Chloroquine and Quinine

in #coronavirus4 years ago (edited)

I came across this video link on Facebook. It was posted by a scientist that I follow on that platform. I'll make the same disclaimer he did, which is to say that I am not a healthcare professional. Talk to your doctor before taking any supplements.

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=U7F1cnWup9M

So, the video talks about chloroquine, which is a prescription medication used to treat malaria. There is some speculation here as to its possible antiviral effects working against COVID-19 by transporting zinc ions into the cell and disabling the virus replicase, thereby crippling the virus replication. There have been no controlled studies on this, it's mostly speculation at this point. The scientist who originally posted this link made the point that quinine, which occurs naturally in Cinchona officinalis bark, has the same mechanism as chloroquine, but that it doesn't persist in the body for nearly as long. You can drink tonic water, which contains its extract, or supplements in pill form are available on Amazon.

It might strike someone as prudent to have some of this stuff on hand in the eventuality that the coronavirus outbreak gets out of hand and professional medical care becomes unavailable. As usual, do research on the side effects before taking any supplements, as there are side effects to taking massive quantities of quinine, like uncontrolled bleeding, kidney damage or abnormal heartbeat, so I wouldn't take it if I didn't need to personally. Anyway, just thought I'd put this out there for anyone who might be interested. Until next time, Steem On!

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This sounded interesting to me, so I decided to buy a six pack of canned tonic water tonight. Not sure it will help prevent infection, but it can't hurt to try.

In the case of malaria it is not effective as a preventive, it can only treat it. If it were effective against coronavirus, it would likely be the same, meaning that it would be a waste to drink it beforehand.