier]

@hapl808 yes it must be solgar - no idea why. https://uk.iherb.com/pr/solgar-vegan-coq-10-200-mg-60-vegetable-capsules/22432 this is the one I was taking.

 

[godlovesatrier]

@Forummember9922 Interesting taken it before at lower doses like 400mg maybe and noticed nothing major (that I can recall) however whilst my ebv load was high back then (it got vastly better on european valtrex), I actually felt better at that time. Anyway mega dosing is probably the way forward, kind of makes sense to me now as I said in my other post.

But I would love it if it worked for ebv, as valtrex is good, but it's not that good.

 

[hapl808]

@hapl808 yes it must be solgar - no idea why. https://uk.iherb.com/pr/solgar-vegan-coq-10-200-mg-60-vegetable-capsules/22432 this is the one I was taking.

Which other ones did you try? Solgar seems to get their Q10 from Kaneka as far as I could tell. When you take the Solgar, you're taking 10 capsules each time, correct?

 

[godlovesatrier]

https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/62/suppl_67/PA1676

This trial here seems to suggest it doesn't work at doses of 1200mg. Hope it's wrong for me anyway! But it obviously is important for a lot of these patients.

 

[L'engle]

I've found different Coq10 brands to be wildly different. The one I bought most recently causes a wired feeling on the day of and then worse muscle weakness and aching the next day. Pretty sure I've had one with Kaneka Ubiquinol. I think I had better luck with ubiquinone. Enzymatic Therapy used to make one that gave me some energy without a crash but I don't think it exists anymore.

 

[godlovesatrier]

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/23/22/13719

Lactoferrin Alleviates Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Infantile Intestinal Immune Barrier Damage by Regulating an ELAVL1-Related Signaling Pathway​

Pharmacokinetic analyses demonstrated that the integrity of LF could reach mice stomach and intestine after oral gavage within 12 h, and the proper administration of LF should be the oral route. LF was proven to down–regulate the expression levels of inflammatory cytokines in both the primary intestinal epithelial cells and mice blood, especially LF without iron (Apo-LF), indicating LF alleviated infantile intestinal immune barrier damage induced by LPS.

I wonder if it's mode of action is more on the intestinal barrier like larozotide and it's blocking sars-cov-2 from getting back into the bloodstream. At least int he larozotide trial phase 2 that showed massively reduced covid spike protein in the blood after administration. Can't find any mention of it blocking zonulin tho.

 

[godlovesatrier]

Might be a coincidence but I took 1200mg lactoferrin (life extension) at about 3pm, then fell asleep for 2 hours because I was pretty whacked from that + st johns wort I took about midday and I now seem to be feeling pretty good. I jsut put the dinner on for the first time since I got covid. And had to do a little washing up but no fatigue! Have had a shower and made breakfast and lunch today. I don't feel as dizzy as I did either.

See how I go I guess, might take a few days to help.

 

[lyran]

I tried apolactoferrin back in 2015 when (if I remember correctly) the cost was half of what it is now. I only used 1-2 caps per day and didn't notice anything. I'm thinking if I should try bigger doses but it is just so expensive to spend that much money on another "probably won't notice any benefits" supplement.

 

[jstefl]

I started taking Jarrow brand lactoferrin back in June along with starting a mainly carnivore diet. It is a bit difficult to separate the benefits of each, but with the combination I am feeling a bit better.

One difficulty I had was GI problems, I lived on antacids and had mostly liquid stool up to this point. That problem is almost completely gone now. It took a while and there were some ups and downs, but things seem to be settling down and I am almost completely off of the antacids.

I have also lost some weight. I had gained about 15 pounds over the last 50 years and with the new diet I have actually lost 20 pounds. I weigh less than when I was 25 years old.

I have been taking various doses of the lactoferrin as it is fairly expensive, I have settled in at a six capsule per day rate. I was able to start this with no negative effects which surprised me, so the dosage is a matter of how much I want to spend.

For me the benefits have been a much improved GI tract and my daily continuous headaches are less severe. I have been able to cut back on the daily Tylenol use, which is a good thing. I still need to nap most days, but it is much easier for me to survive without one now.

I cheat once in a while on the carnivore diet. I am not interested in losing any more weight and am careful about the things I cheat with, but I am very happy with this diet choice.

 

[godlovesatrier]

So third day today. I think I get a bit brainfogged after taking 1200mg (this is pure lactoferrin not the apolactoferrin brand. But can't really tell if that's covid brainfog or lactoferrin induced brainfog! So yeah that's my update, I'll take it until the bottle runs out and see how I feel.

Crashed in the evening despite lactoferrin, so not convinced it is doing anything.

I actually think b12 has been more useful so far (stopped it yesterday) than lactoferrin, but b12 has been giving me bad insomnia. Saying that I finally bought sublingual drops so if I actually give myself the lowest dose maybe I'll be fine.

Also tonight I was crashing, bad brainfog (couldn't concentrate and was feeling a bit fatigued too later on) took 500mg valtrex and those symptoms started to improve after about an hour. tbf I did take citalopram last week at low doses and all the glands in my neck swelled up, so I think I am fighting ebv back down right now, much to my annoyance

As for lactoferrin, might need lipsomal maybe or higher doses.

 

[godlovesatrier]

@Hip restarted at 900mg dosed twice in fairly short succession. Noticed improvements in fatigue and coat hanger pain after dosing. Took the same dose twice on two seperate occasions and it helped to ameliorate coat hanger pain and upper body fatigue on both occasions. So it does appear to be working it just seems like my LC wasn't bad enough before for it assist. Although that does depress me because it seems like my LC is getting worse.

Not sur eif it helps with brainfog but I haven't had brainfog that badly since I took the hydrocortisone last week - it seemed to knock out PENE completely and so far I haven't had a major exacerbation. After my second low dose hydrocortisone dose on saturday I was able to watch tv on the big tv for about 6 or 7 hours with an only slow and gradual reduction in brainfog.

No side effects of note.

 

[lyran]

I wonder if the benefits you get from Lactoferrin are immune, inflammation or gut related. It is also known to help leaky gut and gut health overall.

 

[godlovesatrier]

According to studies it's all 3 yeah.