Cholesterol-lowering statin medications also block the same pathway that interferon does, so it could make a good antiviral. In fact, numerous studies show it does (see below).
The problem? Unfortunately, in addition to blocking production of cholesterol, both interferon and statins block production of other important molecules (your body makes cholesterol for a good reason!).
Especially important are pregnenolone and CoQ10. So when your body has been fighting a viral infection for years by making high levels of interferon, the interferon itself will cause eventual hormone and CoQ10 deficiencies — aggravating the chronic fatigue syndrome.
Yes, and that is why I found the new study (showing that interferon from viral infections blocked the cholesterol pathway) so exciting! By itself, it tied in the unexplained low pregnenolone finding we had seen for years. It was when I searched the Internet for statins and antiviral and got over a half-million hits that I got really excited!
Statin medications, which I believe have been over-marketed to treat high cholesterol and may have caused significant toxicity by blocking the production of CoQ10 and key hormones and worsening muscle inflammation, may actually offer a lot of promise in treating that subset of CFS/FMS with viral infections.
Interestingly, osteoporosis medications called biphosphonates (e.g., Fosamax — see N-BP in the previous diagram) also block part of the same pathway as statins, but do so downstream.
Though they have antiviral effects as well, they have a much smaller impact than statins at the dosing typically used in real life.
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