Tamara Rubilar is an Argentine scientist and researcher at Conicet, who created the company Promarine Antioxidants a few years ago, which has a series of dietary supplements that allow the well-being of people who suffer from autoimmune diseases or remnants of the coronavirus in what is known as Long Covid.

Promarine the first technology-based company of Conicet in the Patagonia and their products are based on a very special ingredient: sea urchin roe, specifically the pigments that these roe have, called spinochromes.

These pigments have been studied for more than 40 years in the East and there are drugs that have been sold in Russia since 2003 with multiple objectives.

“These are molecules that have been studied for a long time and have gone from the laboratory to a drug in Russia and the East, and what we did was to rescue that knowledge, apply biotechnology to generate a much more sustainable source over time with the aim of creating this dietary supplement“, he explained to MDZ Dr. Rubilar.

Its contribution to improving people’s health was endorsed by Conicet due to the results obtained from taking two daily doses of 3 mm for three months.

Not many people know that in the Patagonia This product was developed in Argentina and is available over the counter and can provide a solution to various ailments that people began to suffer from as a result of being infected with coronavirus. And, in fact, Echa Marine was not created specifically for the long covidbut its origin was more related to a personal experience of the Chubut researcher: finding a solution to an autoimmune disease with which her second child was born.

Serendipia

“I always say that serendipity had a lot to do with my life,” Rubilar told MDZ, before explaining how his research into the subject was born. dietary supplement which would give quality of life to his son and many other people with respiratory illnesses and traces of coronavirus.

Tamara Rubilar at the presentation of Echa Marine for people suffering from long-term Covid. Photo: Instagram

Her desire to help her child overcome the autoimmune disease he was born with in the best possible way led her to seek solutions. And after much research, she was able to find a key ingredient that was a turning point in his treatment: sea urchins, the basis of all Promarine products.

“It’s a supplement that I created 100% with my son’s well-being in mind, and it ended up helping thousands of people through chronic and delicate health situations, and it encouraged us to look for solutions for many other diseases,” she said.

She continued: “My specific interest in sea urchin roe arose because my second son was born with an autoimmune disease, which caused him many food allergies and a very precarious immune status. From Chubut, where we live, they sent us to Buenos Aires. We were hospitalized at the Casa Cuna for about three months until we were finally given this diagnosis. My son had the bad luck of having recessive genes that cause these reactions. The general treatments for children with these diseases include a large amount of corticosteroids, because they seek to reduce inflammation and inhibit the immune system so that the person can have a better quality of life. The thing is that long-term and sustained corticosteroids generate a lot of prejudice, especially in the development of children and in adulthood,” explained the scientist.

“I was desperate to see that the final outcome was going to be terrible. But I saw that I was in a privileged position, because I am a scientist, and so I put all my knowledge and energy into research,” Rubilar explained.

Research began more than a decade ago when the word “antioxidant” was not even mentioned. And it is precisely antioxidants that help reduce inflammation or mitigate the reaction of the immune system. The active component of the dietary supplement Echa Marine is spinacromes, molecules contained in the unfertilized eggs of a sea urchin of the Arbacia dufresnii species that lives in Patagonia. Photo: Conicet

“Because science is open, I received a colleague’s paper in PDF and by email, which was written in Russian. My mother is of Russian origin, that’s why I talk about serendipity: she helped me translate that article where I explained that sea urchin roe strengthened the immune system, lowered the oxidative state, and, above all, strengthened mitochondria, thus lowering inflammation. After reading that research, I wrote to the director of the laboratory and Dr. Federico Ferojev from Russia answered me. We communicated via Skype, 13 hours apart, and I told him about my son, I explained that I had access to sea urchins,” he commented.

The Russian research was based on a component called spinachromes, molecules contained in the unfertilized eggs of a sea urchin of the Arbacia dufresnii species that lives in Argentine seas and that have been scientifically studied by Rubilar’s laboratory at CESIMAR.

“He then asked me to send a sample to Siberia, they injected it into the HPLC, and they told me, you have spinacromes E and A, of very good quality and a lot of it. They made drugs with these extracts and encouraged me to use them to make these food supplements. We started testing them at home. First we did it with my husband. The two of us consumed it, before giving it to our son, who was two years old at the time. Then, we gave it to him and the results three months later were remarkable,” said the researcher.

“Today, with hindsight, I can tell you that we already have a line of products, next month we are releasing a new product and we are continuously working on new formulations, but the production of Echa Marine is a point of pride for the entire research team because here we combine public education, the public university, CONICET and the public health system, because they were all public hospitals with private investment where we were able to do a medical test focused on a problem that is of great interest globally: long covid“, Rubilar said.

How to know if you have long-term covid

It is estimated that there are 65 million people who have long covidalso known as prevalent covid or long covid. “Today there are more than 260 medical tests in the world to provide solutions for these patients. But we, from Argentine science, managed to develop not a medicine but an over-the-counter dietary supplement that is consumed as if it were a syrup, because we make it liquid,” explained the researcher.

It is not a drug, but the benefits are obvious, even though not many people have a diagnosis or know how to recognize the 12 most common symptoms with which it manifests.. “Many people do not know why there is still no protocol for defining or working among doctors to treat prevalent Covid. In fact, we work with a Spanish doctor named Francisco Pena Cordero, who was the one who created the first Long Covid congress in the world. Now, together with him, we are organizing a congress on the subject in Argentina with several Argentine doctors. I am not a doctor, but I work with them to provide tools so that they can diagnose it, and so that they are aware of this dietary supplement with which they can treat it,” she explained. Echa Marine, an innovative dietary supplement that significantly improves the after-effects of long Covid. Photo: Conicet

“If a person has had Covid once or twice, over time they may show at most two or three of the 12 symptoms recognized as prevalent in the “long covid”, the researcher explained.

The 12 most common symptoms are: asthenia (which is that body pain that remains after a severe flu), dyspnea (which is that shortness of breath, experienced as if you were running out of air when you were climbing stairs), fatigue (covid kills the mitochondria, which are our source of energy), loss of smell or taste (never getting it back), brain fog or lapses (these are indications of brain inflammation due to covid), hair loss, insomnia, inflamed intestine, changes in appetite, palpitations, numbness or dizziness, or persistent cough.

These are just some of the 200 symptoms described as prevalent Covid. “In the research, a large percentage of women, over 48 years old, with menopause participated in the medical trial. There were also 45% of men. We gave half of the people a placebo and the other Echa Marine. There we observed that the speed of recovery of the symptoms was much faster with the product. When the medical trial ended, we gave the product to all the people who had the placebo, because the truth is that we saw the improvement. Eight months after the medical trial ended, we studied them to see if they had relapsed with the symptoms, and that did not happen. Then we were able to verify that what they experienced was a recovery, because Covid greatly lowers people’s quality of life,” explained the Chubut scientist.

In my own flesh

Beyond the scientific studies she conducted, Rubilar experienced the improvement produced by the dietary supplement firsthand. “I had Covid and dengue at the end of April and beginning of May. Both at the same time. I traveled to Buenos Aires to organize the launch of the product and a mosquito bit me. And I got Covid on the plane. I was hospitalized for six days. I had never been so sick in my life. When I was discharged, the treatment to recover was with vitamins. I decided to take EchaMarine,” she told MDZ.

“I took all the information to the doctor, so he could see what it was all about. He followed me during my recovery for a month, measuring my platelets and doing medical tests. After a month and a half, I had to be in Dublin and I was able to leave. From there, I traveled to Spain. I finished the treatment last week. I had a persistent cough that wouldn’t go away. And in the last 10 days, I stopped having the cough and I no longer have body pain,” said the researcher.

Finally, Rubilar commented that, since it is over-the-counter, it is sold through a cloud store throughout the country. “In Mendoza we work with doctors, and in fact, last week I was at a conference and we made the products available for them to treat their patients. We have a base of doctors who not only recommend them, but use them themselves. There are many people who have this problem of long covid in the country, and they cannot find a solution in the market. That is why we come to fill that gap,” he concluded.