Corona Virus Update
The Corona virus continues to do its damage. Or at least the thinking about the Corona virus is certainly doing a lot of damage to the country.
In other words, fear about the Corona virus and what it might do might be doing more damage than the virus itself is doing.
Conceptually, fear is considered to be related to the reptilian brain.
Modern thinking about the brain separates it into 3 different functional compartments.
In this way of understanding, the “Human Brain” deals with thought and imagination, and it reasons and tries to make sense of things. As the chart shows, this is the “Neocortex” or “New cortex” so named due to evolutionary understanding of the progressively more complex and functional brain. And this part of the brain is the newest from the evolutionary understanding.
The more primitive part of the brain, the “Mammal Brain”, or the Limbic System, has much more to do with emotions. It also is mostly responsible for habits and memories.
The most primitive brain is the “Lizard Brain” or, perhaps more frequently, the “Reptilian Brain”. This part of the brain is automatic. It responds in mostly predictable ways. As the chart shows, this is the “fight or flight” center. It’s not thought about. It’s not decided. It’s automatic. It happens.
Fear is primarily a part of the function of the reptilian brain. When we find that we are wrapped up in fear, when fear is dominating our lives, remember that this perspective about the world is coming from the most primitive part of your brain.
I mention this because I want to help those of you who are finding this whole experience to be frightening.
Fright/fear can make you do things that you later regret. Or that you later realize were just not smart.
Fright and fear can mess up life. It can make you take wrong actions. Or it can make you paralyzed and do nothing.
If you are spending a lot of time worried and fretting about the whole Corona virus thing, there might be other better ways to use your time and energy.
One thing to do is to be clear that you are human, not a lizard/reptile. Use the human part of the brain to think and reflect on how you are handling this part of the journey of life.
Several things to think about to help your rational brain dominate the reptilian brain.
1. The chance of anything serious happening to you is likely extremely small.
2. Most people who get the virus either don’t know that they have it or experience very mild symptoms.
3. There are now a number of papers written or in the process of being published that show that the Corona virus problems can be easily cured by taking a drug originally used to treat malaria (hydroxychloroquin) along with a very mild and relatively benign antibiotic (azithromycin).
4. Remember some statistics:
A. According to worldometers.info the number of deaths in the US as of Sunday, March 22 stands at 419
B. According to the CDC about 650,0000 people died of heart disease last year. Deaths from heart disease are dominantly caused by our SAD diet (Standard American Diet) - namely sugars, refined carbs, lousy oils, and processed foods. Yet how much panic do we witness about a far worse killer than Corona?
C. According to the National Cancer Institute about 606,000 people died of cancer in 2019. Cancer is only in a small degree caused by genetics. It has far more to do, again, with the SAD diet. Again (sorry), but how much panic do we see over this known cause of far greater tragedy? I see absolutely no panic or even concern over this brutal killer.
D. From the peer reviewed literature a few years back, it was estimated that 106,000 people per year die from adverse drug reactions, 98,000 from medical errors, and 108,000 died from malnutrition in the US. 419 people dying from Corona is sad. But does it even begin to compare with some of these other killers?
E. During the Swine flu outbreak in 2009/2010 some 12,000 are said to have died from the swine flu, but other statistics record as many as 18,000 from that flu. Little was done then and certainly the market didn’t drop significantly, businesses were not forced to shut down, travel didn’t stop, etc.
F. Again, so far there have been 419 deaths from this Corona virus. Might there be other better things to worry about, to be concerned about?
G. Be smart. Be cautious. If you are old and/or weak, now is a good time to retreat for a few weeks.
H. But Fear? Let it go…
5. In a section below, I’m going to give you some updated information about vitamin C being used IV for even very advanced cases of Corona virus in China. And the numbers are stellar. Thus, there is another option that could be of help were you (very long shot) to get infected by the Corona virus and it was making you quite ill.
6. And, finally for this section, there are so many things that you can do to seriously decrease your likelihood of even coming down with the illness. In other words, you can boost your immune system.
Here we get into the reptilian (fear, fight/flight) vs mammalian (habits and emotions) vs the human brain (rational decisions, thinking about an issue and doing what is the right thing, acting by thinking, not by habit, emotion or fear).
Live from your Human Brain. Learn. Make decisions and DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!
Here’s a brief review of what we’ve discussed before:
A. Perhaps the most important thing you can do is stop Coke, other pop, and any other form of sugar. Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and other forms of sugar are very suppressing to the immune system.
B. Get real sunshine if you can.
C. Hydrate by drinking 2-3 quarts of water or more - depending on your size.
D. Get to sleep at a good time and sleep at least a sufficient amount. This is not the time to burn the candle at both ends, so to speak.
E. Work on attitude. Fear and hopelessness make you weak. “I can do this thing!” And do it.
F. Vitamin C: At least 2000 to 3000mg TWICE per day. More might be good. You’ll know if you are getting too much as you’ll get loose stool. If that happens, lower you dose for a bit. Later you’ll likely tolerate the higher dose just fine.
G. Vitamin D: 5000 to 10,000U/day at least until this whole national (international) emergency is settling down. Take with some 500mcg of Vitamin K2.
H. Vitamin A: 10,000 to 20,000 units per day for 2-4 months.
I. Make sure your bowels are moving. If not, take enough magnesium to keep regular (vitamin C should also help a lot).
J. Some data is suggesting that melatonin is preventive. I take it routinely and I suggest you do the same.
One cause of fear (reptilian brain) is that we hear all sorts of negative stories on TV and in the media. We then interpret them in the worst light possible - at least this response is a common story.
And the global reporting suggests that even being within six feet of a sick person might make you very sick.
It doesn’t work quite like that.
A high percentage of those who became seriously ill in Italy (the word is just out) had at least 3 other disease processes. Typically, heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. And, perhaps more importantly, they were on medications for these issues.
Over 99% had at least one of these disease processes.
And all of these are directly connected to diet, blood sugar and insulin issues. Which is why serious changes in diet would be a very “human brain” thing to do.
Rather than worry and fear (reptilian brain), TAKE WISE ACTION (very human brain). And I’ve listed above some of the basic things that will make a huge difference in how your body interacts with the Corona virus. You can intelligently defeat it.
If you do have these diseases and issues like immune suppression, cancer, etc, it would likely be very wise to self quarantine for a while.
The IV Vitamin C Study in Shanghai, China: Very good news!
In recent newsletters, I’ve mentioned the benefits of vitamin C. According to cardiologist, Dr Tom Levy, a doc who has written several books about vitamin C, ALL viral illness can be treated effectively with high enough doses of vitamin C.
I also mentioned that there was an ongoing study in Shanghai where they were treating people who were ill enough to be hospitalized. At the time of the last newsletter, we did not have any word on how that study was going.
The word is now out, and vitamin C IV is doing a fantastic job of curing the problem. It has been helpful for every person they treated this way! These were very sick people. The standard dose was 24,000mg IV daily. At least one patient needed double that dose. But the higher dose was curative for even the sickest patients.
I’m going to copy here a part of a newsletter written by a colleague of mine, Dr Keith Scott-Mumby.
This is what he comments about the results of the study:
“OK, this wasn’t quite the newsletter I intended to write—but since we are on with the virus, let me reinforce the number one successful anti-coronavirus treatment (and no it’s not chloroquine or vaccination)
[Discussed an online video presenting the data, and then continues…]
The key guest (on this video) was Dr. Enqian Mao, chief of the emergency medicine department at Ruijin Hospital, a major hospital in Shanghai, affiliated with the Joatong University College of Medicine. Dr. Mao is also a member of the Senior Expert Team at the Shanghai Public Health Center, where all Covid-19 patients have been treated. In addition, Dr. Mao co-authored the Shanghai Guidelines for the Treatment of Covid-19 Infection, an official document endorsed by the Shanghai Medical Association and the Shanghai city government. (In other words, he should know what he is doing.)
Dr. Mao has been using high-dose dose IV vitamin C to treat patients with acute pancreatitis, sepsis, surgical wound healing and other medical conditions for over 10 years. When Covid-19 broke out, he and other experts thought of vitamin C and recommended IV vitamin C (IVC) for the treatment of moderate to severe cases of Covid-19 patients. The recommendation was accepted early in the epidemic by the Shanghai Expert Team. All serious or critically ill Covid-19 patients in the Shanghai area were treated in Shanghai Public Health Center, for a total of 358 Covid-19 patients as of March 17th, 2020.
All patients who received IVC improved and there was no mortality. Compared to the average of a 30-day hospital stay for all Covid-19 patients, those patients who received high dose IVC had a hospital stay about 3-5 days shorter than the overall patients.
Dr. Mao discussed one severe case in particular who was deteriorating rapidly. He gave a shot of 50,000 mg IVC over a period of 4 hours (50 grams). The patient's pulmonary (oxygenation index) status stabilized and then improved as the critical care team watched in real time. There were no side effects reported from any of the cases treated with high dose IVC.
There are three lessons that we learned about this Covid-19 infection, Dr. Wang said:
1. Early and high-dose IVC is quite helpful in helping Covid-19 patients. The data is still being finalized and the formal papers will be submitted for publication as soon as they are complete.
2. Covid-19 patients appear to have a high rate of hyper-coagulability (blood thick and sticky). Among the severe cases, about 40% of severe cases showed hyper-coagulability, whereas the number among the mild to moderate cases was 15-20%. Heparin was used among those with coagulation issues (heparin stalls blood clotting).
3. The third important lesson learned is the importance (here they discussed methods for intubating seriously ill patients…)
Both Drs. Mao and Wang confirmed that there are other medical teams in other parts of the country who have been successfully using high dose IV vitamin C treating Covid-19 patients.”
This is really important! Unfortunately, the general media is primarily funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Ever see those ads on TV with all the warnings appended at the end while the people in the ads are smiling and laughing?
Although oral vitamin C is not as potent as IV vitamin C, it is still going to be helpful - and the more the better (the sign to take a bit less is when you begin having issues with diarrhea).
We now have two methods of routinely curing this disease with considerable assurance. The first is with the medications hydroxychloroquin and azithromycin. The second is with high dose vitamin C IV.
This is really important for people to know.
And I think this information has the potential of rationally helping to conquer that reptilian brain creation - Fear!
And Finally…
For those of you who believe that God exists, there is a great deal of comfort in knowing that God is interested in and loves you at all times and in all circumstances, even in the face of the Corona virus.
You might consider reading (or rereading) a favorite Psalms of mine, the 91st. Permit me to quote a bit of it here.
Live under the protection of God Most High
and stay in the shadow of God All-Powerful.
Then you will say to the Lord,
“You are my fortress, my place of safety;
you are my God, and I trust in you.”
The Lord will keep you safe from secret traps
and delay disease.
He will spread his wings over you
and keep you secure.
His faithfulness is like a shield or a city wall.
You won’t need to worry about the dangers at night
or arrows during the day.
And you won’t fear diseases that strike in the dark
or sudden disaster at noon…
God will command his angels to protect you
wherever you go.
They will carry you in their arms,
and you won’t hurt your feet on the stones.
You will overpower the strongest lions
and the most deadly snakes…(and even that deadly virus!)
God bless!