 Are natural antivirals as effective as pharmaceutical antivirals? Hi, this is Dr. Ruscio and a very exciting study was just published that compared the effectiveness of natural antiviral treatments, or a natural antiviral treatment, to a pharmaceutical antiviral treatment. And I'll put the results up here on the screen. But essentially, acyclovir, which is a prescription, was compared to a natural compound that contained melatonin, 2.5 milligrams of melatonin, magnesium, phosphate, and fatty acids. And they were treating oral herpes. Now what they found was that in the natural treatment group, 95% saw complete regression within seven days. The prescription group, 85% saw complete regression in seven days. And there was a significant difference between the two groups, showing that the natural agents had a statistically significantly better effect than the pharmaceuticals. They both worked, but one worked a little bit better. Now why is this relevant? Well, certainly for someone who has oral herpes, and you're trying to manage it, then you may want to consider using a natural compound, something that has similar ingredients like melatonin, which is a sleep aid and also a pretty powerful antioxidant, and has secondary health benefit properties in place of a pharmaceutical. Now there are many other types of viruses that people can sometimes be concerned about. Epstein-Barr virus is a virus that is often times discussed when people have fatigue or chronic fatigue syndrome, cytomegalovirus, parvovirus B-19, and some of the other herpes simplex strains like 1, 2, 6, and 8 have potentially been implicated in auto immune disease. There's a lot of data showing association between viruses and autoimmunity. Now whether or not treating the viruses will improve the autoimmunity has still yet to be determined, but if you're someone out there who has an autoimmune condition and you're trying to manage a viral piece, then looking at some of these natural antivirals may be something that can be helpful. And again, this study is reassuring because it shows that natural antivirals worked comparably to prescription antivirals. So what this may mean is that if you do have an autoimmune condition and a virus present, then this may be helpful. Again, or I should mention, I should clarify that this study looked at oral herpes, which is one of the herpes simplex family viruses. But many other viruses like cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus are also members of the same family. So it stands to reason that this same natural antiviral approach used in this study may be helpful for some of these other viruses. We can't say that for sure, but certainly it's a reasonable inference to draw. So if you're wondering where viruses kind of fit into your entire healthcare picture, we've recently recorded a podcast that went into greater detail about the different types of viruses, how to test them, and then when to know if they're actually a problem and need to be treated or if they're not actually a problem. Because it's actually somewhat normal to see evidence of viruses in the blood. And it's important to know the difference between when that's a normal finding and when it's something that requires treatment. So if you go to our website and you, DrRusher.com, and you go to the search box, you can type in viruses and Nick Hedberg. Dr. Nick Hedberg came on the show and we had a discussion about that. And you should see this entry pop-up. We'll also put the link in the transcript associated with this post. But in any case, if you're someone who is trying to get healthier and you've come across this issue of viruses, then the podcast can help you with knowing what some viruses are and how to test them and some treatment options. And this study is very reassuring, showing that natural agents are as, if not maybe, more effective than one of the typical pharmaceuticals for viruses. So it's a nice evidence showing the power of natural medicines. And again, I think natural medicines have a lot of attractive properties because they have secondary health benefits. Like melatonin has been studied because of its very strong antioxidant properties. Whereas we don't see that same thing with the prescription acyclovir. So if we can treat something with a natural agent that has side benefits rather than side effects, then that makes it all the more attractive. So in any case, this is DrRusher. I hope this information helps you get healthy and get back to your life. Thanks.