Wuhan – a blessing in disguise?

Some people will allege that Covid 19 is the result of ‘gain of function’ research at China’s germ warfare laboratory in Wuhan and point to the involvement of America’s EcoHealth Alliance in financing research there after Obama’s government put a stop to it in the US.  Others will point to plucky little bats - living in caves 800 miles from Wuhan.

What is sure, though, is that people worldwide now really get it about the immune system.  Sales of organic food and vitamins and supplements that strengthen immunity are booming.   Awareness of the fact that most people who are symptomatic or die of Covid have ‘comorbidities’ has sparked a wider understanding of how to stay healthy and shrug off this horrible mutation of the coronavirus, a virus we’ve known for centuries as the ‘common cold.’  People have always been getting colds, some get them worse than others and some rarely get colds at all.  Now many more people understand why.

The comorbidities that land you in hospital with Covid include obesity, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease and cancer.  If you don’t have one of those then the likelihood of Covid exposure giving you any symptoms is pretty low. You are certainly very unlikely to die of it.

What causes comorbidities?  The main factors are diet, exercise and environmental pollutants.  (plus booze and fags)

Sugar and refined cereals drive obesity and diabetes.  Now more people are reducing sugar and eating whole grains.

Hydrogenated fat and overeating cause heart disease.  Cardiovascular disease has dropped 60% in Denmark since 2002, when they led the world in banning hydrogenated fat, or trans fats, in food.  Denmark ranks 45 on the global list of Covid deaths per capita.  The USA and India were the last to ban hydrogenated fat, the US last year and India planning cuts next year.

A diversity of gut flora microorganisms helps resist the virus.  Overuse of antibiotics devastates the gut flora.  The NHS is now urging doctors to stop prescribing antibiotics for colds and flu. The mystery is why doctors ever did - they’re doctors, not pharmacists.

In 1948 the NHS envisioned centres all over the country educating people about healthy diet, exercise and preventive medicine.   The British Medical Association insisted that the first point of contact was with a General Practitioner, not some poncy ‘health centre.’  This was a victory for doctors and the pharmaceutical industry.   The ‘prevention versus cure’ debate has been going on ever since.

In the 1950s every Briton could get free cod liver oil and free concentrated orange juice.  This was because 70 years ago doctors still understood that if people had a high level of Vitamin D and Vitamin C they would be able to better resist colds and flu. This was probably the last official support of prevention as an alternative to medication.  Since the coronavirus pandemic numerous doctors and clinicians have started urging that getting people’s D and C levels up is a key preventive measure.  In January 2021 the NHS finally announced that free Vitamin D was available and urged people to get their D levels up,  This was 11 months after the pandemic hit and after the Government had wasted tens of billions on track and trace and lockdowns. In 2020 in the sunniest April and May in memory people were told not to go out in the Vitamin D-rich sunshine. 

The authorities are talking about ‘health passports’ to allow people who have been vaccinated to travel and go to the theatre.  How about health passports for people who have a robust immune system and are unlikely to get colds or flu?  It could be easy to do: just measure indicators of immune strength such as T Cells and Vitamin C, D and zinc levels.  Doctors and nurses should have that kind of health passport before they go to work in hospitals, to protect them and patients. If your immunity is good, skip the vaccination. If not, get the jab.

And maybe it’s time to stop all germ warfare research everywhere?  Just in case something could possibly go wrong?

Could we also please have ‘eco’ and ‘bio’ back?  The EcoHealth Alliance researches deadly viruses. ‘Biowarfare’ puts them to work. Not our thing at all.

Let bodily fluids and solids (and food) be thy medicine

Craig Sams imagines the health farms of the future where ‘super healthy’ humans are raised.

Until just over a decade ago the missus and I would go to Shrubland Hall Health Clinic up in Suffolk, where we’d enjoy vegetarian food, bracing country walks, massage, pilates and other healthful activities and return refreshed and invigorated. They closed in 2006 and more recently we go to Amchara in Somerset, which offers a vegetable juice fast, yoga, massage and colonics. Amchara are big on probiotics, which you have, with psyllium, with every liquid ‘meal.’ Their therapy is designed to break your bad dietary habits and restore your gut flora. But is this enough? What if your gut flora are too degraded to be restored? What if candida or other ‘bad bugs’ are in control? What if the ‘good bugs’ have been wiped out and can’t re-establish?

The average kid has 17 courses of antibiotics before they reach maturity. Doctors carelessly prescribe them to adults too for minor problems like runny noses or tummyache, problems that could be cured by a day or two of bed rest or fasting. Antibiotics destroy your gut flora. So do steroids, some vaccines, stress, alcohol and low fibre diet. The resulting gut dysbiosis is associated with colitis, IBS, multiple sclerosis,autism,anorexia, depression, OCD, migraines and Parkinson’s disease.

A particular dangerous side effect of taking antibiotics is Clostridium difficile. It’s a disease that was practically unknown until the advent of antibiotics. Now 30,000 Americans a year die from it and about 5000 in the UK. Clostridium takes over your gut flora after the 10,000 different bacteria, fungi and archaea in your gut are wiped out by a dose of antibiotics. Some of the good bugs survive, mainly by hiding in your appendix until the antibiotics are stopped. Then they can try to combat the Clostridium. If they fail the triumphant Clostridium leads to diarrhea, abdominal pain and in about 6% of cases, death. The conventional cure is more and stronger antibiotics. This works in about 25% of the cases but has a 50% relapse rate. There is another cure that has a 90% success rate, though. That’s faecal transplantation, also known as stool transplantation. It works for colitis, IBS, candida and other gut diseases, not just Clostridium. Only one hospital in Britain offers it as it’s a bit complicated. First you have to find a ‘donor.’ This is a person who has a completely healthy gut flora with no traces of infectious diseases such as AIDS or malaria. These aren’t easy to find. What’s more, faecal transplantation is a messier business than popping pills. A typical treatment programme would require 10 days of daily transplantation. But when it is done properly it can prevent a lifetime of misery and pain.

What about other person-to-person transfers from the healthy to the unwell? At the Society for Neuroscience convention in November 2016 researchers reported on trials that show an injection of blood from a young healthy person can reverse Alzheimer’s and senile dementia, improve cognition and strengthen the heart and liver.

“Could the health farms of the future be real farms? Farms where the farmer is raising healthy humans? What a lovely way to make a living if you’re the one being farmed”

Could the health farms of the future be real farms? Farms where the farmer is raising healthy humans? What a lovely way to make a living if you’re the one being farmed. All you have to do is live in a stress-free and happy environment, eat a balanced diet of organic food, avoid antibiotics, alcohol and risky sex and earn your living by providing a ‘donation’ 2 or 3 times a day. Sure beats mining coal or driving a mini cab.

Imagine: “Welcome to Poucura Health Clinic, Mrs. Jones. We have diagnosed your problem and advise that your donor is Marlene, an extremely fit young woman who has a 100% success rate in curing Clostridium difficile in her donatees. You will stay with us for 10 days and have 2 treatments a day. If you are having forgetfulness issues (we note that you are in your mid 60s and missed an earlier appointment) we can also provide you with a memory-enhancing transfusion from Arthur, whose IQ of 155 reflects his mental acuity. Your diet during your stay will include high-fibre foods, probiotics and inulin to help accelerate the repopulation of your gut with immune-boosting flora.”

Exchanging bodily fluids has been a big no-no and the years of AIDS have made everyone even more cautious. But the war against diseases of modern diet is being lost and doctors are running out of weapons. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said “all disease begins in the gut, ” adding “let food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.” To fast track this we can pay people to be really healthy and then let their bodily fluids and solids be our medicine, along with food. Cures like this only last if they are followed by lifestyle changes. But it’s a lot easier to change your lifestyle when the gut flora that are telling your brain what to eat are the good ones that are always urging healthy choices.

Soil and Gut

Q, What's the functional difference between a carrot and an intestine?

A.  Nothing.

One is the mirror image of the other.  One is outward looking and the other is inward looking but they do the same things.  The parallels between how we eat to sustain good health in your bodies and how we farm to sustain good health in the body of the earth have never been so clear.   The digestive system is just a root turned inside out, but the functions are the same.

When you grow organically you are supporting a system of food production that is biological, using the marvelous intelligence of the trillions of microorganisms in the soil - when you eat organic whole foods you're supporting a system of food digestion that is biological, using the marvelous intelligence of trillions of microorganisms in your gut.

When we eat food it becomes soil-when we grow in soil it becomes food. 

Plants consume sun energy, carbon dioxide and water to make carbohydrate-we consume carbohydrate and to make energy, carbon dioxide and water. 

Soil is comprised of ‘soil biota,’ trillions of microorganisms that digest every bit of nutrient that comes their way- our gut is composed of 'gut biota,’ trillions of microorganisms that digest every bit of nutrient that come their way.

The soil microbes do 'transmutation' - they are little chemical factories that can convert stuff into other stuff – the nutrients that make plants healthy.  Our gut microbes transmute our food into whatever our bodies need, including manufacturing stuff like vitamins such as B2, B12 or C and essential minerals from the raw materials of the food we eat.

When we put chemical fertilisers on the soil plants that are making the carbohydrates that feed the soil microbiota stop sending them down.  Why should they?  The farmer is giving the plants soluble nutrients for free.  So the microorganisms that nourish the plant and defend it from disease are exterminated by disease-causing bacteria and fungi that attack the plant.  The resulting disease can be controlled with toxic pesticides, which end up in our food, but the soil sickens and cannot support healthy plant growth anymore. 

When we put excessive junk food and sugar into our digestive systems the microorganisms in our gut are not needed and die off or are exterminated by fungi like candida.   The result is that the microorganisms that support our immune system no longer support health and vitality.   The resulting disease can be controlled with toxic medications, which end up in our bodies,  but the gut sickens and cannot support health any more. 

The only real difference between a carrot and the gut is the that carrot looks outwards, sending its root hairs away from the carrot to collaborate with the friendly microorganisms and the food and immunity they bring.  The gut looks inwards, sending its root hairs into the intestine to collaborate with the friendly microorganisms and the food and immunity they bring. 

Not farming organically is shortsighted - you waste precious living soil microbiota in order to get temporary crop yield increases that leave you with degraded sickened soil that can't support healthy life and is dependent on drugs like fertilisers and biocides.   Not eating healthily and organically is shortsighted - you waste your precious living gut microbota to get temporary energy increases that leave you with a degraded, sickened digestive system that can't support healthy life and is dependent on drugs and antibiotics.

When you add charcoal to soil it helps protect the microbes in the soil from dying off so they can cure soil degradation and plant disease.   When you add charcoal to your diet it helps protect the microbes in the gut from dying off, curing gut degradation and disease.

A healthy soil is full of mucus, a sticky substance called glomalin that holds the soil particles together to ensure that nutrients and soil microbes all stay happily in the upper layers of soil

A healthy gut is full of mucus - sticky material made by gut flora that helps ensure that nutrients and gut microbes stay happily in the upper layers of the gut lining. 

The parallels go on. Whether you grow organically or eat organically, you are following the road of biology.  When you don't you're following the road of chemistry and drugs.  Chemistry creates addictive behaviour.  We have to kick the habit, in growing and in eating.  

 (Craig Sams will elaborate on these parallels at NOPE.  He will discuss the implications and opportunities of this emerging awareness for vitamin and supplement manufacturers, natural food processors and growers and farmers)