15h Dec 2022 at 14:15 UK time : On the BBC World Service programme Healthcheck, right now. Liver consultant from Addenbrooke's reporting that they have discovered that Urso protects against COVID.
Medic says that Urso blocks COVID's ability to enter human cells. 'It shuts the doorway (into the cell) to the virus'. Believes this effect of Urso protects against all COVID variants. Medic sounds like a great chap.
He stressed that taking Urso is not a substitute for getting vaccinated.
But hey, at last, it seems, there is one good thing to come out of having PBC (if you're taking Urso)!!
Medic also stressed that this effect of Urso is something they have observed, they have done a small scale trail but not a recognised clinical trial - they are now planning to do full scale clinical trials. He was talking about how increased Urso production would provide an anti-COVID drug at low cost and reach parts of the world where vaccines have been unavailable / not readily available to large numbers of people. Looks like that would be a while down the road, and good news for the world.
On a possibly selfish note though for people with PBC, maybe a good idea for our community to be thinking about potential effects on supply, and how this would be managed.
(By the way thought I should mention, I had first blood test with pretty high level of AMA M2 in 1998, I'm not even taking Urso. Had a fibroscan last month- no scarring of the liver or damage to bile ducts. So that's 24 years and no damage. LFTs always normal. Not that haven't been floored by fatigue and randomly falling asleep at rather inconvenient moments (understatement 🙂) but it does look like you can have AMA M2 and no liver damage for an awfully long time. Just in case this helps anyone who like me was told my liver would go within a few years.)
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Wilderswimmer
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I had covid in January and I was on urso for years so not sure if these results are just a an anomaly. So urso didn't prevent the covid and I was fully vaccinated and boosted (pfizer). None of that prevented me from getting covid. It was miserable.
Hi The research is also reported in the journal Nature and on the website of the University of Cambridge as they are involved in it. Here's the key point from the Cambridge website re people already taking Urso:
'While it wasn’t possible to run a full-scale clinical trial, the researchers did the next best thing: looking at data on COVID-19 outcomes from two independent cohorts of patients, comparing those individuals who were already taking UDCA for their liver conditions against patients not receiving the drug. They found that patients receiving UDCA were less likely to develop severe COVID-19 and be hospitalised.'
I have been on high dose of urso over 10 years. Had Covid in January 2020; then had vaccine and booster, had Covid again early May 2022. Pretty sick both times,
Inexpensive solution? Ha-ha. My Medicare Part D Cigna insurance is robbing me blind for this 40+ year old generic drug. As far as Covid resistance. These small trials prove absolutely nothing. I am not vaccinated (no boosters either), and didn't have covid, so, I can't judge any influence of URSO, but, it looks like some of the people who had covid, didn't feel much better because of taking URSO.
'Inexpensive' is what the medic said. So sorry to hear of how tough it is in the US. I'm just praying we hang on to the NHS here in the UK. We pay £9.40 per prescription and the better doctors will give you a prescription for 3 months at a time. Or you can buy a pass for £110 - GBP and that covers unlimited prescriptions for a year. Or - here's a silver lining - once you hit 60 you don't have to pay for prescriptions at all. We fund all this through taxation and national insurance and the NHS has buying power re Big Pharma. I guess the medic meant that the cost that is charged by the manufacturers to pharmacies is low compared to that of other drugs.
Our medicine is good, but some of the prescription drugs are very expensive. Usually, these are newer drugs. URSO is a very old generic drug, so, this is puzzling why it is so expensive. I'm trying to appeal the cost. Currently I'm paying $128 for three months supply, 180 tabs (500 mg). If my final appeal will be denied, I may pay twice as much for the same amount. Many American drugs cost less abroad, because other countries are refusing to pay high prices. This puts additional cost of the drugs back on the American payers. Each country is doing the best they can for their citizens. But, this is too much politics for this forum. I just hope that all of us who need this medicine can get it and helped by it.
With PBC/AIH, I took Urso for years before transplant, stopped it after transplant (2015), and was put back on it after bile duct issues in 2016. I am still on it and have not had COVID. What may contribute to my not getting COVID is that I have type O blood (studies say that helps; those with type O are 30-ish percent less likely to get COVID than those with other blood types), and I've continued masking and isolating since the pandemic began. The post-transplant drugs I must take to prevent rejection of my new liver make me vulnerable to infections of all kinds. COVID vaccinations have not produced as strong an antibody response for me as compared to immunocompetent people. Last month, when my doctor told me I could stop the Urso, I had just read about the small study saying it may be beneficial against COVID, so I decided to continue with it. My insurance covers it, and I have no side effects. I eagerly await the results of larger clinical trials because it would be such a boon if Urso does indeed help to protect some people, if not all people.
Hello Wilderswimmer, I too am AMA M2 positive with normal LFTs. (I had to request the test in 2020 as my Dr. kept dismissing the fact that I had other symptoms and my Mom passed from PBC) The drs don’t consider me to have PBC and don’t even pay attention to it because of the normal LFTs but your fatigue and falling asleep and my arthritis and Sjogrens symptoms show that PBC is present and we have it.
Hi Sorry to hear about your mother. Mine had autoimmune stuff too, she had autoimmune hyperthyroid (me too) but, can you believe this, she'd never been told it was autoimmune. I managed to get an autopsy when she passed which revealed that she had extensive damage to her liver and lungs from sarcoidosis - which had never been diagnosed. All her life she'd been told that she was fatigued because she was lazy, neurotic, whatever - female - her life was so hard, she used to get back from work and collapse with exhaustion on the kitchen table. It's very frustrating that autoimmunity seems to be still so badly understood and they still don't listen to us.
oh my goodness it’s so sad that your Mom had to suffer without the right diagnosis and treatment! My mother had a hard life as well! But we have more knowledge now and I do feel that eating a clean diet and exercising is the most important thing to calm down autoimmune issues, along with stress management. My thyroid antibodies were super high but recently when I got tested, they have gone down I think mainly because I quit my job and made some other changes . In my case I know menopause triggered all these issues. Bioidentical hormone treatment is also helping me. Please keep me posted on how you’re feeling!
sorry calling bullshit. Been fully vaccinated and boosted. Have been on Ursodiol for over ten years. Have had Covid and it kicked my butt. This anecdotal instance appears to be an anomaly and should not be taken seriously. If anything PBC retards your immune system and makes you more vulnerable.
I’m a health care worker who has been exposed MULTIPLE times. I mean really close contact. I take URSO for early stage PBC and have never had COVID. Not sure that URSO is the reason; I’ve also been vaxed. But the study sounds intriguing.
I have had COVID twice taking Urso and triple vaccinated. I was sick but nothing too serious. Maybe it helped protect me from feeling worse. My concern with this news is that people will start to buy up the Urso and that the price will go up! Would like further studies done on this.
This is exciting news!! For the commenters that are saying it can’t be true because they got covid, that’s not how it works.
Even though we are all human and our physiological make up is very similar across the board, we are not all operating at a molecular level the same way. Our systems are regulated by an immensely complicated set of chemical processes determined by genetics, diet, toxin exposure, etc. And to an extent our molecular processes are unique at an individual level. Because of that, there is no “magic cure all” for any disease or illness that works for every person in every situation. But since we are all human, there are treatments that can be tailored to benefit large groups of people.
Genetically I can’t process Zoloft, doesn’t mean Zoloft doesn’t work for the majority of the general population.
Less than 100 years ago it wasn’t uncommon for children to die from common colds and fever. Children still die from common colds and fever but it’s rare. When my child has a fever, I still give them ibuprofen even though sometimes, for some children, it may not bring down their fever.
I could go on and on, I just took an antibiotic for strep, it didn’t knock it out. So are antibiotics now garbage and don’t work for strep?
Doctors practice medicine, scientists gather and study data and publish results. No one is out there claiming that one pill or treatment works 100% of the time for 100% of the population.
It’s about helping as much as they can with what little they know until they can study more and know more.
NOT true in my experience. I have been on URSO for 4 years….vaccinated twice and still got COVID in August and September. Could have been a case of rebound COVID - but I was pretty sick. Luckily pulled through. Just wanted to share my experience.
I decided to not take any covid shot and when I got covid last year, I only knew it because I had to take the test before an out patient procedure, I had no symptoms. So, I'm hopeful that taking URSO does help. Menopause brought on my two autoimmune issues - PBC and Scleroderma, and other than finger joint pain I feel great. Thank you Wilderswimmer for your post, gives me hope that we can go many years with PBC and not have scaring to liver or damage to bile ducts.
Hi here's hoping you don't progress either. I'd always understood from what I'd read, and been told by more than one doctor, that everyone with AMA M2 antibody progresses eventually. I've also seen research which says that if you get autoimmune hyperthyroid and have PBC, this means that the prognosis for the PBC is worse. However the hyperthyroid resolved after taking the drug PTU, and still no sign of PBC damage. Am very grateful to still be here with no PBC and no hyperthyroid.
I should maybe mention too that the specialist I saw for hyperthyroid, insisted that if my thyroid levels weren't normal after a year on the drugs, they never would be. At 12 months in, he told me that they were now going to irradiate my thyroid gland because the drug wasn't working. Courtesy of the internet I discovered that they don't have this 12-month protocol outside the UK. I managed to stay on PTU for 18 months, at which point my thyroid levels went back to normal, and have been clear of hyperthyroid since. The doc actually was quite annoyed that I had normalised and told me that it wouldn't last and when the levels went back up they would be zapping my thyroid gland. That was 7 years ago and I know now to never accept what any medic tells me without doing my own research.
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