Preclinical studies
The histamine H2 receptor antagonist famotidine (the active compound in the heartburn drug Pepcid) was associated to a reduced risk of intubation and death in 84 patients with COVID-19 in an earlier retrospective study posted as a non-peer-reviewed preprint. Work led by Darrell Ricke at Massachusetts Institute of Technology compares the biochemical action and pharmacokinetics of famotidine with those of cimetidine, a H2 antagonist that has not shown clinical benefits in patients with COVID-19, as well as relating a case report of a COVID-19 patient treated with famotidine. The study, a preprint which has not yet been peer-reviewed, shows that famotidine has stronger binding to H2 than cimetidine (confirming previous data) and that famotidine serum levels exceed its half-maximum inhibitory concentration (IC50) at all dosing regimens, while cimetidine failed to reach its IC50 when used at its standard dose. Unlike cimetidine, famotidine acts a partial agonist of arrestin recruitment. The authors propose that mast cell activation and histamine release may be central to lung pathology in patients with COVID-19.
Have a look at the following links.
https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(20)34706-5/pdf
https://gut.bmj.com/content/gutjnl/early/2020/06/10/gutjnl-2020-321852.full.pdf
Covid-19 is usually a mild self-limiting illness that does not require any treatment.
Current evidence based medicine is based on the presumption of significance when P
all over the world, scientists are searching for the proper treatment of COVID-19 disease. Yes, your information is one of the options on which scientists are working. This is just a preliminary study...
Please have a look at the link below:
Preprint Famotidine Use is Associated with Improved Clinical Outcomes...
Famotidine or or H2 receptor blockers should be preferred over Proton pump inhibitors, because the former have a beneficial effect on immunity against viruses including SARS-CoV-2 while latter leads to increased morbidity to pneumonias as well as COVID-19.
1. Preprint COVID-19: Famotidine, Histamine, Mast Cells, and Mechanisms
2. Article Famotidine against SARS-CoV2: A hope or hype?
3. Article Proton pump inhibitors and community acquired pneumonia
4. Proton Pump Inhibitors Tied to COVID-19 Risk
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/933645