There is a lot of information out there about how to prevent and treat viral infections. Let’s take some time to review our choices.
ANTIBIOTICS
First things first. Antibiotics treat bacterial infections but have no effect on viral infections. Americans often like to be “treated”, so they often ask their docs for antibiotics (penicillin, tetracycline, amoxycillin, etc.); but these chemicals only work to kill the plant-like organisms that we call bacteria. They don’t do anything to attack viruses. Taking antibiotics without an infection is a bad idea. If you do have any bacteria in your system, you may be selecting for antibiotic-resistance mutations.
If there are no antibiotics that can kill viruses, are there other drugs that do? These other drugs are grouped widely under the term “antivirals”.
There are a limited number of antiviral drugs. They generally are quite specific to a particular virus, have only limited success, and need to be administered very early in an infection.
THEN, WHAT ABOUT “NATURAL” CURES?
When looking at natural treatments we need to first define what we mean by “natural”. The general consensus definition for scientists is “natural” means existing in or caused by nature, not made or caused by mankind.
So, logically herbs and plants that grow on earth would be natural, but chemicals produced by synthesis would not.
Our inclinations are to believe that if a plant grows in nature, that it is safe, and if it has been used by societies as folk-cures, that they should be considered for our own use.
Unfortunately, the data is spotty at best. Just because a plant grows near us, it does not mean that it is safe to eat, drink, or rub on our bodies.
Teas can be nutritious, or they can be intoxicating. Socrates, having been convicted of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens, died by drinking a broth from hemlock plants.
We can breathe in the smoke from burning plants like tobacco, sage, or marijuana.
Be careful around Foxglove, the seeds and plant parts can slow your heart and kill you. Same with Mistletoe; it may be fun to hang at Xmas, but the berries will give you diarrhea and may stop your heart.
WHAT ABOUT VITAMINS AND MINERALS
A vitamin is a chemical that your body needs but is unable to make itself. Therefore, we need to eat foods that contain these chemicals.
Minerals are elements that the body needs, and because they are elements, they cannot be made, they have to be ingested. Examples of minerals that we need every day include:
Calcium and Phosphorus for building bones and teeth.
Magnesium, Potassium, Chloride and Sodium for muscle and nerve function and for regulating blood sugar and blood pressure.
Sulfur, which is a component of almost all proteins.
Iron for transporting oxygen in the blood.
Iodine for the thyroid.
Zinc, Copper, Selenium, and Manganese for other functions.
Keeping our health up will help our bodies fight diseases, but even the most healthy and fit individuals still are susceptible to viruses and bacterial infections.
There is no scientific process that could be called “strengthening” your immune system. This is just marketing jargon.
CAN VITAMINS AND MINERALS HELP US FIGHT DISEASE?
In the 17th and 18th century it was common for sailors on long journeys to develop a disease called Scurvy. Scurvy results in leg and joint pain, bleeding gums, bleeding skin sores, and can result in death.
In 1747 a Scottish physician, Dr. James Lind demonstrated that consuming citrus fruits could prevent and cure Scurvy. We now know that this is because those fruits contain Vitamin C. The British Navy adopted this discovery and provided limes and lemons for the sailors. This prevented scurvy and led to the nickname “Limeys”. The German Navy soon followed, using pickled cabbage as their source of Vitamin C. The use of sauerkraut in the German navy led to the nickname “Krauts”.
The disease, scurvy is a disease CAUSED by the lack of vitamin C. It is not a disease contracted from the environment cured by Vitamin C
Linus Pauling won two Nobel prizes, one in Chemistry and one in Peace. He championed the use of Vitamin C to fight the common cold and cancer. He recommended taking large daily doses of Vitamin C daily to fight viruses and large doses intravenously to fight cancer. The scientific community researched these potential benefits in large studies, but unfortunately none of those studies provided strong evidence of benefits from large doses of Vitamin C, but did find that very high doses of Vitamin C can cause other health problems like kidney stones.
The claims of benefits from Vitamin C come from its actions as an “antioxidant”. Antioxidants fight off “free radicals”, a type of chemical that has been associated with cancer and other diseases. But researchers found that in large doses, Vitamin C can become a Pro-oxidant, which can have the opposite effects of the benefits of antioxidants.
So, Vitamin C, although critical for maintaining health, does not seem to have a real benefit for treating any diseases in particular.
Here is an interesting question: “Is the Vitamin C that you purchase in pill form “natural”?”. Vitamin C exists in fruits and vegetables, but when you purchase Vitamin C as a supplement, it is not purified from those plants, it is actually chemically, synthetically, manufactured. The chemical form, called ascorbic acid is made in a factory. Therefore, although the chemical Vitamin C is a naturally occurring molecule, the pill you take is man-made. I am not sure that it is proper to call these pills “natural”.
Some other plant products that may have potential antiviral properties include:
Ginger. A substance in fresh ginger, but not dried ginger has been shown to have some protective effects against viral infection. Drying apparently destroys the active substance.
Garlic: Garlic has some compounds in it that have been shown to protect against some viral infections.
Oregano: There are hints in studies that oil from the oregano plant may have some antiviral activity against some viruses, but the studies are not conclusive.
There are many other herbs and spices that have been sold as potential antiviral agents, but there is very little supporting research to show positive effects.
These include things like Ginseng, Echinacea, and Sage.
One of the issues with plant extracts, oils and dried preparations, is that every time you do something to a plant – heat it, dry it, squeeze it, boil it - the chemicals in the plant change. So, each preparation needs to be studied independently. Even if there are some effects seen in one preparation, they might not exist in all forms of the supplement.
Also, different crops of the same plant may have different amounts of the active chemical, and there is little if any standardization in the nutraceutical business. So, different jars of the same supplement may have very different amounts of the desired chemical.
Another issue is that these plants have hundreds of chemical compounds within them, and although some may have effects that you want, others may have effects that you don’t want.
SUPERFOODS
One of the other common buzzwords today is “superfood”. This is a term marketers use to describe things like blueberries, goji berries, acai, and others. These products may have larger concentrations of some chemicals than others, but there really is no truth in categorizing them differently from other fruits and vegetables.
THE HUMAN IMMUNE SYSTEM
The best way for your body to fight off a viral infection is with your immune system. The immune system is extremely robust and fights off viruses before they infect you, after they infect cells, and during reproduction in your body.
We have talked often about how the system works. It DOES NOT create antibodies against a virus when it sees it. It produces millions of different antibodies in advance, randomly, with different binding sites that can recognize millions of different things. When an antibody which had already been created randomly, runs into something that it can bind to, it triggers a sequence of events that results in a strong reaction to that thing.
Consider Jane and Tammy, twin sisters. Each of them has developed a robust immune repertoire of randomly created antibody specificities. One day, the sisters are walking through a meadow. They rub-up against a number of plants in that meadow. Now, one of those plants has an oil, and when that oil rubs onto the skin of Jane, her immune system has some antibodies that see that oil and can bind to it. That triggers the system to develop a waiting immune response to that oil in the future. Tammy’s immune system does not have any antibodies that recognize that oil, because her immune repertoire developed independently from her twin sister’s.
A few weeks later, the twins walk through the same meadow. This time when they rub against that same plant, Jane’s immune system reacts, and she develops a very itchy rash on her skin where the oil was. Tammy does not. You may have guessed that the plant is poison ivy.
Jane did not get any poison ivy rash the first time, because she had not seen it before and her immune system had not been activated. The second time she touched the plant, the immune system kicked in and she developed a rash. Tammy didn’t because her immune system did not recognize the poison ivy oil.
That is how the immune system works. It has to be “primed” by seeing the foreign object first before it can mount an immune response. And if your system does not have the ability to recognize the foreign object, you will have no reaction or protection.
In order to best protect you from a foreign virus, we need to “prime” your immune system, so, we expose it to that foreign virus BEFORE you see it in your environment. Usually, we do this by growing the virus in eggs and then either killing it or allowing it to mutate so that it is no longer dangerous or infectious. We then take these grown viruses and use them to expose your immune system to them, stimulating your own immune system to be able to protect you from infection.
The preparations consist of natural products, viruses that exist in nature. The preparations contain either killed virus or variants of the virus that no longer cause disease.
We call this “immunization”, and we call the material that we use to expose you, a “vaccine”. The exposure uses naturally occurring material, grown in naturally produced eggs.
The cleanest, simplest, least contaminated and most “natural” way to fight viral diseases is to vaccinate in advance of exposure to that viral disease.