Hepatitis C is an infectious disease of the liver that can cause miserable symptoms including fatigue, lack of appetite, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. Caused by a virus, Hepatitis C affects approximately 200 million people worldwide. In the U.S. alone, one to two percent of the population is infected. Not only can this disease cause scarring of the liver, cirrhosis, and eventually liver failure; but a significant number of people with hepatitis C also develop sometimes fatal liver disease or cancer.
Mainstream medicine uses two drugs, usually prescribed together, to treat hepatitis C: Interferon and Ribavirin. Unfortunately, the side effects of this combination are often so severe (ranging from severe fatigue, constant flu-type symptoms and nausea to birth defects) many Hepatitis C patients can’t stick with the therapy. What’s more, for those who do manage to keep taking the Interferon-Ribavirin treatment, only about half experience favorable results.
But a new study suggests that nature seems to be able to do what Big Pharma can’t — kill the virus without damaging cells in the body. Scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles have discovered that two plant-derived bioflavonoids, catechin and naringenin, display powerful antiviral activity on tissue culture infected with the Hepatitis C virus.
Dr. Samuel Wheeler French Jr., MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UCLA and researcher at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, presented the findings during an American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP) symposium on “Pathobiology of Liver Injury and Fibrosis” at the Experimental Biology 2011 conference in Washington, D.C.
Read more at Natural News.
