Why really you do not need antiviral drugs

People tend to run towards doctors as soon as they or their children get an sneeze or symptoms of cold. Practically it is found that the medications are of no use. As in the cold and flu season, do not spend money on useless funds with unproven security.

Why it is necessary to ignore antiviral drugs

The market has a number of pharmacological drugs and homeopathic drugs, positioned as "drugs for the prevention and treatment of colds and flu." These drugs contain a variety of active substances: kagocel, ufifenovir, interferons, azoximer bromide ... Remember these and other complex names do not. It is important to pay attention only to the fact that all these drugs are promoted as "antiviral" or "immunomodulating".

Advertising promises that people who will take them will recover faster and less often suffer from a cold, but in fact there is no reason to trust it.

The first reason to ignore these drugs is the lack of satisfactory evidence of effectiveness.

Search for kagocel in one of the world's largest scientific databases PubMed.gov, The US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health Search database produces 17 articles, where Kagocel is mentioned. Among them there are reports of laboratory tests and animal studies, but there are no reports of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) that would prove that this tool really helps people to recover faster or less.

With other drugs "for the prevention and treatment of colds and flu" the situation is similar.

Why the effectiveness of antiviral drugs is not proven

If a certain medicine really had the ability to accelerate recovery for colds or prevent their occurrence, then, given the extreme prevalence of these diseases and their benign character, it would not be difficult to conduct a qualitative study and prove the effect.

In this context, the lack of evidence of effectiveness is a strong argument in favor of the fact that the remedy does not work or has an insignificantly small benefit.

What is the problem of research on antiviral drugs

As evidence of the apparent effectiveness of these drugs, the results of clinical studies published in various language medical journals are often cited.

We can not consider reliable kagotsel as an effective means of preventing or treating colds. Accordingly, a sensible person should not use it.

The first thing you need to pay attention to is that many of these links do not lead anywhere, that is, the mentioned studies can not be found anywhere. In fact, these studies contain many evidence of bad practices, they are sponsored by manufacturers and even accompanied by promotional materials.

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Are antiviral drugs safe?

The absence of large RCTs means not only unproven efficacy, but also the unexplored safety of drugs for "treating and preventing influenza and colds." This is the second reason why they should not be used.

In the case of homeopathic remedies, the probability of side effects is, of course, very small: only because, based on the technology of their manufacture (a lot of dilutions), they do not contain active substances.

In the case of many other "immunomodulating and antiviral" drugs, the unexplored safety profile raises serious doubts, since they are initially developed as a means that will be sold without a doctor's prescription and used by a lot of people.

The composition of kagocel includes gossypol - a substance with an established ability to suppress fertility in men. So far, its toxicological tests have been conducted only in rats. Data on the safety of the drug for people there, however, despite this, the tool is used in children. By international standards this is an unacceptable, immoral practice. If the safety profile of the facility is not installed, it should first be studied by adults and only then can be used in the treatment of children.

Why these drugs are still on the market

There are several possible reasons.

Patients taking similar remedies recover. Not because the medicine helps them, but because the disease passes by itself. However, they may be uncomfortable to admit that they spent money in vain, and therefore they often become active supporters of using these drugs, recommending them to their friends and relatives.

Many patients and doctors believe massive advertising and that statements about effectiveness and safety have been checked by someone else.

Disorientation of the public and doctors is also reinforced by the fact that the use of these drugs not only does not meet resistance, but is also often supported by public health authorities. The Society of Evidence-Based Medicine Experts | Ministry of Health recommended. and academic circles Society of Evidence-Based Medicine | Flu. Recommendations. Another shame. .

What to do if the doctor prescribed antiviral drugs

We can not hope that in the foreseeable future, unscrupulous advertising campaigns, incompetence and misrepresentation of recommendations caused by financial interests, will disappear. In this regard, consumers need to become more informed and ignore these funds.

How to be treated during a cold and flu

Currently, a small number of antiviral drugs are available with very modest efficacy and only for the treatment of influenza. This group includes, in particular, oseltamivir CDC. At an early start of treatment, this drug may slightly shorten the duration of the disease (on average for one day). Given the benign nature of this infection, for most people the use of oseltamivir is impractical.

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Against hundreds of other varieties of viral infections that cause cold symptoms, there is no cure. There are also no effective opportunities to prevent the development of complications of these infections.

The rules of treatment for colds can be described as follows:

• If necessary, to ease the symptoms of colds and flu (in anticipation of natural recovery), you can use simple and cheap symptomatic means.
• Patients need to know what symptoms may indicate the development of complications of the infection and when you should definitely consult a doctor.

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