Fifty Year Old Drug Finding New Life

A heart drug that’s been on the market for over fifty years is finding renewed purpose in treating herpes. As there’s only one class of antiviral medication to treat the virus, scientists from the University of Utah School of Medicine got to work looking for an existing drug that could work as well. They found it in a steroid called Spironolactone. It turns out the drug actively blocks a protein in your body that herpes needs to thrive. Scientists say finding new life for this drug means they may be able to develop other treatments for current drug-resistant diseases.