Flu Fighter

ONE OF THE OLDEST FOLK REMEDIES IS STILL FINDING NEW FANS, THESE DAYS IN SCIENCE LABS

- Kerry Boyne

At the time of writing, we were seeing an alarmingly early start to flu season with a number of deaths and many hospitalizations. So it was interesting to receive a press release with the heading “Eating elderberries can help minimize influenza symptoms — University of Sydney research”.

The university study showed that “compounds from elderberries can directly inhibit the virus’s entry and replication in human cells, and can help strengthen a person’s immune response to the virus”. In a way, this was not surprising as elderberry’s flu-fighting properties have long been known, but the research group studied exactly how the phytochemicals in elderberries work on viral infections.

“[Elderberry] inhibits the early stages of infection by blocking key viral proteins responsible for both the viral attachment and entry into the host cells,” said researcher Dr. Golnoosh Torabian.

The researchers turned farmed elderberries into a juice serum that they applied to cells before, during and after they had been infected with the flu virus. To their surprise, not only were the phytochemicals shown to be effective at stopping the virus infecting the cells, but they were even more effective at inhibiting viral propagation when the cells had already been infected with the virus.

Furthermore, the elderberry solution also stimulated the cells to release certain cytokines that help the immune response against invading pathogens.

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