Influenza Pandemic
A world-wide influenza epidemic is quite possible in the not too distant future. According to the third edition of Dr. William McK. Jefferies book, Safe Uses of Cortisol, the reason why the flu pandemic of 1918-1919 killed so quickly is because of what the virus did to a certain hormone in the body.
The virus' action puzzled scientists for years as to why it was so deadly and killed so swiftly, and especially those in their prime. Though youngsters and elderly succumbed, it definitely took its toll on young men and women in their
twenties. One reason is that, although the immune system of this group is very virile, the virus blocked a critical hormone for
inflammation.
A solution may be available that just might stem the tide of another flu pandemic. Dr. Jefferies points out that it is now known that the virus of the great pandemic of 1918 shut down or impaired the functioning of the anterior pituitary gland's
production of adrenocorticotropic hormone (corticotropin, aka ACTH). Without or enough of this, the adrenal cortex is not
stimulated enough to manufacture and release cortisol--the antistress hormone. The recent article in the U. S. News & World Report, May 1, 2006, gives strong credence to what Dr. Jefferies states in his Preface. The article says:
"With a mortality rate of over 50 percent, this bird flu has struck the young and able-bodied the hardest....This vulnerability may stem from the robust and fast-responding immune systems of the young. The victims over-react to the alien virus, triggering a massive immune response called a cytokine storm, turning healthy lungs into a sodden mass of dying tissues congested with blood, toxic fluid, and rampaging inflammatory cells."
In other words, you need cortisol to tame the bloody mess that will occur in the lungs and drown you! This being the case, you might go to your physician, tell him the above and ask him to write you a prescription for prednisone. You may need from 10 mg twice daily for a normal adrenal gland, if you come down with a flu pandemic to 300 mg daily if you have had your adrenals removed or have adrenal insufficiency and you are diagnosed with an overwhelming infection (see page 43 of Jefferies' book).
Remember! You are not trying to play doctor. If things get as bad as I think they will if a full-fledged influenza pandemic breaks out in the near future, you will be glad you have this medication. It may not work in this flu pandemic, but a
prescription's worth would be advisable because all medicines, food deliveries, and the necessities of life may well dry up for
a while. Hospitals will be overwhelmed, and shut down, and many doctors may be dead. Go to your physician, if he's available, and have him treat you with your medicines and you leave with them.
Also get ribavirin as discussed in Update #66, February 1,2006, for influenza.
The Problem With Excess Iron
In regard to bacteria-caused infections or even a secondary infection brought on by a weakened body due to an influenza invasion of that body, and you don't get the antibiotics necessary to combat that infection, you can do something NOW that will give you a greatly increased fighting chance against microbes that reproduce on their own in a human organism. Viruses use your machinery to reproduce.
"The hepatitis C virus does most of its damage by latching onto molecules of iron, and delivering massive free-radical damage to liver cells." This can engender liver cancer. See Life Extension,"A Protocol for Hepatitis C," September 1998, pp. 18-26 (Life Extension web site, www.lef.org).
Let's first consider a few, but necessary, facts. The World Health Organization in the '60s discovered in Africa, that the anemic people there with malaria and other infectious diseases died at an increased pace when given iron supplements.
What happened? Iron, as with other heavy metals, such as nickel, mercury, and lead creates tissue-destroying free
radicals.
For half a century now, it has been recognized that the immune system is damaged somewhat from transfusions of blood. A chief suspect is iron, among other things. It has furthermore been recognized that people who regularly donate blood are healthier than those who do not donate blood. How about that?
Practically everything, from cereals and breads to spaghetti, has been fortified with iron. It's well-known now that
excess iron in infectious diseases is used by microbes. A number of research scientists feel that the increase of leukemia and lymphatic cancers in children could be due to iron-fortified cereals.
A number of studies have shown that Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's disease, and Huntington's chorea are connected with iron excess. Iron plays a role in atherosclerosis, aging skin and eye cataracts of the lenses by generating age pigment. The technical name of age pigment is "lipofuscin," which is brown fatty material that eventually snuffs out the life of the cell as it accumulates. It is polyunsaturated fat that becomes rancid or commonly known as oxidized. This process is generated by the presence of iron. You can't avoid the aging, but you can slow it down by controlling the amount of iron in the body, a necessary element for life but in excess causes problems.
The great stress expert, Dr. Hans Selye, pointed out that under stress, excess iron transforms that stress into tissue damage. The skin damage caused by iron load with small stress would produce skin hardening or a form of scleroderma. He found that he could prevent this by giving animals large doses of vitamin E. What is it that you now read and hear in the media from the medical profession? "Don't take much vitamin E."
If you take E, take vitamin C with it; one recharges the other until they are eliminated from the system. However, the vitamin C enhances iron absorption, especially with iron-enriched foods.
Taking a copper supplement can decrease tissue storage of iron. This mineral is found generously in oysters and shrimp.
Copper is very important in hair color and in continuing the blood vessels' elasticity as well as that of the skin. Copper is
necessary for certain nerve cell activity, as in substantia nigra. When they degenerate we often see Parkinson's disease.
Excess copper in the brain; however, activates a cell protein, Nuclear Factor Kappa Beta (NFkB), that is associated with Alzheimer's disease, through its associated generation of amyloid beta protein. To control this excess, curcumin, the substance found in the spice, tumeric is administered.
You can check your favorite breakfast cereal by inserting a magnet into the dry material; if, upon withdrawing it, you have cereal sticking to the magnet, you have excess iron in that cereal or product for sure. This was actually done a few years back with a certain product.
Another product you can take now to manage and reduce the excess iron that bacteria would use is Lactoferrin. Tom Valentine, in True Health, March/April 2006 issue, "Lactoferrin Elevated To Immune Superstar," writes, "Virtually all bacteria must have iron in order to grow and colonize. Scientists have proved that lactoferrin's strong iron-binding nature can impede iron utilization by a wide variety of bacteria and yeast, including both aerobic and anaerobic as well as Gram positive and Gram negative types, thereby curbing their growth."
The "friendly bacteria," he continues, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus bifidus and Lactobacillus G.G. do not appear to be bothered by less outside sources of iron.
"Lactoferrin is known to combat microbes directly."
Post-Menopausal Women
During a woman's menstruation years, she only loses a small amount of iron daily. Raymond Peat, Ph.D., writes in Iron Danger, 1997, that Estrogen increases iron absorption and thus, women absorb iron three times better than men do eating the same meal. She does lose iron when menstruating, but "only a few milligrams" daily when her period is occurring.
By the time she starts menopause, she has less iron stored in her tissues than a man of the same age. However, this all changes within a few years, because she is no longer menstruating but is probably estrogen dominant (see What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause, Revised Edition 2004, by John R. Lee, M.D., with Virginia Hopkins) and no way of ridding her tissue stores of iron overload since she is not having periods.
When women have stopped their periods for a number of years, Dr. Peat writes, "...their risk of dying from a heart attack is the same as that of men."
Dr. Lee suggests at this time in life, women should use natural progesterone cream, since they are no longer producing it because they are no longer ovulating.
We also suggest to ask your physician for a prescription of testosterone cream 10% or 20% per his discretion. Just a 1/4 teaspoon twice daily will go a long way for helping guard against muscle mass and bone loss, if you are in menopause or nearing it. You want to approach what is coming in the best health possible. (See also Life Extension magazine article, "Progesterone Misconceptions," April 2006, and Life Extension's Disease Prevention and Treatment, Expanded Fourth Edition; pp. 768-769).
It is further suggested to help build bone, ingest vitamin K1 and K2, especially vitamin K2. Life Extension products makes a good combination.
Calorie Restriction?
You read regularly to reduce calories if you want to live longer and with less disease. Less food means less free radical generation. Welllll...true, but it has now been found by one researcher that if instead of reducing calories, reduce the iron
in the food, and this caused the research animals to live as long as their half-starved cousins. Choi and Y, AGE, vol. 17, page 93, 1994, found Iron as 'The Major Factor in Reducing Life Span,' not the calories!
I will give one last example of the many that exist. The migrant workers in California were shown to have children with serious anemia. These children were shown to be more resistant to contagious diseases than children in the area who were middle class and considered well-nourished.
What does all this tell us? Donate Blood Today if you are capable!
By reducing your tissue iron stores, you have a better chance of surviving what is now beginning to break upon us.
For more about Iron's Dangers, see Ray Peat's website,www.efn.org/~raypeat and the book, Exposing The Hidden Dangers of Iron: What Every Medical Professional Should Know About the Impact of Iron on the Disease Process, by E.D. Weinberg, Ph.D.
If there are reasons you cannot donate blood, then try the expensive chelation therapy, or you may try reducing iron stores by ingesting EDTA capsules (available from health food stores) with meals.
You can also imbibe coffee with food. Coffee strongly restricts iron absorption. Also, eat less unsaturated fat. This puts less unsaturated fat in the bloodstream and in the cell membranes whereby iron overload destroys vitamin E and brings about "fatty acid oxidation," which is another way of saying "rancidity in your body." What are you told to eat more of now-a-days? Polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs).
Incidently, saturated fats, such as butter and coconut oil, for example, tend to tame the rancidity of PUFAs. Eat more saturated fats and less of the misnamed "heart-healthy" polyunsaturated fats.
But Quickest and Best:
Donate Blood
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