How do you like them apples [sci/bio/med]

[siderea]

God damn.

2023 Oct 3: bioRxiv (pre-print, scientific article not yet peer-reviewed): "A Drug-Free Pathogen Capture and Neutralizing Nasal Spray to Prevent Emerging Respiratory Infections" by John Joseph, Helna Mary Baby, et al. Emphasis mine:

Herein, we report a Pathogen Capture and Neutralizing Spray (PCANS) that overcomes the aforementioned limitations of previously developed chemoprophylactic nasal sprays, thereby achieving superior efficacy. [...] 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. In vitro, PCANS demonstrated excellent physical barrier properties against multiple viruses and bacteria, and rapidly neutralized them, resulting in >99.99% reduction in the pathogen load. [...]

Overall, this extensive screening identified pectin [...] as the most effective [agent] for rapid neutralization of IAV [influenza A virus].

[.. ]

Altogether, our data on physical barrier property, spray pattern, mucosal retention, and neutralization indicate gellan, pectin, and BKC as the three critical components to formulate PCANS.

Yall. I can't even.

Pectin. Kills influenza A virus.

Pectin. Which comes from apples.

Discussion

We report a chemoprophylactic nasal spray, PCANS – a radically simple and scalable pre-exposure prophylaxis approach to offer protection against current and emerging respiratory pathogens. [...] PCANS embodies multiple advantages over previously developed chemoprophylactic nasal sprays. [...] Third, the "drug-free" nature of PCANS is favorable for the regulatory process, which could be tedious for chemoprophylactic approaches based on investigational new drugs such as IgM-14(62). Also, since all the components used in PCANS are commercially available off-the-shelf and require simple mixing without chemical modifications, our approach is amenable to scale-up and large-scale manufacturing.

1) Holy shit, they've come up with an antiviral nasal spray that's good for 8 hours, effective against a broad spectrum of viruses, from commercially available products, that you can make in your kitchen.

2) Okay, so, yes, it turns out an apple a day does in fact keep the doctor away. It's just that you have to shove it up your nose.

Comments

[gingicat]

Now I have to find out if it's purified enough to not make me sick. (I'm allergic to the proteins in most rose fruits.)

[ewt]

Citrus peels also contain pectin, FWIW, and aren't Rosaceae. And I think carrots or some other root veg might have some too, but I can't remember offhand.

[fjorlief]

some commercial pectin is made from citrus, as it is abundant in the white pithy parts (which is why you can make marmalade from just citrus and sugar and nothing else added)

I decided you needed an illustration of this

[cvirtue]

[princessofgeeks]

Science!!!

[l33tminion]

Huh, does this explain some of the folk-medicine around apple cider vinegar?

[ewt]

I don't think ACV has all that much pectin in it. It does have plenty of acetic acid, which will act as a disinfectant in high enough concentration, but acid is not something you want on mucous membranes.

I definitely do not recommend snorting vinegar.

[cvirtue]

I suppose one might absorb enough through mucous membranes to help if you have subclinical scurvy... but there are easier methods.

[ewt]

Acetic acid is also not ascorbic acid (vitamin C).

[cvirtue]

... that's what I get for reading too fast. Thanks.

[rialian]

===Or Quinces...

===I am now missing my Quince trees.

[azurelunatic]

Dude.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.

[ewt]

Excellent!

[fjorlief]

if this became an available option, I could have a life again, instead of this shadow half life that has been my reality ever since the beginning of 2020. I'd be beyond delighted with the option to use a nose spray that gave me temporary hours of (unmasked) "close to safety". I could teach again!, and visit people again!, and travel again!...

[hudebnik]

Problem is, if most of the ingredients are that easily available, is any major pharma company going to bother manufacturing it? This could be one of those things that's technically easy but economically infeasible.

[siderea]

Interestingly, one of the consequences of their deciding to very carefully make it a non-drug is that they don't need a major pharma. They are basically giving this to every generic and nutriceutical manufacturer on Earth. This could be manufactured tomorrow by any of those companies, same as Vitamin C, or St John's Wort, or saline nasal sprays.

P.S. Hmmm, I wonder how much it would cost to get a list of the fax numbers of all the major US nasal spray manufacturers, and just spam them copies of this paper.

[hudebnik]

But it’ll never get FDA approval because there’s no big pharma company paying for the efficacy studies. Companies selling it won’t be able to advertise it as having the effects described in the paper, because the FDA hasn’t signed off on those statements. It’ll be marketed only through the rumor mill, the same source that brought us ivermectin and drinking bleach.

Seriously, how is an ordinary person supposed to tell the difference?

[siderea]

True, that. Almost as if maybe our system should have some way of authorizing the sale of products with some, but not conclusive evidence, as efficacious, that differentiates them from fully approved medications.