{"id":157521,"date":"2020-04-06T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=157521"},"modified":"2020-12-02T10:19:23","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T10:19:23","slug":"dont-just-avoid-the-virus-defeat-it-by-strengthening-your-immunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/04\/dont-just-avoid-the-virus-defeat-it-by-strengthening-your-immunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Just Avoid the Virus \u2014 Defeat It by Strengthening Your Immunity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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30 Mar 2020 – Simple, science-based steps to boost your immunity can help prevent or moderate infection \u2014 including challenging the conventional wisdom about Vitamin C<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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W<\/span>hy do most people who catch the new virus have mild symptoms and some have none, while others, chiefly the old and sick, develop fatal pneumonias? Because people differ in \u201cimmune competence\u201d \u2014 their ability to fend off and overcome infection. Proven methods can strengthen that ability. Yet amid debates about how quickly and strictly we must keep apart and stay home, this powerful complement to avoiding exposure and treating infection is being largely ignored. We\u2019re striving to keep the virus away from people and cure them if they get sick, but without also strengthening our natural defenses. This is a serious omission, and you can help fix it.<\/p>\n

Isolation, distancing, handwashing \u2014 all the effective ways to avoid exposure to the virus \u2014 remain absolutely crucial to avoid catastrophic overwhelm of healthcare. But that exclusive focus obscures a second powerful tool<\/a>: strengthening our immune and body-repair competences can slow contagion too.<\/em> Both<\/em><\/a> these strategies buy time to find and isolate outbreaks, surge test kits and ventilators, improve and deliver therapies, and develop vaccines.<\/p>\n

Stronger immune competence also makes COVID-19 and<\/em> other more ordinary infections milder and briefer. Reducing the risk of fatal pneumonias \u2014 especially for the old, sick, and poor \u2014 creates \u201cvirtual ven\u00adtila\u00adtors\u201d to augment scarce real ones. Milder, briefer illness saves suffering and cost, makes working from home more productive and unexpected excess parenting less challenging, and helps us adapt to these strange new circumstances. And an \u201cim\u00ad\u00ad\u00admunity mission\u201d \u2014 boosting our overall immunity within our communities \u2014 could engage our pent-up yearning to protect each other by cultivating health.<\/p>\n

Yet individual and community immunity aren\u2019t on the CDC<\/a> or WHO<\/a> websites, nor in great articles from The Atlantic<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Washington Post<\/em><\/a>, New Yorker<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> and Vox<\/em><\/a>. We\u2019re told to avoid exposure, but not to reduce \u201chost hospitality\u201d (us being hospitable to the virus) by making ourselves more resistant to viral infection. Slowing the spread<\/a> and flattening the curve<\/a> will take both<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On March 10 (though not in <\/mark>later<\/a><\/mark> pathfinding <\/mark>articles<\/a><\/mark>), <\/mark>The<\/em><\/mark> <\/mark>New York Times <\/em><\/mark>broke the silence, <\/mark>endorsing<\/a><\/mark> five of eight standard immune-boosting methods: sleep, calm\/hope\/de-stressing (yes, <\/mark>meditation<\/a><\/mark> may help prevent colds), nutrition, exercise, and reducing alcohol (an immune suppressant). Next, add hydration, nontoxicity, and physiological balance. All are vital: your health and immunity depend on what you eat, drink, breathe, do, and feel.<\/mark><\/p>\n

The article also edged more controversially toward two of the half-dozen supplements that can boost immunity \u2014 vitamin D and zinc<\/a>. Otherwise, news organizations\u2019 standard<\/a> advice<\/a> is \u201cskip unproven supplements<\/a>\u201d that \u201cprobably won\u2019t help, and may harm<\/a>\u201d \u2014 notably vitamin C, a \u201cmyth<\/a>\u201d and \u201cfallacy<\/a>\u201d that doesn\u2019t protect<\/a>. So our best newspapers say supplements can\u2019t boost immunity. Maybe they\u2019re not reading the research right.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, one to six grams per day (g\/d) of a certain substance was proven<\/a> to shorten the use of a ventilator for 471 patients needing more than ten hours of ventilator support, by an average of 25% (even more for the sickest patients). That reduction in patient requirements is like discovering a lot of unused ventilators. An average of about 2 g\/d of the same substance shortened<\/a> ICU stays by 8.6%, equivalent to a lot more ICU beds. A day\u2019s dose costs 58\u00a2 (top quality, retail price), so there is now good evidence we can spend a few dollars to reduce an ICU stay that costs thousands.<\/p>\n

Well-controlled trials found<\/a> the same substance could prevent and help treat pneumonia. When sepsis<\/a> or influenza A<\/a> pneumonia caused life-threatening respiratory<\/a> failures, tens-of-g\/d intravenous doses of the same substance proved safe and effective. The Shanghai Government Medical Association<\/a> and a top Xi\u2019an hospital<\/a> use and recommend it<\/a> for COVID-19, with three clinical trials underway (one already posted<\/a>). Fifty tons of it just got shipped<\/a> to Wuhan, where success has now led many New York hospitals<\/a> to adopt this therapy in severe COVID-19 cases, with encouraging results.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s this mysterious substance? The same vitamin C that mainstream media dismiss as having little or no benefit against viral respiratory infections! Based on modern studies and recent rigorous evaluations, vitamin C is far more than just a \u201cvitamin\u201d; it is a foundational molecule that protects and regulates every cell, and actually seems to be the most effective antiviral agent known<\/strong>. So why do some say to take none a day?<\/p>\n

The medical evidence<\/a> cited<\/a> (also by NIH<\/a>) as supposedly debunking the use of vitamin C in respiratory illness \u2014 the 2013 Cochrane Review<\/a> of 64 clinical trials \u2014 actually found consistent curative value<\/em>, especially at higher doses and in children. Its senior author concluded<\/a> that \u201call 21 placebo-controlled studies published since 1970\u201d using at least one gram per day of vitamin C reported milder or shorter colds. He also wrote the papers cited above on ventilator and ICU savings, and the citations<\/a> above on pneumonia prevention and mitigation. \u201c[I]nertia and prejudices<\/a> against vitamin C\u201d persist, as his excellent review paper<\/a> explains, based largely on outdated and poorly performed studies demolished<\/a> decades ago. Indeed, his Cochrane Review recom\u00admended that \u201cconsistent effect of vitamin C on\u2026duration and severity\u2026and low cost and safety\u201d may make it \u201cworthwhile for common cold patients to test on an individual basis whether thera\u00adpeutic vitamin C is beneficial for them. Further therapeutic\u2026 [trials] are warranted.\u201d That\u2019s hardly a description of a myth.<\/p>\n

Doubts whether vitamin C can also help to prevent<\/em> colds confuse evidence of absence with absence of evidence: NIH rightly found<\/a> \u201cnot enough evidence,\u201d and a Danish review agreed<\/a> the clinical trials available by 2010 (nearly all even today) are \u201clargely irrelevant.\u201d Why? Evidence-based medicine requires large, controlled, usually randomized and double-blind, clinical trials \u2014 but industry and govern\u00adment won\u2019t fund their high cost for unpatent\u00adable over-the-counter supplements<\/a>. Such trials are especially difficult<\/a> to perform rigorously for vitamin C. Further, that Cochrane Review rested on deeply flawed clinical trials<\/a>. Nearly all doses were far too small or infrequent<\/a> to trigger the threshold effects that practitioners claim and science predicts. Unreport\u00aded quality<\/a> of the vitamin C used may have made doses severalfold less effective<\/a>. Outcomes were linked to whether subjects took any<\/em> C, but only rarely to how much or how often. And decisively, \u201c<\/em><\/strong>none<\/em><\/strong><\/a> of the iden\u00adti\u00adfied controlled trials directly test[ed]\u201d the preventive claims that the Review supposedly refuted.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With no better evidence, then, what should we do? Cochrane Review, NIH, and CDC<\/a> agree vitamin C is generally safe<\/a> (minor exceptions are clear). Even top-quality C (fully buffered, fully reduced l<\/em>-ascorbate, described and sourced in a medically vetted lay user\u2019s guide<\/a>) is cheap and ubiquitous. Seventy-odd years\u2019<\/a> unrefuted observations, buttressed by hundreds<\/a> of basic-science papers<\/a>, show<\/a> that at least 3\u20135 grams per day, spread through the day,<\/strong> largely protects against known viruses.<\/strong> That\u2019s equivalent to about 40\u201370 medium-sized oranges per day. Taking more<\/a>, nearly to stool-loosening level, is even better. (A 2018 trial with 1,444 Korean Army recruits given 2 grams three times a day found<\/a> 20\u201340% fewer colds.) Therefore:<\/p>\n