Aripiprazole as protector against COVID-19 mortality Munecas et al 2024

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-60297-y

 

Fascinating.

Note that the doses used commonly for apiprazole (5-30mg) and therefore likely what this study is referring to are quite different than the dose some ME patients report improvement from which is more like 0.1mg-4mg.

 

Well yes because but this study is talking about COVID mortality, not improvement in ME symptoms. We’ve also discussed at length here and elsewhere the reasons why even much lower dosages aripiprazole are still quite potent (eg dopamine system interactions at low dosages and high occupancy) The take home message is that aripiprazole, as previous research has also suggested, has some surprising and quite potent immunomodulatory effects, and while it’s been marketed and used as an antipsychotic and antidepressant adjunct it’s quite interesting how it can affect the immune system and immunometabolism.

 

Dopamine and serotonin are important players in immune system regulation and function

Dopamine, Immunity, and Disease https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9832385/

 

This is SO DANGEROUS! This is an off label use, and it results in some very serious side effects which can and has led to stroke and death. I've been on it for 3 years and have just been in a virtual ward at home because of it. ME Association Statement: Aripiprazole (Abilify) & ME/CFS - The ME Association

I'm withdrawing consent under Montgomery v. Lanarkshire Healthboard [2015] and refusing to take it anymore. I've been on 20mg daily down to 10 mg, now down to 5mg. I've had severe ME/CFS since 2011 and absolutely no beneficial difference to ME symptoms, except serious side effects relating to drug, and which are now permanent, such as dangerously high blood pressure which I didn't have before being prescribed in the UK as an anti-psychotic drug because I was sectioned. I haven't read this research, nor do I intend to.

 

I’m sorry that you feel that you’ve been harmed by high dose Abilify.

However many thousands of ME/CFS patients have benefited, some very substantially, from low dose Abilify.

 

For those it has helped I am genuinely pleased. However, it must first be safe.

There's a difference between feeling that I've been harmed, and having a note of that harm in the form of new diagnoses which are the common side effects of this drug on my medical records and for which I have been treated such as dangerously high blood pressure and for which I have just in the last few weeks been placed on a virtual hospital ward. That's just one of the side effects of long term use. I've been on it since October 2020, before the Stanford study, which the ME Association reference, took place.

 

Coincidence?

https://www.s4me.info/threads/aripiprazole-abilify.16972/page-11#post-326818

 

Wouldn’t anti-inflammatoiry properties would be expected to be linked to worse COVID outcomes because inflammation is part of how the immune system fights COVID? I guess anti-inflammatory properties would help with cytokine storms which may be linked to worse COVID outcomes.

 

People get very sick and die from COVID because their immune systems go haywire in response to the virus. Inflammation is only good in the beginning but continued hyperinflammation and immune dysregulation causes damage and possibly death