I use a similar nasal spray for allergies (Becodefence). Basically a physical barrier coating the nasal passages. For me and my allergies, it's super effective.
Never thought about using it to block viral infections, but it makes sense: coating the nasal passages with artificial "mucus-like substance" so particles don't reach the membranes. Makes total sense that approach also work for viruses.
A couple of decades ago, I was on a commercial aircraft and sat next to a man who occasionally puffed something into his nostrils. It turned out that he was a researcher at Ft. Detrick, and he explained that keeping your nasal passages moist with saline spray helped to keep out germs. I’ve been using saline sprays ever since!
I wonder if there is something like this in the US? As an kidney transplant patient with immunosuppression, I've been super cautious to being in crowds without a mask.
I feel like something like this might give me more reassurance if I'm meeting friends and family at parties and events without a mask.
That was my first thought, sounds uncomfortable. Hopefully you'd just get used it though and to be fair, it's definitely less uncomfortable than dying from preventable diseases.
Yeah; my doctor recommends neilmed sinus rinse, in the little squirt bottle and powder packet form factor. I keep a gallon of distilled water in the bathroom. Problem solved. (Avoid the maximum strength formulation unless you want to use osmotic pressure to reduce swelling — ouch!)
If you go for the carbonated mist spray stuff, note that you get a lot less volume of water per dose, so it’s a bit less reliable (but much more convenient since you don’t need to worry about sterilizing anything).
Regarding the article: Unless you’re using this when completely symptom free (or have some condition where your sinuses are chronically dry), there’s probably already more crap in your sinuses than you need. I’m skeptical of this new technology.
Such spray [0] has been on the market by multiple brands and is backed by studies [1]. It has a throat spray and lozenges, too. There are some other patented variants with a different type of carrageenan.
I will admit to following the swab-nose-with-neosporin protocol following a previous mouse study with similar results. I use this during travel and have had no short terms ill effects and caught no infections while following it. (Not a doctor, not well controlled, just a random internet guy).
I'm busy so I didn't read the paper - is there a reason to use neosporin instead of petroleum jelly? In addition to your concern, many people are actively allergic to the ingredients in neosporin.
Probably best not to do that. Neosporin is somewhat infamous for causing allergic reactions and repeated use increases the chances of getting an allergy to it.
> To assess the translational potential of the intranasal neomycin approach in humans, we conducted a small pilot randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving healthy human participants.
> For the experimental arm (n = 12)
> For the placebo arm (n = 7)
> One out of 21 participants experienced signs of an adverse event after 2 doses which self-resolved after a few days and self-withdrew from the study early. Upon examination of their medical record, it was found that the participant had a history of allergic reactions to various medications (not specific to study drug). Another participant’s nasal samples could not be used due to technical issues. All other 19 participants tolerated the treatment well and did not experience any adverse events from the study.
When I read about something like this, my first thought is always, is this something we could have evolved ourselves? And if so, what haven’t we? Thicker mucus seems like something we have evolved, so was there some survival trade-off, perhaps in terms of general quality of respiration, that meant we didn’t?
I forgot what scientist said this but “survival of the fittest” is a misnomer and it’s more about straight up surviving. You need to have tolerable constant pressure for evolutionary traits to propagate. Also, its very possible we already developed thicker mucus than our ancestors millenniums ago.
It is not so long ago since we are exposed to so many different viruses. I think way to less time for evolution to be effective.
Our ancestors a few thousand years ago still lived in largely isolated, at least not as extremely mobile and transcontinental communities as we do. And in terms of the number of generations, that is so few that we can say we are at the very beginning of an evolutionary development .
The article doesn't say how the spray affects the sense of smell, which I'd guess it diminishes or blocks. We evolved that sense for good survival reasons.
In mice, and also using a printed replica of a nasal cavity. It will be a while before we even see human tests, and I'm sort of curious how humans will respond to feeling their noses filled with a gel...
The article is useless because it says nothing about what the active ingredients are. The corresponding reference is also equally useless since it's paywalled. Nothing to see here.
I think I found the preprint of the article. Of course, the final published article has gone through some further editing. Anyway:
> To ensure safety during daily or repeated use, PCANS was meticulously designed as a “drug-free” formulation, incorporating biopolymers, surfactants, and alcohols that are listed in the inactive ingredient database (IID) or generally recognized as safe (GRAS) list of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and are present as excipients in commercially available nasal/topical formulations. These components and their unique concentrations were identified via a highly iterative approach aimed at maximizing sprayability, mucoadhesiveness, the capture of respiratory droplets, physical barrier property, pathogen neutralization activity, and nasal residence time.
> To prepare PCANS, gellan and pectin solutions were mixed in a ratio of 1:1, followed by the addition of tween-80 (Sigma Aldrich). The solution was then supplemented with benzalkonium chloride (BKC) (Sigma Aldrich) and subjected to immediate mixing by pipetting up and down several times. Finally, phenethyl alcohol (Sigma Aldrich) was added, and the pH of the solution was adjusted to 5.5.
In this context, “drug-free” should probably be read as “they got permission to skip clinical trials, drug manufacturing oversight, Drug Facts labeling laws, and so on”.
As is often the case, I'm unsure why you're d'voted.
There's a patented nasal product containing a modified carrageenan which has had substantially beneficial results in many subjects. When coupled with various (non-prescription/natural) anti-xyz ingredients, it can be really effective.
I've been making my own nasal formula for over 8 years, which I discovered 7 years ago has been patented by one of the big pharmas. It works.
There's a lot of potential here, and algae is definitely on the list.
The article doesn't even say how long the protection lasts for, or mention a single one of the ingredients by name. Doesn't really give the reader much to go on :-/
While cool, studies like this always remind me that we deliberately breed and infect animals to see if they suffer and die from the disease or the cure.
No need to remind me that without this we wouldn’t have all our medical advancements, it’s just a sad footnote to all of modern medicine, that’s all.
Never thought about using it to block viral infections, but it makes sense: coating the nasal passages with artificial "mucus-like substance" so particles don't reach the membranes. Makes total sense that approach also work for viruses.
I feel like something like this might give me more reassurance if I'm meeting friends and family at parties and events without a mask.
Still, neat.
I stopped using other kinds of spray since discovering that it fixes my sinus infections in a matter of a day or two.
If you go for the carbonated mist spray stuff, note that you get a lot less volume of water per dose, so it’s a bit less reliable (but much more convenient since you don’t need to worry about sterilizing anything).
Regarding the article: Unless you’re using this when completely symptom free (or have some condition where your sinuses are chronically dry), there’s probably already more crap in your sinuses than you need. I’m skeptical of this new technology.
[0]: https://www.carragelose.com/
[1]: https://www.carragelose.com/en/publications
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/publicatio...
One common one (this keeps getting reinvented, then banned in the us) is zinc nasal spray.
Zinc lozenges seem fine. Both are effective at shortening colds.
> To assess the translational potential of the intranasal neomycin approach in humans, we conducted a small pilot randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study involving healthy human participants.
> For the experimental arm (n = 12) > For the placebo arm (n = 7)
> One out of 21 participants experienced signs of an adverse event after 2 doses which self-resolved after a few days and self-withdrew from the study early. Upon examination of their medical record, it was found that the participant had a history of allergic reactions to various medications (not specific to study drug). Another participant’s nasal samples could not be used due to technical issues. All other 19 participants tolerated the treatment well and did not experience any adverse events from the study.
Our ancestors a few thousand years ago still lived in largely isolated, at least not as extremely mobile and transcontinental communities as we do. And in terms of the number of generations, that is so few that we can say we are at the very beginning of an evolutionary development .
For an example, check your feet.
I wonder if it feels unpleasant
This is very good engineering imo.
> To ensure safety during daily or repeated use, PCANS was meticulously designed as a “drug-free” formulation, incorporating biopolymers, surfactants, and alcohols that are listed in the inactive ingredient database (IID) or generally recognized as safe (GRAS) list of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and are present as excipients in commercially available nasal/topical formulations. These components and their unique concentrations were identified via a highly iterative approach aimed at maximizing sprayability, mucoadhesiveness, the capture of respiratory droplets, physical barrier property, pathogen neutralization activity, and nasal residence time.
> To prepare PCANS, gellan and pectin solutions were mixed in a ratio of 1:1, followed by the addition of tween-80 (Sigma Aldrich). The solution was then supplemented with benzalkonium chloride (BKC) (Sigma Aldrich) and subjected to immediate mixing by pipetting up and down several times. Finally, phenethyl alcohol (Sigma Aldrich) was added, and the pH of the solution was adjusted to 5.5.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.02.560602v1....
Because people dying of covid are just “imagining it”?
The article explains well enough that "drug free" doesn't mean inactive. So it's more a matter of what a "drug" consists of.
A certain amount of influenza virus acts as a toxin and just kills you?
So, not "toxic", and not the usual LD50 that's often misreported as "lethal". But still, the language seems appropriate.
There's a patented nasal product containing a modified carrageenan which has had substantially beneficial results in many subjects. When coupled with various (non-prescription/natural) anti-xyz ingredients, it can be really effective.
I've been making my own nasal formula for over 8 years, which I discovered 7 years ago has been patented by one of the big pharmas. It works.
There's a lot of potential here, and algae is definitely on the list.
Stopped reading there. As promising as it sounds, I'll be a lot more interested when this is a product that's proven to work.
(Joke) Wake me when the human studies are done
No need to remind me that without this we wouldn’t have all our medical advancements, it’s just a sad footnote to all of modern medicine, that’s all.