HOW YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Coronavirus has caused a crisis like no other virus before it. And part of the reason is the only advice we are being given is to avoid the virus, (such as hand-washing and social distancing) but effective methods to increase our resistance to this virus have been ignored.

        Because with any virus there are two things you need to do:

1) AVOID THE VIRUS.

2) BOOST YOUR IMMUNITY.

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        AVOIDING THE VIRUS is next to impossible to do (as you have little idea who could infect you).

But BOOSTING OUR IMMUNITY is easy and effective.

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Louis Pasteur put it another way: The germ is nothing; the terrain is everything.

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VITAMIN D: PREVENTING INFECTIONS

        Vitamin D has been found to protect against influenza (see leaflet Boosting the Immunity), against respiratory infections (BMJ 2017) and it nearly halves acute respiratory episodes in COPD (BMJ 2019). A study in children found that even at a very low dose (1200 IU daily) it reduced the frequency of colds and flu by 42%.

Vitamin D is not really a vitamin but a hormone and one of the most powerful immune modulators in the body affecting over 200 genes and thousands of biochemical processes in every cell.

The most feared and deadly complication of coronavirus is Acute Respiratory Distress syndrome (ARDS). A paper published in Thorax in 2014 entitled “Vitamin D deficiency contributes directly to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)” found low Vitamin D levels were common in ARDS and appeared to contribute to this deadly complication. Vitamin D reduces the “cytokine storm” found in this condition.

People in the BAME group (black, Asian, multi-ethnic) have had a torrid time during this pandemic and account for 63% of deaths amongst NHS staff. Twenty-two out of the twenty-free doctors who have died have been from BAME groups. The darker a person’s skin the lower their low Vitamin D levels are likely to be. Average blood levels of Vitamin D in different groups (normal >75nmol/l) are white: 33.8, black: 21.0, South Asian: 14.5.

It is no surprise that black men and women have 4 times the expected mortality with Indians having 2.5 times the expected mortality. This is predictable and avoidable and could be easily remedied.

Similarly obesity increases the risk of dying by 40%. Vitamin D levels are usually low in the obese. People in care homes also tend to have low Vitamin D levels.

Take a look at how many studies have consistently shown that low Vitamin D levels have led to higher mortality and more complications.

For instance, a study of 191,779 people in the USA published this September in PLOS ONE found the risk of Covid was strongly and inversely related to Vitamin D levels in the blood. Those with lower Vitamin D levels had a 54% higher chance of being positive for Covid. The higher the level of Vitamin D in the blood the lower the risk of Covid infection.

Yet another study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition titled “Habitual Use of Vitamin D supplements and the risk of coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19) infection -a prospective study in UK BIOBANK” found those taking regular Vitamin D supplements had only two-thirds of the risk of being infected with covid-19 compared to those not taking them. No other supplement was shown to have any preventative benefit (they did not check iodine though). https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqaa381

To see many more studies showing the same pattern see: https://www.drjerrythompson.co.uk/gp-tests-that-reveal-your-risk-of-covid-19/

I would add that we see levels of <50nmol/l all the time seen in general practice. In fact, it is not that rare to see much lower levels of <10nmol/l: these very low levels are virtually only seen in Asian and afro Caribbean patients. There is also evidence that much higher levels (150nmol/l) give even better protection.

In my experience few people have normal levels of Vitamin D (>75mmol/l) unless they take supplements.

Alipio, Mark, Vitamin D Supplementation Could Possibly Improve Clinical Outcomes of Patients Infected with Coronavirus-2019 (COVID-2019) (April 9, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3571484 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3571484

Boosting your immunity with Vitamin D is the obvious and practical way to protect yourself from coronavirus. It is well known that most viruses are worse in winter, for this is when our levels of vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin) tend to be lowest. This can be quickly remedied. Start taking 5000iu of Vitamin D daily for 2 weeks then take 2000iu daily (aim for at least 2000iu daily). Those in the BAME group should stay on 5000 IU daily.

Vitamin D is extremey safe even at high dosages and leading Vitamin D researcher Dr Micheal Holick has noted that no case of toxicity has ever been found at doses of 10,000 IU daily, even when taken long-term. (You would expect to absorb 10-20,000 IU in a day whilst sunbathing).

During infection or inflammation Vitamin D (and Vitamin C) have a lot more to do and are metabolised at a much faster rate. Much larger amounts are needed at these times.

Vitamin D not only helps to protect us from virus infections but can also prevent its most dangerous complication. We should all be taking it.

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        Zinc is also crucial to a good immune system: take 15mg daily (best taken before going to bed at night). Zinc deficiency is widespread and this is not a time to have a weak immune system.

        Keeping your sugar intake as low as possible is another key step. Sugar can reduce the ability of our white cells to engulf bacteria by up to 50% and the effect can last several hours. It also competes with Vitamin C. This means most people are wandering around with an impaired immune system most of the time.

In a recent study at Yale University mice were fed either a high carbohydrate diet or a high-fat, low carbohydrate diet and then inoculated them with influenza. The high-fat, low carbohydrate diet activated T cells which stopped the virus spreading in the lungs and these mice had a higher survival rate.

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      VITAMIN C:  TREATING INFECTIONS

Cheap, powerful and known to be effective against every virus it’s ever been tested against, this is the remedy I simply wouldn’t want to be without if I went down with coronavirus. Look at the Vitamin C leaflet to see its dramatic impact on sepsis. It has at least 10 known antiviral mechanisms, the most important of which may be inhibition of viral replication and increased cell-mediated immunity when used at high doses. Research since the 1950s has shown it to be effective against a wide range of viruses.There is simply nothing else that can make so much difference in a severe viral infection.

If you get any infection start taking high dose Vitamin C as soon as possible, aim for 10-12 grams daily . But it will only be effective at a high dose.

A trial of intravenous Vitamin C in China in those severely affected by Covid 19 showed that there were no deaths in the group given Vitamin C but six deaths in the (larger) group not given it. Vitamin C is now being trialled in the USA, Canada, Italy, Spain and Turkey but not in the UK. It is tragic that it is not being used in the UK when a mass of evidence suggests this measure alone would greatly reduce the death toll.

See: https://www.vitaminc4covid.com/podcasts/ for more information

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IODINE: THE VIRUS KILLER

After the 1918 influenza pandemic over two decades of research on both people and animals found iodine was the single most effective agent in the prevention of influenza. It kills viruses even when diluted to 1 part per million and no virus developed resistance to it. In fact the body secretes iodine into the nasal and respiratory mucosa to protect us (but many of us are deficient in it). Iodine in aerosol form kills viruses within 30 seconds. A practical way to achieve this is to use Lugol’s iodine in a salt pipe (eg 2 – 4 drops of 10-15% Lugol’s iodine)- see sinusitis leaflet for details. (Remember salt pipes should not be shared). See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSt8GZ6cOl0 to find out how to do this see the demonstration done by Dr Myhill.

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HOSPITAL TREATMENT

If I was seriously ill and taken to an intensive care unit with coronavirus infection, one thing I would not want is to be on a ventilator (it has a 67% mortality rate). But one treatment I definitely would want is a Vitamin C infusion, which has now become standard in some Critical Care Units in the USA (see: https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/EVMS_Critical_Care_COVID-19_Protocol.pdf ).

Some Critical Care specialists such as Richard Cheng have even said that witholding intravenous Vitamin C in this situation was, in his opinion, unthinkable and unethical. See: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n27.shtml

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OTHER POINTS

        Reports in newspapers have said there is no evidence vitamins help. This is simply untrue. Have a look at the orthomolecular website’s advice on coronavirus on http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n14.shtml

        This gives sound advice and includes a large number of references on scientific studies about the protective effects of vitamins and other nutrients.

        In an attack doesn’t respond to high dose Vitamin C (and I believe it’s unlikely that it won’t make a difference), there are other remedies you can add in. Have a look at the leaflet on “severe infections” for this information.

Mainstream medicine has very few remedies that can treat viral infections hence the focus on vaccines. But there is no shortage of substances that kill viruses and sadly these are being ignored. The problem is that most are natural substances and mainstream medicine has little interest in them. If we had started researching and using these compounds from the beginning many, many lives could have been saved.

  Substances known to kill viruses include not only Vitamin C and iodine but crushed garlic and herbal remedies such as andrographis, echinacea, olive leaf extract, astralagus, goldenseal and elderberry. There are others and a good source of information on substances that kill viruses is    https://chriswoollamshealthwatch.com/your-illness/general-health/eight-anti-viral-compounds-from-research/

To sum up: we can greatly reduce our risk of Covid 19 by taking Vitamin D (the figures suggest it would reduce severe infections by about 95%). If we should catch it, we can greatly increase our chance of surviving it by using high-dose Vitamin C and other supplements.

If this was common knowledge then the death toll from Covid 19 could have been massively reduced. So please pass on this vital information to as many people as possible.