Health: A Fuller View of Natural Anti-Infectives

To Prevent and Defeat Infections

I see two ways to use natural anti-infectives to ward off infections: [Last Updated August 28,2022, edited 8-26-23]

1.  Immediate use upon onset of symptoms (details below)

Learning from two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, and from Jerry Hickey of Invitehealth, I have found vitamin C and nucleotides to be very effective to ward off colds and the flu when used this way.  Reportedly helpful: extra zinc, extra vitamin A, extra NAC+selenium+alpha lipoic acid and/or glutathione. 

2.  General background health (also details below)

Vitamins A, C, D, green tea extract, NAC, selenium, alpha lipoic acid, zinc, zinc ionophores, probiotics, etc. arm the body’s own systems to fight infections (the “complementary” approach, adding what is missing and the body needs, as opposed to the FDA’s allopathic model, which employs drugs—selective poisons—to fight the infection directly, and is too costly for unpatentable drugs or off-label drug-use to get FDA approval).  

[Author’s note: The following was written in August, 2020, to collect and organize all the information I was gathering. It has very minor editing changes to clarify the time frame, and it has a few update notes in the Addenda at the end.] 

Vitamin D3

For general health reasons, for the past 15 years I have been taking enough vitamin D3 to get blood-test readings of around 50 to 60, the “sweet spot.”  

After Covid-19 began, a number of reports emerged on vitamin D’s immune benefits.  (In checking my many nutrition books, I find J. I. Rodale in 1962 and Dr. Robert Atkins in1998 wrote that Vitamin D is good for the immune system, though neither emphasized it.  Adele Davis in 1954 wrote that she took 5,000 IU daily to avoid bone fractures.)

Supplements to get to 50 probably range from 3,000 IU to 10,000 IU, 5,000 IU being the most preferred, absent blood tests. I use liquid D drops (“Drop of Sunshine” by Nature’s Live, available from Swanson Vitamins).

Howard Benedikt, DC, who teaches and practices nutrition in addition to chiropractic, told me that vitamin D supplements can take months to get blood levels up to 50, depending on the person.

Vitamin D added to foods may not be ideal.  It can be D2, not D3.  And vitamin D is fat soluble, so low-fat or non-fat milk won’t work; and then the calcium in such milk, or added to orange juice, won’t be absorbed much.

Sidebar: Vitamin K2 with Vitamin D3

Vitamin K2 is needed to guide minerals to where they belong, instead of calcifying blood vessels, for example.  I use Life Extension’s Super K.  It’s a high dose, so I take it one every 2nd day, though Life Extension reports that the high dose doesn’t cause problems; except when warfarin blood thinner is used; and vitamin K2 has been shown to reduce arterial stiffness caused by calcium deposits.

https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2017/11/vitamin-k-and-arterial-stiffness

https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2019/6/enhancing-benefits-of-vitamin-k

Sidebar: Magnesium with Vitamin D3

Magnesium is needed to convert the blood-test version of vitamin D into the active form; done in the kidneys especially (Source: Jerry Hickey.  He replies to questions at jhickey@invitehealth.com . Based on my own 50 years of experience of reading very widely, and of trial and error, I know he is well versed in extensive global research. He cites current research papers in his broadcasts, available at that website, plus lots of informative podcasts).  So people with subpar kidney function might need to take more vitamin D3, and more magnesium.  

The general daily recommendation varies, somewhere around 400 mg. of magnesium, along with 1000 mg. of calcium.  Some recommend 1000 mg. magnesium daily because it is involved in hundreds of body functions.  And most of that likely needs to come from supplements, since its hard to get that much magnesium from the diet, unlike calcium in dairy products.

Magnesium citrate supplements will tend to loosen bowels.  Magnesium glycinate does not.  Magnesium taurate is good for the heart.  I take all three forms.  I also mix vitamin C powder with magnesium oxide powder to buffer the C (slow acting reaction), or for faster reaction, a powder of calcium, magnesium, and potassium carbonates ("Tri-Salts” from Ecological Formulas, from Swanson).  NOW products offers vitamin C powder buffered with magnesium.  Unless buffered with an amino acid (glycinate, taurate), magnesium will tend to loosen bowels; calcium will tighten them.  I seek to get 1,000 mg. of both Mg and Ca,   My calcium comes mostly from whole-milk, organic yogurt.

Sidebar: Vitamin A with Vitamin D3

From the Weston A. Price Foundation, I learned that vitamin A works closely with vitamin D, in the ratio of 10 A IU to 1 D3 IU, as is found in good—not all brands of—cod liver oil. (Dr. Price traveled around the world in the 1930s and reported that peoples who ate traditional diets were much healthier than people who ate Western, refined-carb diets.)  Rodale cited research that vitamin A preserves the integrity of cells in mucous membranes, and allows for them to replicate.  Large doses of VA at the very onset of infections were often used by that school of nutrition.  Zinc works closely with vitamin A to strenthen those mucous cells.  Atkins recommended therapeutic doses—taken immediately upon onset of symptoms—of fully formed VA in the range of 40,000 IU to 80,000 IUs, with similar or higher amounts of natural beta carotene, for several days (too short to risk overdose).  I haven’t noticed an antiviral effect with them, but "for good measure" I use Carlson's vitamin A from fish oils in small soft gels, and “Carotavite” or Solaray’s “Food Carotene.”  I also take a teaspoon of unflavored cod liver oil by Sonne’s #5, or Twinlabs.  They have a neutral taste, which indicates to me that they were quickly and well bottled, and therefore of  high quality, by not allowing time for their omega3 oils (EFA and DHA) to degenerate in any significant way.  Both also provide good amounts of vitamins A and D in 10 to 1 rations.  All are available from Swanson.

Food-based Anti-Oxidants Arm White Blood Cells

White blood cells attack a virus within minutes to hours of the infection starting. Macrophages stay “in place.”  Neutrophils travel to the site of infection.  They employ toxic chemicals (H2O2 for example) to destroy the virus or dead cell. Without ample antioxidants to neutralize the free radicals that result, the white blood cells die, and the infection grows. Vitamin C and zinc protect the neutrophils and are needed for them to travel to the site(s) of infection; see “glutathione” below.  (Source: Hickey)  

After about three days, “natural killer cells,” aka NK cells, attack the infection—if needed.  That is, some people get only slight, brief symptoms relieved by sleeping a lot for a day or two, long before antibodies form.  And, I have often forestalled a cold or the flu within 12 hours by rapidly increasing vitamin C (see below). 

Eventually, antibodies begin to form after seven to 14 days—if needed.  That is:

Reports are that the number of infections of the SARS-CoV-2 virus outnumber the reported cases by a factor in the range of 10 to 1.  I infer that the unreported infections were asymptomatic or relatively mild.  Eg. (7-21-20):

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2768834?guestAccessKey=7a5c32e6-3c27-41b3-b46c-43c4a38bbe00&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=072120#related-tab

A report from National Geographic says that two-thirds of close contacts who remained asymptomatic showed a subsequent memory T cell response even though tests didn’t detect any antibodies (8-7-20).

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/antibodies-not-only-key-to-beating-coronavirus-cvd/

I recall reading a report like that weeks ago, probably in the Wall Street Journal.  And I have read that NK cells can be active in creating memories of infections too.   

This means to me that a large number of people have fought off the novel coronavirus before or without forming antibodies.   I think it speaks volumes about the primacy of the right nutrition.

Vitamin C 

Linus Pauling recommended taking 1 gram of vitamin C per waking hour immediately once symptoms begin, continue until the illness feels completely over, then taper dose down 15% per day to avoid a rebound effect. If loose bowels result, you are getting more than you need, so reduce and resume.  This works well for me, usually within 12 hours.  He also recommended taking 12 grams of vitamin C daily, spread out over waking hours (or less if loose bowels result).  Personal needs vary enormously, between people, and as stresses vary in a person.   Doing this, I have successfully avoided or fought off colds and the flu since the early 1970s.

In citrus foods, bioflavonoids are said to be ten times as prevalent as vitamin C.  They used to be called vitamin P, as in “pulp.”  They help in ways that ascorbic acid does not; and they augment vitamin C.  Some people observe that when British sailors began to eat limes to ward off scurvy, they ate all the edible lime—juice and pulp.

Nucleotides: Building blocks of DNA and RNA

In recent years I have found that my allergies eat up so much of my vitamin C, which is also an antihistamine, that my usual doses of vitamin C were less effective in thwarting a virus, judging by the subtle ways that colds/flu feel different from my allergies.  Then, in addition to vitamin C, Invite Health’s nucleotides stopped my incipient cold within 12 to 24 hours—as Hickey recommended in his broadcasts:  6 capsules twice daily for two to three days—effectively a bottle of the product.   

Nucleotides are needed in replacing rapidly used-up cells, such as in the intestines and immune-related cells during an infection.  

I have read that sardines are rich in nucleotides, but I can’t stomach canned sardines.

Probiotics 

In the last 10 years or so, research into GI bacteria has grown enormously.  It shows that “good bacteria,” so-called probiotics, contribute greatly to many or all aspects of our health. In particular, specific probiotic bacteria have been found to strengthen the immune system generally; and to protect against GI as well as respiratory infections.  

Lacto-fermented foods with live cultures, such as organic yogurts and sauerkraut, are good sources of probiotics for the mouth and esophagus; and they gradually build up lower down.  Look for yogurts that list Lactobacillus acidophilus among the live cultures present, because it lasts longer in the GI tract (Carlton Fredericks broadcast, 1970s).

Good foods for probiotics—“prebiotics”—include the fibers in fruits and vegetables, and short-chain and medium-chain fatty acids such as from coconut oil and modest amounts from butter.     

I use InviteHealth’s probiotics for intestinal health Probiotic Hx. I am confident they deliver the strengths on the label after an indeterminate time on shelves, because of high-tech capsules.  And Jerry Hickey tells of the many benefits of the particular bacteria he uses.

 His probiotics have cut my need for sleep/bedrest by 1/2 hours (from 12 hr to 11.5 hr).  [Addendum April, 2022: Some respectable, lower-price brands are now saying they deliver the label’s stated strength until the expiration date, and don’t need refrigeration.]

As people age, their NK and other disease-fighting white blood cells grow quiescent, less active.  The probiotic strain Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BS01 (Microbac™) in Probiotic Hx has been shown to revitalize those white blood cells (Hickey).  That could be life-saving, it seems to me.  Melatonin and lactoferrin also have been found to revitalize those white blood cells (Sources: Hickey, Life Extension, respectively). 

Glutathione and/or NAC+Selenium to make Glutathione

Glutathione is one of the “master” antioxidants.  It is key for the liver to neutralize toxins. Logic says that it will also protect white blood cells that attack viruses, as vitamin C does.  

Jerry Hickey tells of one case where 2 to 3 grams of glutathione administered by a son (presumably via injection) to his rapidly failing mother restored her from Covid-19 in a matter of hours and she didn’t relapse thereafter.  Hickey recommends it strongly.

Little glutathione, if any, is in the diet, but the body makes it from precursors in foods. Most notable of these are cysteine, an—essential—sulphur-containing amino acid, most commonly found in animal foods, and the mineral selenium, which can be lacking in soils. Since cysteine is commonly thought to be the limiting factor in the creation of glutathione, supplements containing cysteine are usually recommended (especially for those who shun animal products).  

Cysteine cannot be safely administered itself, but can be in the form of NAC (N-acetyl-cysteine), 600 mg at least three times daily.  And NAC itself is very good for lung health.

Glutathione capsules should ideally be taken one hour before or two hours after eating protein, so that makes NAC much more convenient, as well as useful for the lungs.

For Selenium, 200 mcg. daily is the general recommendation.

Also, alpha lipoic acid is an anti-oxidant that is both water and fat soluble, and Dr. Atkins lists it too in helping create glutathione.

Zinc + Zinc Ionophores

I found the attached research papers in mid to late February of 2020, after I heard of promising results from China.  They show:
            1.  When zinc ions get into a cell, in vitro, they inhibit SARS and other RNA viruses’ replication (including influenza and polio) (2010).
            2.  Zinc ionophores carry zinc ions into human cells, and EGCG from green tea, and the bioflavonoid quercetin, are zinc ionophores (2014). The paper proposes that many polyphenols from fruits and vegetables are zinc ionophores.  Other research papers confirm it.

            3.  Chlorolquine and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ] are zinc ionophores (2014).

Of course, the above research results are not tests in human beings.  Yet despite harsh opposition from the medical establishment, prominent, esteemed doctors who actually treat Covid-19 patients have praised HCQ with zinc when used early in onset, or as prophylactic, as befitting stopping an avalanche before it starts.  

The reports of HCQ’s “failures” amount to using it incorrectly: too late, too high a dose of it or of chloroquine; no zinc; etc.

Happily, foods provide zinc ionophores without the need for prescription drugs; even relatively safe ones like HCQ must be used under a doctor’s care because of potential side-effects.  

The pertinent question that the FDA-style model won’t answer:  the strengths of various food-based ionophores relative to HCQ.  

Still, foods that contain zinc ionophores act in many ways to promote health and resistance to infection.  That’s good news.  

I use Life Extension’s green tea extract.  Organic green tea is good too.  When swished around in the mouth, it interferes with some virus’s ability to enter cells (Jerry Hickey).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21079686/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25050823/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25271834/

Zinc

Zinc is involved in many health aspects besides immunity.  

Absorption declines with age, so supplements are probably a good idea; proposed ranges are 30 mg to 100 mg.  I take it chelated with amino acids or gluconate or citrate.  Some say the picolinate form is most bioavailable, but one study showed that while it is most absorbed, it is also most excreted. I have used it too for a particular allergic reaction that exhausts my zinc supplies, and it seems to help a lot but maybe no better than the others.

A zinc supplement should be taken with food, for it can upset an empty stomach.  

If zinc is taken in the higher amounts over long periods of time, some copper supplement should be taken too, for they compete for absorption; manganese too (to avoid typo misreading: Mn not Mg).  What’s “long?”  I expect it is far longer than taking the 220 mg. of zinc sulfate (50 mg zinc), which seems to be what doctors are using, for the course of an infection.  Atkins recommends copper sebacate if a supplement is wanted; being organic, it is much safer than inorganic copper. In the higher doses, when taken regularly, Atkins recommends the ratios: 100 mg zinc to 10 mg copper; 100 mg zinc to 40 mg manganese.

Good food sources of zinc include red meat, eggs, dairy, fish, poultry, and, of course, oysters.

Other nutrients that prime the immune system

High-quality protein:  Complete protein (containing all essential amino acids) found in unprocessed animal foods (not protein bars or powders, not processed meats, etc., because the amino acids are complex 3-dimensional structures that are damaged in processing).  It is needed to build new immune system cells, and a lot more.  (Sources: Jerry Hickey and Weston A. Price Foundation)

Also: aged garlic, olive leaf extract, grape seed extract, melatonin (revives NK cells when they have become senescent—Hickey), vitamins E (eight forms), pigments in fruits and vegetables.

What Hurts the immune system   

Excess sugar and alcohol weaken the immune system.  So does Roundup/glyphosate pesticide. 

Glyphosate kills good bacteria in the digestive tract (WestonAPrice.org). This is doubly harmful because—according to a burgeoning area of research—good bacteria participate powerfully in our health.  Their absence both removes the good they do and allows bad, disease causing bacteria and yeasts to grow, facts ignored by the FDA and USDA, which look at glyphosate’s effects only on human cells.  

The major GMO products with glyphosate are (to my knowledge) corn, soybeans, sugar beets, cotton, and canola.  

 Also, glyphosate is applied before harvesting grains because it is a desiccant, reducing harvesting costs and time.  So “Non-GMO” isn’t good enough for wheat, sugar cane, and other grains.  It is reportedly absorbed primarily through leaves; little through roots.  So I assume most fruits and vegetables won’t have glyphosate applied to them, or won’t absorb much when it is applied to the ground to kill weeds.  Yet glyphosate is so widespread, and travels through the air, that it has been found in small quantities even in “organic” foods; just much, much less than in the GMO crops.

Serious questions have been raised too about animals fed on GMO crops, but I’m not “paranoid” about them, just careful to find organic meats when I can get them.  And select organic eggs, yogurt, beef, chicken, and turkey available to us taste much better.

Last (here) but not least

Moderate-to-low-carb and low-refined-carb diets reduce obesity, a huge risk factor for Covid-19. Again, this fact is ignored or opposed by the multi-billion-dollar FDA/prescription-drug model of medicine and fast-food business (Nina Teicholz, WSJ, C5, 5/30-31/20; Robert C. Atkins MD;  WestonAPrice.org;  Price-Pottenger.org; Carlton Fredericks; among many others).  I take frequent, small snacks to stabilize blood sugar, thereby avoiding the roller coaster of sugar highs and sugar lows (aka “the shakes,” resulting in binge eating, starting the cycle all over again).

My most useful current information comes from Jerry Hickey’s radio and web broadcasts, Life Extension Magazine, consultations with Dr. Benedikt, and the Weston A. Price Foundation's quarterly magazine.  Prior to that, Robert A. Atkins’ Dr. Atkins’ Vitanutrient Solution was—and remains—enormously informative, as well as his diet books except the last, posthumous one.  Earlier: Linus Pauling, Carlton Fredericks, Robert Rodale’s magazine Prevention (not the current version), and Adele Davis.  Along the way, Atkins and Fredericks broadcasted interviews with many doctors and researchers from whom I learned and whose books I often bought and read.  

All along the way of my learning, via trial and error, I could see what worked for me and what didn’t; what later was adopted by orthodox medicine, such as turning against trans fats, 20 to 30 years after Carlton Fredericks warned about them.  Over 35 different supplements and foods had night/day good effects with me; tried more than once; many more had no effect; a few had bad effects (though nowhere near as bad as some blood pressure drugs and flu shots)—all thus self-placebo controlled. That is, results often differed from what I hoped for or expected, even when beneficial: not the “placebo effect,” not just wishful thinking.

For the longest time I just thought that the medical establishment was slow to pick up on new research (Ignes Semmelweis’ condition being the horrid example; “not invented here” syndrome being another), but because of this pandemic, I realize more clearly that it is also based on the FDA model, implemented and enforced by law.  Since costs to get FDA approval now average $2.9+ billion (based on a web search), unpatentable nutrients and off-label drug-uses just don’t get FDA approval, unless a huge groundswell emerges for any of them.  And several corruptions flow from that—power corrupts, etc.

Addenda, February, 2022

I have learned from Life Extension that lactoferrin revitalizes Natural Killer cells that have gone dormant in older people (this note was just now inserted in the probiotic section). Lactoferrin can be gotten as a capsule.  Colostrum, in capsule form, contains lactoferrin also, plus various anti-bodies and healing factors.

And it’s worth repeating, for emphasis, that melatonin and the probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BS01 (Microbac™) also revitalize NK cells.

I’m pretty sure that I just recently heard Jerry Hickey comment that the factors that revitalize NK cells also revitalize the first-line defenders such as neutrophils and macrophages. Certainly, some of the research papers I have just read go to that point, though vaguely.

May, 2022

Re: Cod Liver Oil: Sonne’s #5 unflavored cod liver oil has been unavailable for several months. TwinLab unflavored Norwegian cod liver oil is an acceptable replacement: little or no taste, adequate amounts and good balance of vitamins A and D, and omega 3s (EPA and DHA). Some people recommend fermented cod liver oil (try Weston A. Price Foundation and Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation for more info), but the first one I tried had an awful taste; not rancid, as the vendor correctly stated, but like bad butter or ginkgo fruit. That is, the triglyceride fat molecule containing butyric acid had begun to break down, releasing individual molecules of butyric acid, and it is those that stink. (Each dietary fat is composed of a triglyceride. It looks like the letter E with all three horizontal lines being equal. Glycerine forms the vertical line, and the three horizontal lines are formed by the same fatty acid.)

Re: Vitamins A and D: Authorities have decreed that these vitamins should be labeled in milligrams, not International Units. I’ve kept with IUs because the ratio of ten to one is easily seen at a glance. So far, labels usually show both.

August 28, 2022

Mushrooms have gotten a lot of attention in recent years for their ability to put the innate (“border guard”) immune system on alert for detecting and fighting viruses from the very start of the infection.

Beta-glucans are the most-studied mushroom ingredients, with different types having varying abilities to fight off infections.

For people allergic to mushrooms, yeasts, molds, etc. (as I am), InviteHealth has a beta-glucan supplement extract derived from algae, called Beta Immunity, and its website offers a discussion of it. I tried it and have no problems with it. Thank you Jerry Hickey!

Here’s an extensive but readable report: “Medicinal Mushrooms Going Viral,” from the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.

It notes that different mushrooms have different abilities. And the author emphasizes the role of mushrooms in activating Natural Killer cells (NK cells) at the earliest stage. Jerry Hickey at InviteHealth talked about the roles of neutrophils and macrophages at the earliest stages, with NK cells becoming dominant only after about three days. Perhaps NK cells start early, but need a few days to build up to effective volume.

Life Extension has several magazine articles on mushrooms, all free. Here’s the website. You can click on the entries for [supplement] products and for news. LE’s supplements feature extracts.

Other manufacturers also offer supplements.

Here are search results for Swanson Vitamins, featuring extracts. If you want powdered mushrooms, search for “mushrooms.”

iHerb offers a mixture of powder and extract in the same search.