Colleen Huber, NMD explains at The Primary Doctor COVID-19 is a lack of nutrients, exploited by a virus. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.
“There already exist numerous ways to reliably prevent, mitigate, and even cure COVID-19, including in late-stage patients who are already ventilator-dependent.”
– Thomas Levy, MD JD
Abstract
COVID-19 disease is alleged to be caused by the RNA coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. However, clinical findings from around the world show a sharp inflection point from morbidity to recovery on supplementation of one or another nutrient. In other cases, severe COVID-19 morbidity is significantly correlated with deficiency of a particular nutrient. Any of the nutrients that are discussed in this paper, when used alone or with a co-factor, has been either sufficient for prompt and complete recovery in a majority of patients treated or highly correlated with low morbidity and high survival from the disease.
If any one of several nutrients is adequate for victory over COVID-19, then logically (the contrapositive), the simultaneous deficiency of all of those same nutrients is the necessary preliminary condition for the subsequent presence of the virus to result in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. This paper will show which nutrients are lacking in those with severe pathogenesis, and why all of those nutrients must be deficient in order for severe COVID-19 disease to occur in an individual, and that supplementation with any one of these nutrients is likely to result in recovery.
[Note: The full list of nutrients discussed in the paper are as follows:
- Vitamin D
- Glutathione
- Zinc
- Quercitin
- Epigallocatechin-gallate (EGCG)
- Vitamin C
- SeleniumBelow are excerpts relating to the big 3 in the image above.]Vitamin D vs COVID19Vitamin D3 (commonly known simply as “vitamin D,” but formally as cholecalciferol) may be the most potent defense available against COVID-19, from the studies described below. It may also be the most easily acquired COVID-19 treatment, because vitamin D is produced in the skin on exposure to sunlight, with further processing in the liver and then in the kidneys to its fully useful form.In this large Israeli study of over 7,000 people, “low plasma [vitamin D] levels almost doubled the risk for hospitalization due to the COVID-19 infection in the Israeli studied cohort.” Also, “the mean plasma vitamin D level was significantly lower among those who tested positive than negative for COVID-19.” (1)In a retrospective cohort study in Indonesia of 780 cases of COVID-19 positive patients, it was found that those with below normal vitamin D levels were associated with increasing odds of death. (2)The correlation among low serum vitamin D levels and COVID-19 mortality was so high in that study that this nutrient may turn out to be the most decisively valuable against COVID-19. This graph (3) shows the stark contrast found between high and low vitamin D levels and COVID-19 survivability.
- In European countries also, a significant inverse relationship was found between serum vitamin D levels and COVID-19 mortality. Mean levels of vitamin D and COVID-19 mortality in twenty European countries were examined. Also aging populations, which have been the worst affected by COVID-19 were found to have the lowest serum vitamin D levels. (4)Vitamin D is known to be essential to the maturing of macrophages, which in turn are a necessary tool of the immune system against pathogenic microbes. Macrophages with vitamin D also produce hydrogen peroxide, an important pro-oxidant molecular weapon against microbial pathogens. (5) However, vitamin D also stimulates production of anti-microbial peptides that appear in natural killer cells and neutrophils in respiratory tract epithelial cells, where they are able to protect the lungs from the ravages of infection.One of the most alarming features of COVID-19 disease in the clinical setting has been the “cytokine storm,” which is itself life-threatening. It is an inflammatory over-reaction to the replicating viral pathogen. The utility of Vitamin D for the COVID-19 patient may best be appreciated in its prevention of excessive inflammatory cytokines, thereby sparing the patient of the body’s most severe reactions to the virus. (6) Vitamin D deficiency is also implicated in acute respiratory distress syndrome. (7)Respiratory infectious disease prevalence has a strong seasonality through the centuries and around the world. That season peaks in the winter and early spring, after the year’s fewest hours and lowest angle of sunlight on the winter solstice. That lack of sunlight occurs during a time of the least skin surface exposed to freezing weather, and therefore the least endogenous vitamin D production. Supplementation of oral vitamin D through this difficult season may therefore be a prudent prophylaxis.Zinc vs COVID-19Zinc has many functions in the cell. One of these is to inhibit replication of RNA-type viruses. SARS-CoV-2 is such a virus. The mechanism is that zinc blocks the enzyme RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). This enzyme is required for replication of the virus. Without this enzyme, copying of the viral RNA cannot occur. The virus’s assault against the body is not merely inhibited. It is stopped with adequate zinc.Zinc, however, is mostly kept out of the cell by other mechanisms, partly because zinc plays a role in normal cell death. A survival mechanism of a normal cell is to therefore limit the zinc that can enter.However, in the event of infection with an RNA virus, a useful strategy for medical treatment is to bring enough zinc into cells to block viral replication. What is needed is a substance that can accompany and transport zinc across the cell membrane and into the cell. Such a substance is an ionophore; it transports the zinc ion. The function is to allow more zinc into a cell than would typically enter. For this purpose, zinc ionophore agents are used in clinical settings together with zinc as a combination strategy against an RNA virus infection. I will discuss a few of these zinc ionophores.It should also be noted that zinc deficiency is characterized by loss of senses of smell and/or taste. (11) These are also known to be common symptoms of COVID-19 patients. (12) This is further evidence that deficiency of zinc may be correlated with COVID-19 morbidity.Zinc and Hydroxychloroquine vs COVID-19Both hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and its historical predecessor chloroquine (CQ) are on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines. The latter was discovered in 1934, and it is still used to manage malaria, although resistant strains of malaria make it less useful these days for that purpose. HCQ has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for over 65 years. It has been prescribed billions of times throughout the world over the previous decades. The US Centers for Disease Control says that HCQ can be prescribed to adults and children of all ages. It can also be safely taken by pregnant women and nursing mothers. (13) It is among the safest of prescription drugs in the US, which is why it is sold over the counter through much of the world. (14) Both HCQ and CQ are chemically similar to quinine, from the bark of Cinchona trees, which is also a flavoring used in tonic water.These drugs have been observed to raise the pH of the cell and the endosomes in which entering viruses are packaged. These drugs are easily taken up into the cells of the body. Viruses, however, enter cells packaged in endosomes, and require a low pH acidic environment in the endosome in order to replicate. Once HCQ or CQ are inside cells, they easily enter endosomes, and therefore viruses are stopped from replicating (reproducing) due to this alkalinizing effect. Dr. Peter D’Adamo describes and illustrates these mechanisms in more detail. (15)So in summary of these functions then, HCQ and CQ not only shepherd zinc into the cell, where zinc blocks the enzyme that is required for replication of RNA viruses, but either of these drugs also raise pH inside the cell to a level where viral replication is impossible.The combination of HCQ, azithromycin and zinc has shown outstanding results in resolving COVID-19. See: Positive HCQ Treatment Outcomes in 88 International StudiesVeteran virologist Steven Hatfill writes of hydroxychloroquine: The Real HCQ Story: What We Now KnowYale epidemiology professor Harvey Risch, a highly respected scientist with over 300 published peer-reviewed studies, writes of the contrast between the successful clinical use of HCQ and zinc on the one hand, and its suppression by governments and industry on the other:Dr. Risch, who has 39,779 citations on Google Scholar, adds that “US cumulative deaths through July 15, 2020 are 140,000. Had we permitted HCQ use liberally, we would have saved half, 70,000, and it is very possible we could have saved 3/4, or105,000.”There are other zinc ionophores that are also being used together with zinc successfully against COVID-19. Zinc and Quercitin vs COVID-19; Zinc and EGCG vs COVID-19 (Epigallocatechin-gallate (EGCG) is a green tea extract)Vitamin C vs COVID-19At the Ruijing Hospital in Shanghai, 50 COVID-19 patients were treated with vitamin C. Their hospital stays were 5 days shorter than those COVID-19 patients not treated with Vitamin C. There were no deaths in the Vitamin C group, and no significant side effects were noted either. In the other group of COVID-19 patients, those who did not receive vitamin C, there were 3 deaths. (25)Dr. Zhiyong Peng conducted the first clinical trial of high-dose intravenous vitamin C with COVID19 patients at Wuhan University in Wuhan, China. His findings were that this treatment of COVID-19 patients reduced their inflammation significantly, and that it reduced their stays in ICU and hospitals. (26) (27)Vitamin C should be no surprise as an addition to the list of nutrients that provide life-saving help against COVID-19. Dr. Fred Klenner wrote in 1948 about use of intravenous and intramuscular use of vitamin C against viral pneumonia: “In almost every case the patient felt better within an hour after the first injection and noted a very definite change after two hours.” And “three to seven injections gave complete clinical and x-ray response in all of our [42] cases.” (28)Vitamin C has numerous well-studied and documented mechanisms against viruses. Perhaps the most important of these is the production of Type I interferons. (31) This in turn upregulates natural killer cells and cytotoxic T-lymphocytes for anti-viral activity. (32) However, it has been shown to simply inactivate both RNA and DNA viruses. (33) It also detoxifies viral products that are associated with inflammation and pain. High dose vitamin C and oral doses over 3 grams are established to both prevent and treat a variety of viral infections. (34) (35)ConclusionTo repeat Dr. Thomas Levy’s memorable quote at the beginning of this paper, “There already exist numerous ways to reliably prevent, mitigate, and even cure COVID-19, including in late-stage patients who are already ventilator-dependent.” Dr. Levy documents many of them in this paper. (38)Those who were diagnosed and sickened from the most feared viral pathogen of our time fell into several categories. Either they died from the disease, or they healed from one of the interventions discussed in this paper, or fortunately, healed with none of those interventions. The above studies show that it was enough that one or the other of the nutrients discussed herein was adequate to prevent or to vanquish COVID-19, without the need to use all of them. Therefore, because any one of these nutrients proved adequate to heal patients to complete recovery, then the patients who succumbed to COVID-19 disease had likely been deficient in all of these nutrients, and a lack of all of these nutrients was likely a necessary condition for pathogenesis of COVID-19.Because of the therapeutic impact and success that each of the above nutrients have had in reversing the devastation of COVID-19, they each must be made available immediately and widely throughout the world, for both preventative and prompt therapeutic uses. There is therefore no need or justification for pandemic status of COVID-19. Furthermore, nutritional interventions should be used without hesitation as first-line treatment, as well as prevention, of COVID-19.
via Science Matters
September 10, 2020 at 10:48AM