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Cold and cough? There's a treatment to defrost them
Washington: Researchers at the University of Virginia have developed a new treatment for colds using a combination of drugs that not only stopped viral infection but also reduced symptoms by as much as 73 per cent with no serious side-effects.
"The new treatment is based on delivering a double blow to the cold illness," said principal investigator and the study's lead author Dr. Jack M. Gwaltney, Jr., chairman, Division of Epidemiology and Virology in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Varginia. "One part of the treatment knocks out the virus which causes the infection, and the second part blocks the body's response to the infection, which is the cause of cold symptoms," he added.
The researchers said the symptoms of a cold are due to the body's inflammatory response to the infection, according to a report published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
One ingredient of the treatment was the anti-viral drug interferon, which attacks the virus infection itself. Interferon is a natural protein of the body that makes cells resistant to cold virus infection for up to 24 hours.
In the study, the chlorpheniramine, an antihistamine and anticholinergic which blocks sneezing and runny nose and ibuprofen, that reduces sore throat, coughing and headache because it -- like other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs -- blocks the action of prostaglandin, were given orally at 12-hour intervals for the duration of the illness. Treatment with all three ingredients started in the early stage of the cold.
Volunteers who received the actual drugs experienced reduced severity of sneezing, runny nose, nasal obstruction, sore throat, cough and headache. They also had less nasal mucus production, nasal tissue use and virus concentration in nasal secretions.
The study showed that adding interferon to the treatment made it more effective than chlorpheniramine and ibuprofen alone. The side-effects associated with the treatment were drowsiness, which occurred in nine percent of volunteers on chlorpheniramine, and none of those on placebo. Mild blood-tinged nasal mucus occurred in 19 percent of subjects on interferon and 10 percent of the subjects on placebo. No side- effects led to discontinuation of treatment. (ANI)