Studies show that common cold is curable by plasma

Studies show that common cold is curable by plasma

Common cold and flu were supposed to have no cure at all and patients have to rely on their immune systems to fight off the infections but now the scientists have discovered its cure.
Studies show that a stream of matter called cold plasma is able to deactivate viruses that cause the common cold.

These viruses cannot replicated themselves and spread of cause the disease when they are exposed to a stream of ionised gas, the plasma, for just a couple of minutes. The researchers also
believe cold plasma could even prevent viruses such as HIV from being spread in blood transfusions.

These findings have led to hopes that cold plasma devices could be used in hospitals as hand sanitisers providing a new way of treating the common cold and other respiratory viruses such
as flu. With this discovery, the steps to eradicated HIV AIDS can also be strengthened.

A scientist from the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, Dr Julia Zimmermann, studied that just one in a million viruses was able to replicate and the rest were
inactivated when exposed to cold plasma for 240 seconds.

She said, “Cold plasmas are potentially a very effective agent for control of viral infections. As the produced plasma is cold and works against bacteria, viruses, fungi and spores, it
could be used for several applications in hygiene and medicine.”

The researchers are already developing the technique to cure respiratory infections and have been approved to test the device in animal models. According to these researchers, plasma could
be inhaled directly into the lungs to treat viruses.

Dr Zimmermann added, “At the moment we are planning an animal study to analyse the effect of plasma on tissue and are doing cell culture experiments on mucosal cells.”

Previous studies show that cold plasmas are effective at killing bacteria and can be used to sterilise water for up to seven days. According to the latest research, published in the Institute
of Physic’s Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, has shown that the plasmas damage the proteins and DNA that make up viruses.

Plasma is a fourth state of matter in addition to solid, liquid and gases, and is created when particles of gas or liquid become electrically charged.

The scientists, in the new research, exposed cells infected with adenoviruses, a group of viruses those that cause the common cold, to jets of cold plasma. The researchers found that cold
plasma almost entirely inactivated the viruses.

Dr Zimmermann spoke, “The plasmas we create are cold plasmas – approximately a few degrees above room temperature. For the plasma device used in the study with adenoviruses we used the
surrounding air as the gas which we partly ionise.”

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Posted by Zeeshan Gohar on Dec 12 2011. Filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry