Corona Virus -Point 1 & 2

As I watch the panic over the Corona virus, I find myself somewhat amazed at the things that are happening.

The stock market dropped by some 30%. (Monday morning update: at one point this morning it was down almost another 3000 points).

The NBA has shut down at least some of their season.

The MLB (Major League Baseball) is starting at least two weeks late.

March Madness - R.I.P.

I was supposed to be at a Tony Robbins event in San Jose this past weekend. But it was cancelled on Monday due to California state demands. 14,000 people had to reschedule.

And I was scheduled to be at a Functional Medicine conference in Seattle in two weeks. It was just cancelled due to Washington state pressure. And now groups larger than 250 cannot congregate in some parts of the state due to Jay Inslee’s commands.

ETC. Etc. etc…. (over the weekend, a lot more announcements)

It is confusing. And I’m sure that nobody really knows what they should be doing and so they do something to make it appear that they are doing something to make things better. But whether the effect will make things better or not is up for question and debate.

If one listens to the media, it’s a horrible thing, this Corona virus, that has happened - and maybe it is. But we need some context.

The most recent numbers I have re Corona as of Friday, March 13:

2100 people have been diagnosed with the corona virus in the US.

Death toll in the US: 48 (Note that the majority of them were in one nursing home here in Washington state).

Do you remember the swine flu episode? It certainly affected America a bit.

But, the stock market? Officially the swine flu issue is dated from early April 2009 lasting through mid April 2010.

The stock market was about 8,200 in early April 2009. Early August 2009, it was about 9,500. October 1st was 9,700. And in February 2010, it was up to 10,300. So there appears to have been minimal disruption of the markets.

Life mostly went on as usual. People traveled. Baseball was played. The NBA didn’t cancel parts of their season… Etc.

So was the swine flu a fairly mild event?

I’ve just gone to the CDC website to get some numbers for reference.

How many people got the swine flu: About 61 million people.

How many people were hospitalized with the swine flu? 275,000.

How many people died of the swine flu? As many as 18,000. They don’t have actual numbers.

So we’ve got this interesting comparison:

61 million cases of swine flu. 2100 case of Corona so far.

Up to 18,000 deaths from swine flu. 48 deaths from Corona so far (a majority of those being in one nursing home).

Swine flu: Baseball continues. Travel continues. Meetings and conventions continued.

Corona virus: Seems that the world is coming to an end.

Is this real???

Look folks - I don’t know. I’m not “in the know” regarding any back story to this corona virus. But so far it’s not making a lot of sense to me.

Let’s use another comparison. The flu primarily kills the same population as does Corona - namely, the old and the weak.

According to stats quoted just a few days ago, there have been more than 33,000 deaths from the flu this season.

Last flu season there were over 50,000 deaths from the flu.

Do we stop international travel, shut down schools, close churches and such when such large numbers die from that virus?

Obviously not!

Another thing. My 18 year old son just told me that his university has shut down for at least one month. Which means that there are no classes in actual classrooms. It’s all going to be done online.

Other universities are doing the same thing. (Monday update: And over the weekend, most schools have shut down at least in our area)

So far there have been forty-some deaths from the corona virus here in the US. Do you know how many of those are in people less than 50 years of age? As of Thursday (yesterday), none. It minimally affects younger people. Is this shutting down of schools rational prevention or paranoia?

In my opinion, you likely don’t need to worry as much about this viral issue as the press seems to be.

Besides that, there are things that you can do.

It is primarily affecting the old. Thats a bummer for us older ones. Some of the GenZ and Millenials are even referring to the virus as the “Boomer Remover.”

There’s not a lot that we can do directly about our age. But it’s important to note that even in the old it’s the folk with diabetes, hypertension and heart disease that are far more at risk of getting sick and dying.

Those three things are connected. They are all related to having high insulin and blood sugar numbers.

Rather than fretting, start eating right. And that means lower carb (essentially no [please read again: “essentially no”] sugar), more colorful veggies, some fruits, and good fats (namely coconut, olive and avocado).

Point Number 2

There are things that can be done both to prevent getting the disease and minimizing the impact of the disease.

I wrote in the last newsletter about Vitamin C used both IM and IV for treating polio. Dr Klenner in North Carolina treated more than 60 cases of polio in the late 1940s using intramuscular (IM) and intravenous (IV) vitamin C. He routinely cured every patient newly diagnosed with polio within 3 days.

He also treated a young girl with polio who had been sick for some time. She already had paralysis of her legs. Dr Klenner began treating her with vitamin C both IV and IM and was able to cure her of all polio symptoms - though it did take considerably longer than 3 days.

Might IV vitamin C work for the Corona virus illness?

Dr Tom Levy, a cardiologist who has written several books about vitamin C, is absolutely convinced that vitamin C will routinely cure the Corona virus illness. As he points out, the important factor is that one use enough vitamin C. A small dose will do little. A large dose is curative for all known viral illnesses, according to Dr Levy.

If you’d like to watch an amazing and wonderful story about vitamin C and swine flu, you can watch it on YouTube. Briefly, the story is about a New Zealand farmer who was in the intensive care unit on full life support. The doctors wanted to turn off the life support. But the family resisted. They asked for him to be given vitamin C IV. The doctors refused so the family took the case to court and the court decided in favor of using the vitamin C IV. Therapy was begun and he rapidly healed. Quite an amazing story.

It’s worth a brief watch. Go to YouTube and search: Vitamin C The Miracle Swine Flu Cure - 60 Minutes Living Proof. You’ll understand better what vitamin C can do.

There is a study being conducted in Shanghai using 24,000mg of vitamin C IV daily for 7 days to evaluate its effect on people who are hospitalized with Corona virus illness. The results are not yet released. But I expect them to be very encouraging.

What You Can Do! 

1. Don’t fret, at least don’t fret overly much! In the first section above, I outline some of the reason for not making it as big a deal as the press does.

2. If you are older and tend to be sickish, it would be good to be especially careful. Avoid the crowds. Avoid coughing people. Minimize exposure to others.

3. But generally, I’m not convinced that one needs to avoid the normal activities of life if one is taking the proper protective steps.

4. As I mentioned above, the people who are susceptible to the Corona virus are the people who have heart disease, hypertension and type 2 diabetes. What connects those dots? High blood sugar and elevated insulin. Thus, we need to be careful with diet.

5. While this virus is threatening, seriously avoid or minimize sugars and carbs. There are a variety of ways to help you accomplish this goal. I’d especially recommend some books by Jason Fung, a kidney specialist in Toronto, Canada. He has researched this blood sugar/insulin problem thoroughly and does an excellent job of explaining things so they can be understood.

A.     “The Obesity Code” OR “The Diabetes Code”. These are both good but they cover similar information.

B.     “The Complete Guide to Fasting”. It’s a great book to help you learn how to lower your blood sugar and your insulin.

C.    If you are a patient at our office, we’ve likely checked your blood sugar and insulin. If you have not had those checked, we could arrange for that testing.

6. There are some really important vitamins and supplements to help prevent and fight viruses in general. I believe that they should help with Corona virus as well.

A.     Vitamin C. By mouth it would be good to take 2,000 to 6,000mg twice per day. To some degree, more is better. But more can cause some loose stools. Back off on your dose if that is happening.

B.     Vitamin D. For most people baseline dosing would be about 5000U of D3. It is best to take it with vitamin K2. We’ve got a great product at the office called ADK5 which has 5000U of vitamin D3 and about 500mcg of vitamin K2 - a really good dose.

C.    Some vitamin A. If you are pregnant you want to be careful with vitamin A. And there is an occasional person who will get a bad headaches with large doses of vitamin A. But for most people 10,000 to 20,000U per day for a couple of months would be good. We’ve got a great liquid vitamin A at the office that has 10,000U/drop. This makes it quite easy - take 1 or 2 drops per day.

D.    Iodine works as an anti-viral. It has many other benefits. 12,500mcg or 25,000mcg per day is a great dose for most people. Take 1 or 2 pills of Iodoral or iThroid each day.

E.     Some form of Curcumin and Quercetin work as powerful, natural anti-inflammatories.

F.      Some other good support would include zinc, fish oil, and magnesium.

7. Sleep is critically important. Get to bed. Use melatonin, magnesium, CBD, phosphorylated serine (Seriphos), and other tools to improve your sleep. Keep your room cool, very dark, and quiet or slight white noise.

8. Hydrate. As we age, thirst lessens a lot! Drink a lot of water based on principle, not based on thirst. A good rule of thumb is to use your weight, divide by 2 and drink at least that many ounces of water per day. Thus a 128 pound woman (128/2 = 64) should drink at least 2 quarts of water per day (64 ounces).

9. If you are concerned and would like to either get some vitamin C IVs or be able to have the high dose IV therapy should you feel that you might be getting sick, it would be good to test for your G6PD status. At high doses vitamin C has an oxidizing effect (a good thing when you are trying to kill viruses), but people with low G6PD can’t handle high doses of vitamin C well. It’s a very rare issue. But I like to know where we stand before starting high dose vitamin C IVs. If you would like to be able to jump right in and get some vitamin C IVs should you get sick, we can order the G6PD test for you. Talk with our office staff and they’ll get you set up.

Conclusion

Nobody knows what’s actually going to happen with this Corona virus. But so far its impact is far far gentler on actual people than the annual flu, and certainly than the swine flu back in 2009/2010. And we’ll see where things are in a year or so, like it or not.

I don’t mean to criticize those who are in positions to make decisions (often tough decisions) on what to do. There are many pressures which none of us understand. And I’m sure they are doing their best to protect public health.

But are all the decisions based on factual science or is it because of another kind of pressure?

The best news in this whole thing is that we can actually do things to protect ourselves and make us both less likely to become sick, and if we do get sick, more likely to be able to effectively fight it.

God bless you all in this interesting, exciting and sometimes scary journey!