Neosporin applied to the nose offers protection from viruses (hexbear.net)

submitted 4 months ago by TheModerateTankie@hexbear.net to c/covid@hexbear.net

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In a nutshell, we showed that over-the-counter cheap generic antibiotic neomycin can be repurposed in nasal formulation to prevent & treat infection, block transmission, and reduce disease burden against a wide array of viruses. Since this is a host-directed strategy and virus-agnostic, it holds promise as a prophylactic strategy against any viral threat.

The advice in the screencapped thread was to apply a little with a q-tip to the inside of the nostrils.

There is no info on any dangers of doing this very often, but if you can't avoid a high-risk environment it's worth trying.

Here's a thread about the study. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1782535781338222960.html

here's the study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5918160/

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[-] Taster_Of_Treats@hexbear.net 27 points 4 months ago

Also, just wear an N95 mask. But I see no reason not to do both.

[-] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 26 points 4 months ago

I am not anything, but a doc during am outdoor first aid cert course insisted that the real benefit of Neosporin was that it was petroleum jelly and it created a hydrophobic/biologically inert barrier over cleaned/irrigated membranes and wounds (blocking vectors of infection), and that every bug was already resistant to its antibiotic mix and had been for decades.

I did take a bunch of biology and microbio and he made a very convincing case for using petroleum jelly on nicks, cuts, etc.

but I am, again, not any sort of human health professional.

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 15 points 4 months ago

There's an old folk remedy that putting petroleum jelly around your nostrils helps hayfever, by absorbing pollen, I imagine that could be what's happening here.

[-] Darthsenio_Mall@hexbear.net 24 points 4 months ago

petroleum jelly around your nostrils helps hayfever, by absorbing pollen

you have nothing to lose but your grains marx

[-] DyingOfDeBordom@hexbear.net 10 points 4 months ago

This isn't saying the antibiotic prevents covid it's saying it stimulates an anti viral response in the nose, thats separate from it being an antibiotic so resistance doesn't matter

[-] Rx_Hawk@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago

Yeah, this is what I was thinking

[-] dat_math@hexbear.net 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

frankly, it's amazing to me that the mouse HSV challenge study didn't run a trial with petroleum jelly only

[-] dat_math@hexbear.net 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

After some further reading: doing that control would have been better science, but it seems the mouse sars-cov2 and influenza challenge studies' results indicate that might not be necessary except to rule out the role of petroleum jelly itself:

In this study, we found that intranasal delivery of neomycin, a generic aminoglycoside antibiotic, induces the expression of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) in the nasal mucosa that is independent of the commensal microbiota. Prophylactic or therapeutic administration of neomycin provided significant protection against upper respiratory infection and lethal disease in a mouse model of COVID-19. Furthermore, neomycin treatment protected Mx1 congenic mice from upper and lower respiratory infections with a highly virulent strain of influenza A virus. In Syrian hamsters, neomycin treatment potently mitigated contact transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In healthy humans, intranasal application of neomycin-containing Neosporin ointment was well tolerated and effective at inducing ISG expression in the nose in a subset of participants. These findings suggest that neomycin has the potential to be harnessed as a host-directed antiviral strategy for the prevention and treatment of respiratory viral infections.

[-] ReadFanon@hexbear.net 18 points 4 months ago

Honestly the risk of doing this occasionally (How often are you taking flights anyway? What are you Taylor Swift or something?) would almost certainly be lower than the risk of contracting covid even once, let alone for a subsequent time.

I'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice but... if you asked a covid specialist doctor which is worse for you - a full course of antibiotics or contracting covid, I know how they would answer. And applying a small amount of neosporin inside your nostrils is not nearly on the same level as a course of antibiotics.

[-] Rx_Hawk@hexbear.net 12 points 4 months ago

I feel like it’s just a physical barrier. Like if you used Vaseline instead you would get the same result.

[-] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 19 points 4 months ago

Or a mask 🙄

[-] Rx_Hawk@hexbear.net 12 points 4 months ago

Por que no los dos?

[-] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 months ago

Those paper masks is only really effective on protecting others from you, not other way around.

[-] Rx_Hawk@hexbear.net 12 points 4 months ago

Yes, everyone should be wearing tight n95s, good point.

[-] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago

Lol dumbass

[-] oscardejarjayes@hexbear.net 17 points 4 months ago

is this not the antibiotic abuse that we've been warned about since forever? Not using antibiotics when there isn't an open wound, or a microbial infection?

I mean, neosporin isn't prescribed, but still.

[-] TheModerateTankie@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago

It's not being used to treat a bacterial infection in this case, whatever properties it has causes the immune system in the nose to go into virus-attacking mode. So I would think the of overuse is minimal.

Probably not best to use it daily, but for occasional high risk situations it shouldn't be a problem.

[-] PbSO4@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago

Prophylactic use of antibiotics is still use of antibiotics, even if it's being used for stimulation of toll like receptors. The bacteria don't care if you're trying to kill them or not. Benign organisms can still develop resistance to an agent and pass it off to hostile ones.

Now, resistance to this particular agent is not uncommon, so it's not catastrophically harmful to use it for that purpose. Other antibiotics see use for purposes other than killing or suppressing the growth of bacteria as well (erythromycin for gastric motility, for example). I'm curious about the actual degree of benefit this measure confers in a human sample population, and am generally not a fan of putting petrolatum-based products where I can inhale them as I'm paranoid about accidentally giving myself lipoid pneumonia.

[-] TheModerateTankie@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago

It doesn't sound like you need to coat the inside of your nose, just put enough to trigger an immune reaction, so I would guess occasional use wouldn't destroy your nasal biome. Plain neomycin without the petroleum jelly should work the same, if you want to avoid petroleum jelly.

This needs more study to measure exactly how effective it is, but the one of the researchers doing the study, Prof Akiko Iwasaki, is a highly regarded immunobiologist.

[-] ArsenLupin@hexbear.net 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Seems to me like actual anti-virals like iota-carrageenan (Betadine brand) nasal spray would be more effective...

The incidence of COVID-19 differs significantly between subjects receiving the nasal spray with I-C (2 of 196 [1.0%]) and those receiving placebo (10 of 198 [5.0%]). Relative risk reduction: 79.8% (95% CI 5.3 to 95.4; p=0.03). Absolute risk reduction: 4% (95% CI 0.6 to 7.4).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8493111/

Iota-Carrageenan patients reported a mean blocked nose score of 0.42, corresponding to a reduction of approximately 50% (Figure 3). Further post hoc analysis of this symptom revealed that 71.4% of Iota-Carrageenan patients did not report the symptom blocked nose at the end of the study. In the placebo group only 36.4% of subjects were free of this symptom.

[...]

viral load in the placebo group increased almost 6- fold (579%), while it dramatically decreased by 92% in the Iota-Carrageenan group (p < 0.009).

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1465-9921-11-108

[-] TheModerateTankie@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago

You should be able to use both, neosporin causes an anti-viral immune response in the nose, carrageenan acts more like a barrier.

[-] sappho@hexbear.net 9 points 4 months ago

A concern I have about this is the long term effect on the nasal microbiome. In the same way that using antibiotics orally can fuck up your gut microbiome and lead to an increased risk of other health problems, could fucking up the nasal microbiome lead to poorer viral resistance in the long term, or an increased chance of developing allergy/histamine/MCAS issues (which are already triggered by COVID infections)?

[-] PbSO4@hexbear.net 12 points 4 months ago

The authors share your concerns

Our results demonstrate a surprising and broad antiviral effect of the aminoglycoside family of antibiotics, when applied to mucosal surfaces. However, we do not advocate for use of these compounds as antivirals, as aminoglycoside application is expected to cause local dysbiosis of commensal bacterial community.

[-] archomrade@midwest.social 4 points 4 months ago

Totally get the concern here, but I don't think we have any idea of how the nasal microbiom impacts overall health. We're really just now realizing how important the gut microbiome is, I doubt they've looked much at the nose.

[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 6 points 4 months ago

a lot cheaper than covixyl ...

[-] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago

Hmm I have used either that stuff or petroleum jelly in my nose in the winter at peak flu times because the cold winter air gives me nosebleeds and it's a good remedy for a dry sinus. Perhaps I reaped another benefit without knowing.