Dr. John Lambert:

LDN has been used for many years. There were studies done back in the days of HIV and AIDS, when there was no treatment for them. A placebo-control trial to treat people with LDN or placebo showed that LDN improved the quality of life patients had left. LDN does two things. It seems to decrease inflammation and it also has some immune-modulating effect. That is the second problem, which we have not even discussed, in terms of the problems with long Covid. It is not just the brain inflammation. Patients have some kind of immune damage. They have some kind of immune exhaustion, as part of this process, as well. LDN is focusing both on brain inflammation and an immune-modulatory effect. Based on the pilot that I have done, the next thing to do is some kind of a placebo control trial in a bigger study and then cross people over from treatment to placebo after a few months, to do a definitive study.

The reality is that at present people are just following patients with long Covid and bringing them back every three months. Some of them are just not getting better. My approach is to look at the literature and see what early information there is in terms of what is helping patients with long Covid. We now have this study published. These are preliminary data, but LDN has been used in many other situations before and is a safe product to use. The study that we did showed clinical benefit to patients who had been sick for 333 days, on average. Within two months, they started to show improvement. I think it is out there that this is something about which we should start thinking, rather than just continuing to follow patients every three months, draw research bloods on them and tell them to come back in three months. We have to start some interventions or start piloting some interventions to support our patients in Ireland.