By\u00a0Stephanie Brown<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naltrexone is a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat alcohol use disorder and opioid addiction. Low-dose naltrexone (LDN)<\/a>, usually at a fraction of the regular dose, has been used to treat fibromyalgia<\/a> and multiple sclerosis<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, research shows that LDN might also be a promising treatment for long COVID.1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n As many as 23 million Americans may have been affected by long COVID, but the lack of understanding about this condition makes it hard to develop treatments.2<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want to encourage people that it is possible to improve and for their symptoms to get better, but I want to discourage people from the belief that there\u2019s one medicine that will cure long COVID,\u201d said Jessica A. Bender, MD, MPH<\/a>, co-director of UW Medicine\u2019s Post-COVID-19 Rehabilitation and Recovery Clinic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have Long COVID and Can’t Work? Here’s What to Do<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n While LDN might not cure all long COVID symptoms, it could serve as part of a treatment plan. A small study published last year found that LDN improved some self-reported symptoms, such as pain and energy levels, for long COVID patients.3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt looks like it worked for most people. So I think it\u2019s part of the solution because it\u2019s targeting two of the four issues that I see really critical with long COVID, which is brain inflammation and immune dysregulation,\u201d said Jack Lambert, MD, PhD<\/a>, a co-author of the study and a professor of infectious disease at the University College Dublin School of Medicine in Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People with long COVID reportedly have an increased level of inflammatory cytokines<\/a>,4<\/sup> which are involved in the body\u2019s immune response, according to Hector Bonilla, MD<\/a>, co-director of the Stanford Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome Clinic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What Should We Expect From Long COVID Treatment?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n LDN has demonstrated effects on reducing inflammatory cytokines, which might be why it shows promise as a potential treatment for long COVID patients, Bonilla said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LDN is sometimes used to treat chronic inflammatory diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBS).5<\/sup> Lambert said he has used LDN for patients with chronic Lyme disease, a condition that can lead to inflammation of the brain or spinal cord, and the positive results led him to conduct the pilot study on LDN in long COVID patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LDN isn\u2019t FDA-approved to treat long COVID, so healthcare providers can only prescribe it off-label.6<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re three years into long COVID, and we\u2019ve not advanced very far in terms of interventions. This is just one of the few promise interventions that I can vouch for based on my clinical experience, and I encourage others to consider using it as well,\u201d Lambert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow Might Low-Dose Naltrexone Treat Long COVID?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n