
D, L-lysine acetylsalicylate and glycine Impairs Coronavirus Replication (2016) [pdf] - wilsonfiifi
https://www.longdom.org/open-access/d-llysine-acetylsalicylate--glycine-impairs-coronavirus-replication-jaa-1000151.pdf
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margalabargala
Edit: I accidentally used the stock concentration in my original calculation,
updated to the effective dose found.

The average volume of a human is around 62 liters.

The effective concentration for the highest EC50 is 6.71mM. The lowest EC50 is
1.31.

Aspirin DL-lysine as a molecular weight of 326.34.

Therefore, to reach the concentrations used in the study, the average person
would have to consume somewhere between 26 and 135g of asprin (from the two
molarities above). Way above the maximum safe daily dose, which is 4 grams.

Using the absolute best case scenario- 1.31mM- and an effective volume of 12
liters, that's still 5.1g. Which is /just/ under the max safe dose. At 6.71mM,
that's 26g.

~~~
tlb
Drugs don't spread out evenly through the whole body. For this class of drug,
it's bloodstream concentration that matters.

The complex field of pharmacokinetics relates the bloodstream concentration to
the ingested amount over time. The simple version uses a "volume of
distribution" which, for salicylate, is 11.9 liters for a standard male.
[[https://sepia.unil.ch/pharmacology/index.php?id=83](https://sepia.unil.ch/pharmacology/index.php?id=83)].

So to achieve the 1 - 7 milimolar concentrations they used would require 3.8 -
27.2 grams of aspirin.

~~~
leereeves
What's the half-life of aspirin in the bloodstream? Probably less than a day,
which would significantly increase the dose required to maintain those
concentrations.

It seems like this might merit further research as a treatment for severe
cases, but it's far too dangerous to be a prophylactic for healthy people.

(And that's all assuming these results on other coronaviruses apply to the new
coronavirus that causes COVID-19.)

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beders
This should be taken down.

Unsafe procedures are proposed and discussed here.

This is a single study and not a recommendation for treatment of anything,
esp. the virus causing COVID-19

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Alex3917
I wonder if other salicylates would have the same effect, given the research
showing that Bismuth inhibits SARS and the fact that Pepto Bismol is bismuth
subsalicylate:

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6193909_Bismuth_Com...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6193909_Bismuth_Complexes_Inhibit_the_SARS_Coronavirus)

~~~
khafra
I saw the abstract, and ever since I've been wondering about whether that
Bismuth paper includes bismuth subsalicylate as well as citrate, or whether
chugging a bottle of Pepto Bismol a day would be a mistake equivalent to
aquarium cleaner guy.

On the other hand, if it's the glycine that causes most of the effect, that's
a cheap nutritional supplement.

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devy
Can someone explain what "D, L-lysine acetylsalicylate and glycine" are in
laymen's terms?

I saw some comments mentioned about Aspirin/NSAID. But what's the practicality
of this research? Btw, this was dated 2016.

~~~
ilikenwf
It is a salt of aspirin, in addition to glycine, an amino acid...Lysine is
also an amino acid but in this case is part of the aspirin salt.

[https://www.drugs.com/international/aspirin-
lysine.html](https://www.drugs.com/international/aspirin-lysine.html)

~~~
benjohnson
As I understand it... the reason they think they need to have the Lysine is
that it it makes the body absorb it better. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

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lidlin
The EC50s in the paper are in the millimolar. These are physiologically
irrelevant concentrations.

~~~
msandford
Irrelevant in the sense that anything will kill baddies at high enough
concentrations, but it'll also kill people?

Or irrelevant in the sense that it's totally achievable to do that in people
and it won't mess with their bodies too much?

~~~
margalabargala
The first one, unfortunately. To reach the concentrations in the paper, you'd
have to consume over 1kg asprin.

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collyw
Pretty sure I used to take L-lysine for cold sores. Maybe it has general
antiviral properties.

~~~
wnmurphy
Certain viruses (herpetic) proliferate in an environment high in arginine, and
low in lysine. High lysine/low arginine = suppression of replication.

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qwerty456127
I have some glycine. I can get lysine and aspirin. How do I make lysine
acetylsalicylate?

~~~
DanHulton
You don't. Don't make your own medicine.

~~~
qwerty456127
Why? I make some (not illegal, very simple) occasionally. It works great and
costs me some orders of magnitude less than it would cost to buy the same
amount.

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jhallenworld
Here's one on Nettle..

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085190/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085190/)

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prostheticvamp
And during this out break, we have seen some tentative data that patients on
aspirin do worse, and should avoid it.

Wish we knew which way to jump.

~~~
hammock
This study was done in vitro. If I recall the counterindication of aspirin in
C19 patients was accelerating pneumonia or something. So it's possible aspirin
does both.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
Look with suspicion on any in vitro data. There are so many differences
between in vitro and a living organism. Nevermind the fact that in vitro tests
usually use concentrations that would never be achieved in the body, a fact
usually lost on the public. I’d definitely lean towards the “aspirin is bad
with Coronavirus” camp on this one.

Source: Myself, a former tester of in vitro effects.

~~~
Alex3917
> Nevermind the fact that in vitro tests usually use concentrations that would
> never be achieved in the body, a fact usually lost on the public.

But the reason large doses are used in vitro is because it's easier to show
that a chemical actually inhibits viral replication if you can slow down
replication by 99.9%. But in real life, you might only need to slow down
replication by 10% or whatever to meaningfully improve clinical outcomes.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
That's true in theory and we should see aspirin doing something in vivo for
coronavirus if it did, but we don't. Something else more important seems to be
affecting it the other way.

In skimming the article it seems they used 20 mM doses and ranges which is an
absolutely enormous amount of anything. We normally considered low uM the
range where something is even beginning to be interesting.

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yoyostile
relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1217/](https://xkcd.com/1217/)

