It appears we are now in the Covid 19 era. The hopes we had that this whole thing would pass away after a couple months of hyper vigilance and isolation have been dashed. After only a week of reduced restrictions the cases numbers climbed sufficiently that many restrictions were replaced. Movie theaters never did get reopened and restaurants were only open for a week. The politics of the medical consumer experience seem to be running decision making. No one is thinking about what policies are best for the total health of the people. All the focus seems to be on not overwhelming the hospitals with patients. Toward this end the goal appears to be to stretch out this pandemic for a year or two instead of getting it over with in a couple months like any other nasty flu.
This would make sense if hospital services were saving lives, but to this point hospital care has been a failure. The infamous ventilator shortage may actually be saving lives, as everyone that has been put on a ventilator has died. Much better success rates are being found with using high concentration oxygen inhalation, hyperbaric oxygen use, and even molecular hydrogen inhalation. Scam fake studies proclaiming the use of inexpensive old drugs don’t work get published (and then retracted) while clinical reports from actual real doctors in the front lines say the opposite is true. I tend to follow the money when I start seeing scam fake studies being published. Who benefits? I suspect the drug companies putting out new drugs that cost 40 times as much for treatment might have a hand in this type of fake research promotion. There are too many opportunities for massive profit in times of fear and stress. You know these opportunities are being grabbed up and used, all to our detriment.
Recent evidence is finding a disturbing outcome. Many people that had a laboratory confirmed diagnosis of Covid 19 are not showing appropriate antibody formation to make them immune to a second infection. Some people are and some people are not. Similarly perplexing is how the majority of cases appear to have no symptoms, while a smaller number end up with sniffles, a mild fever, and a cough. Only a very small number of people are getting really sick. And of those, a tiny percentage, at official count about 0.4%, are actually dying. That number sounds small, but in the US alone that could amount to 1.3 million people. From day one of this pandemic the experts all agreed that at least 70% of the US would contract covid 19 before this was all over. So all this lockdown stuff is not about keeping us safe at all. It does not save even 1 life, since hospital measures are not saving lives. It is about panic control. It is about making sure that when you get the bug that you believe the hospital has space for you. They want a slow gradual pandemic, not a collapse of the health system due to massive overload.
Well this plan has backfired. The latest numbers have shown a significant increase in overall death rates over the last three months, but only about a third of these are due to Covid 19. People are dying in even greater numbers due to the lockdown itself. People are getting depressed. Heart attacks are up, suicides are up, diabetes is up. People are so afraid to leave their houses that medical conditions that otherwise would have been taken care of are not being attended to and now people are dying as a result. Seeing this data is what prompted me to look more deeply at what is going on in the body with this virus. What can we do ourselves? The system is not making wise choices for our health, so it is up to us to take care of ourselves.
The fact that the presentation of the virus is so varied, from no symptoms at all to death, tells us that the difference is in us. What is different between the person with no symptoms and the one who dies? Medical research has a hard time with this type of question, because all research is based on mixed populations of people producing statistical averages. Looking at individual differences is very hard to do scientifically and be able to come up with averagable answers to apply to large populations. But I want to use observation and physiology understanding to see what we can come up with.
It appears that the biggest killer with this virus is something called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, ARDS. This is caused by a flood of inflammatory messenger chemicals called cytokines being released by a certain part of our immune system know as the Th1 cell mediated or myeliod system. This is the oldest part of our immune system, the part that is working when we are born. This system contains the white blood cells that go out and attack/engulf bacteria directly called macrophages (which is Latin for “big eaters”). An opposing part of our immune system, the Th2 acquired immunity system, is responsible for generating the antibodies that grab onto things we are allergic or reactive to. This system is what is tested when they do a Covid 19 antibody test on you to see if you have had the bug. The two pieces of evidence from the field appear to suggest that many people have too much Th1 immune response (the ARDS cases) and not enough Th2 antibody responses (the lack of antibodies after confirmed cases). Additionally one of the main Th1 cytokines is gamma interferon, which is suppressed by cortisol. And one of the effective strategies discovered in the field for Covid is cortisol administration along with vitamin D and vitamin C infusions. It is all fitting together.
This Th1/Th2 stuff is not something new. I was writing about this many years ago as it related to autoimmune disease and as it related to food allergies/sensitivities. Many people do have unbalanced immune systems. When you are healthy your Th1 system is in balance with your Th2 system. There are specific immune cells called T regulator cells that are supposed to keep this balance. These cells are specifically supported by vitamin D. Low levels of vitamin D allow for dysregulation of the Th1/Th2 systems. This corresponds to the clinical data from the field showing that patients with low vitamin D levels are 10 to 20 times more likely to die from Covid 19. Add to this the widely recognized observation that having confounding conditions which involve compromise of the immune system balance like age, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and liver disease greatly increase the fatal outcomes for this virus. My take on this evidence is that if your immune system is unbalanced you are at vastly greater risk from Covid 19. If you are balanced then you are more likely to be the patient with little or no symptoms. This is probably most true if your system is over expressing a Th1 dominance.
What is the most common cause of Th1 dominance? A lot of things can come into play with this, but I think the most likely is chronic inflammatory gut issues as they are so common. Why? Because the chronic inflammation allows some nasty bacterial stuff called LPS (lypopolysaccharides) to migrate across the gut wall and into the blood stream. These are major players as a cause of all sorts of chronic inflammatory conditions all over the place in the body. They also cause the immune system to become Th1 dominant – the very issue I am concerned with.
It there a way to test for this issue? Possibly yes, depending upon how intense the imbalance is. Certain herbs support the Th1 system, and if you take them they will push you even further out of balance ad make you feel bad. Other herbs support the Th2 system, and taking those herbs help bring things back into balance if your Th1 system has gone overboard.
Th1 supporting herbals:
Astragalus, Echinacea, Medicinal Mushrooms (Maitake and Beta-Glucan are common), Glycyrrhiza (found in licorice), Melissa Oficinalis (Lemon balm), Panax Ginseng, Chlorella, Grape Seed Extract
Th2 supporting herbals:
Caffeine, Green Tea Extract, Pine Bark Extract, White Willow Bark, Lycopene (found in tomatoes and other red fruits excluding strawberries and cherries), Resveratrol (found in grape skin, sprouted peanuts, and cocoa), Pycnogenol (found in the extract of the French maritime pine bark and apples), Curcumin (found in turmeric), Genistin (found in soybeans), Quercetin (a flavanoid found in many fruits and vegetables, such as onions, berries and kale)
I have used combinations of these herbals in the office with patients in the past to check for Th1/Th2 imbalances – taking a good dose of each of these for 2 to 3 days each and seeing if one makes them feel better and one makes them feel worse. When I learned about T regulator cells and the vitamin D connection I switched to just focusing on regaining balance using vitamin D. But with this Covid issue, we may need extra help in the short run getting things back into balance. If you are inclined to agree that I may be on to something and simply wanted to up your Th2 levels to improve your antibody status and decrease cytokine production, then just start getting more green tea, coffee, chocolate, curcumin, and quercetin in your diet. Maybe take some resveratrol or pycnogenol supplements. If these make you feel better, then you probably have a Th1 imbalance.
Further evidence that my theory is correct comes from a treatment protocol for hospital patients with serious Covid 19 infections called Math +. Over 100 patients have been treated with this protocol with a 98% success rate. It is based on using methylprednisone, vitamin C, and anticoagulants. These stop the hyperinflammation, hypoxia, and blood clotting that kills patients. The key piece here is that methylprednisone suppresses Th1 and supports Th2 pathways, precisely what I am suggesting.
I strongly recommend you get your vitamin D levels checked. You want a minimum level of 40 ng/dl, but 60 to 80 would be even better. If you are low start taking 10,000 iu per day for a couple months. Adding in the Th2 support foods should up your antibody production levels so you can form appropriate antibodies for long term resistance to reinfection to Covid after you get it. The government has already assumed we will all be getting Covid eventually except for the folks living in their underground shelters in Montana. So our objective is to get it with little or no symptoms, and to develop a healthy immunity to it once it is done so we can get back to life.
This is kind of a radical immunity approach to the whole Covid 19 storyline. But all the data looks like it matches up with the immunology and physiology I have presented. This is the approach I am using for myself and Ellen combined with general immunity boosting activities such as a keto diet, daily exercise, vitamin D sunlamp, and molecular hydrogen inhalation. We start every morning with our nutrient shake to support our immune system, and end every night with supplements to dampen inflammation.
Take care,
David