New Pill To Treat Hepatitis C | Gastrointestinal Disorders articles | Body & Health Conditions center

Recently the US Food and Drug Administration approved a first of its kind medication to control the hepatitis C virus, sofosbuvir, which will be sold under the brand name Sovaldi. This new drug for the first time makes it possible to treat hepatitis C without any injections, and without the flu-like symptoms induced by interferon.

What's Different About Sovaldi?

Sovaldi is a new type of hepatitis C drug called an nucleotide analog inhibitor, or more precisely, a nucleotide analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor. The way the drug works is by inhibiting the action of an enzyme known as RNA polymerase. The hep C virus needs this enzyme to
"write" the information from its DNA onto the molecule RNA so it can make the proteins it needs to reproduce. When the virus cannot reproduce or leave the cells it occupies, it eventually is destroyed by the immune system without triggering the massive inflammation that sometimes also destroys healthy liver tissue.

What's Better About Sovaldi?

Solvaldi is the first medication that makes it possible to treat hepatitis C medically without the use of interferon, a medication that "interferes" with the ability of the virus to multiply inside liver cells. Interferon is 60 to 80% effective when patients show up for their appointments to get intravenous injections of it, but about half of people who have hepatitis C either can't or won't take interferon because its side effects are so unpleasant.

Treatment with Sovaldi, on the other hand, has been found to be up to 100% effective when Sovaldi is combined with another medication in a different class called an NS5A inhibitor. These drugs, which include the FDA approved drug daclatasvir, prevent the virus from making a protein it needs to replicate itself to maintain the infection inside the body. Sovaldi has to be given as part of a drug cocktail, a mixture of drugs, all taken in pill form, for this high response rate.

How Much Will Sovaldi Cost?

A week's supply of Sovaldi retails for approximately US $7,000. Hepatitis C patients who are infected with the genotypes (strains) 1 or 2 of the hep C virus need to take the drug for 12 weeks to achieve a sustained antiviral response, and hepatitis C patients who are infected with genotype 3 of the virus need to take the medication for 24 weeks for a sustained antiviral response. The cost of 12 weeks of treatment is $84,000, while the cost of 24 weeks of treatment is $168,000.

How Can Anybody Afford to Take Sovaldi?

Since Sovaldi is FDA-approved, it will be covered by health insurance plans as soon as January 1, 2014. But since Sovaldi is not a first-line treatment for hepatitis C (that is, the insurance company will want to make sure you absolutely cannot tolerate the much less expensive drug interferon before giving you any coverage for Sovaldi), there probably won't be a standard copay. Even with the best insurance coverage, Sovaldi will probably cost between $50 and $500 a month, or as much as $15,000 a month on any insurance plan "grandfathered" under the Affordable Care Act. That's why it's not a bad idea to look at other options for staying well.

If You Can't Get Sovaldi, What's Available For Treating Hepatitis C?

Liver cancer patients who don't have the considerable amounts of cash or the good medical coverage that pays for Sovalid often can still get the older drugs that are used in combination with interferon. The problem with this plan, of course, is that most people feel miserable when they are on interferon. Nothing in this article is intended to dissuade anyone from following their doctor's advice, but there are modifications in lifestyle that can also help control hepatitis C.

Just Say No to Excess Calories

One of the easiest and least expensive (in fact, you may even spend less money) ways to deal with hepatitis C naturally is just to eat less, especially less carbohydrate. When you eat more carbohydrate, your pancreas releases more insulin to keep the levels of sugar in your bloodstream normal. When there is more insulin in circulation, cells in your liver shut down some of their receptor sites for insulin so they aren't flooded with sugar they have to convert into glycogen or fatty acids. The resulting insulin resistance keeps liver cells from 'burning out" with overwork, but it also changes the interior chemistry of the liver cell in ways that favor the replication of the virus.

Improving insulin resistance, on the other hand, provides the virus with less of its sugary fuel and helps keep it in check. It isn't necessary to starve yourself to starve the virus. It's only necessary to eat less sugar, less flour, and fewer starchy foods so that the pancreas doesn't have to produce as much insulin, the liver doesn't have to resist insulin, and the virus inside liver cells stays quiet.

People who have hepatitis C are about 50% more likely than the general public to have insulin resistance. While there is still some discussion as to whether insulin resistance aggravates hepatitis C or hepatitis C aggravates insulin resistance, it is known that people who have the virus who lose just 2 to 5% of their body weight by eating less (not by exercising more) are less likely to suffer cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer. Giving up a jelly donut doesn't sound like such a terrible price to pay for avoiding liver cancer.

Just Say Maybe to Natural Health Supplements

There are a number of nutritional supplements that won't hurt--as long as you don't use them to replace any prescribed mediations--and may help in hepatitis C. Mainstay of herbal hepatitis treatment milk thistle, best taken as a silymarin phytosome (a special form of a milk thistle extract) seems to block the entry of the virus into uninfected cells as well as to stop the activation of immune cells to destroy liver cells to get rid of the virus.

You should not use silymarin or milk thistle if you have been told you have biliary duct cancer or stenosis of the bile duct. Several Chinese and Japanese herbal formulas are well known as effective in treatment of hepatitis B, but not hepatitis C, and should never be used by people who are on interferon.