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As the world continues to freak out about COVID-19, the advice from the authorities about what to do seems disproportionate to the the panic they're stoking - wash your hands, don't go out unless you have to, avoid crowds. It seems like a recipe for making people panic.

While the MSM have continually poo-pooed any and all alternative therapies in protecting or treating coronavirus infections, they've ignored actual evidence from the very people who have experience with what the rest of the world is currently experiencing; namely Wuhan China. Specifically, doctors who were on the front lines in China during the worst of the epidemic are singing the praises of vitamin C infusions.

Today on Objective:Health, we take a look at one of our old favorites for multiple conditions, including coronavirus infections - the mighty vitamin C. Taking vitamin C is actually something everyone could be doing to make a difference in the state of their immune system, well beyond 'wash your hands'.

Link to Orthomolecular News article mentioned: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n15.shtml


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Running Time: 00:31:45

Download: MP3 — 28.7 MB


Here's the transcript of the show:

Elliot: Hello everyone, welcome to this week's edition of Objective Health. I am your host Elliot, and joining me in our studio are Doug and Erica. We also have Damian on the ones and twos today.

[Hellos]

Elliot: Today, we are going to be talking about a very hot topic. We are going to be talking about the Coronavirus. A couple of weeks ago, maybe a couple of months ago now, we did another show on the Coronavirus where we were assessing whether we thought that it was really all that dangerous, whether.there was a little bit of a kicking up of frenzy going on in the media and being a little bit overblown. In today's show we are going to be looking at a potential solution that people can think about and hopefully make use of. We will talk about the clinical utility of using high-dose vitamin C for the Coronavirus. This is because there has been quite a lot of interesting information come out recently.

On top of all of the well-established information that we know about vitamin C's potential uses against viruses - and the Coronavirus is a virus - there is good reason to think that if you are to come down with this virus and if you are immunocompromised or if you are a little bit more susceptible to succumbing to any kind of viral infection then using vitamin C in high doses in various different methods of consumption is likely going to be helpful.

First of all, I want to talk about one of the recent progressions that has come out of China. Not long ago China announced that they would be thinking about using intravenous vitamin C for their Coronavirus patients. There were three studies done in China I believe, which were looking at the effect of vitamin C on Coronavirus and they have come out with pretty good results. In one of the Chinese medical establishments some of the scientists were advocating for the use of anywhere between 6,000mg and 24,000mg of vitamin C to be used intravenously. I think this is for the most severe patients who have this viral infection.

Doug: The interesting thing about it is the doses they were talking about. 6,000-12,000mg of vitamin C for IV? That's not even really that high. I know in things like cancer protocols it will get as high as 100g, and even higher sometimes. It's not a low dose by any means but you could take 6,000mg orally but the fact that they were getting such good results from those doses says a lot about the power of vitamin C I think.

Erica: Most definitely. The mainstream news, at least here in the US, are pooh-poohing these alternative things, "Don't think that vitamin C is going to cure you." It's really concerning because why not take something that is going to keep your immune system strong instead of essentially dumping the baby out with the bathwater and saying "Nothing is going to work"? Most people have some sort of vitamin C in their medicine cabinet for these types of things. It's good to have just to keep your immune system strong.

Doug: It's not really surprising, but nonetheless shocking, the way the media has been downplaying. From what I have seen and what other people have been reporting, they haven't even mentioned that China was actually using vitamin C as a strategy against the Coronavirus. They basically blanked it like Tulsi Gabbard, they don't even mention the fact, despite the fact that many doctors in China have actually been reporting it and talking about it and explicitly saying that it helps.

For the news media here to just turn around and ignore that fact and even go so far as to - not condemn it, that's not the right word - like you said ERica, to pooh-pooh it essentially. "Oh no, we have to wait for a vaccine, don't bother with any of that woo woo hippy crap."

Meanwhile, even if people were taking 1,000mg of vitamin C 3 or 4 times a day that would at least be helpful. It doesn't necessarily mean that you don't get it or that it's going to cure it instantly, but anything that you can do to help mitigate the effects or prevent it then do it! It's just so stupid for the media to be taking that kind of stance!

Elliot: I saw an article earlier today from ABC News I think - one of the alphabet news agencies - the article was titled Coronavirus Cures Debunked. They were talking about vitamin C and they were completely pooh-poohing the idea. It's not even like they are ignoring it, they are actively telling people not to take it! How spineless? These things are well established!

One of the top alternative integrated doctors is quoted as saying "Early in, sufficiently large doses of intravenous vitamin C are critical. Vitamin C is not only a prototypical antioxidant but also involved in virus-killing and prevention of viral replication. The significance of large dose intravenous vitamin C is not just at an antiviral level, it is acute respiratory distress syndrome that kills most people from the Coronavirus. ARDS - Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome is a common final pathway leading to death." He is talking about how vitamin C is one of the best ways to protect against that. This is especially going to apply to people who are more susceptible to these kinds of infections so I think it's fair to say that 98% of people who get it are probably not going to have any major issues. The mortality rate is 1-2% and it's people with pre-existing, severe health conditions: immunocompromisation etc. So for these kinds of people it's wise to take the right precautions. Again, when you are listening to the media they are quick to whip up the hysteria but then they don't provide any solutions.

Doug: It seems like it is almost the point where there is literally nothing you can do except wash your hands. {laugher} That's the thing that they keep on saying "wash your hands, wash your hands!" I was reading somewhere that someone was talking about how disproportionate that is. There is this crazy hysteria that they are pumping out and then the only thing that they are actually offering as something that you can do is wash your hands?

It's so disproportionate to the level of threat. It's like the threat is up here and the solution is "just wash your hands." To anything that people actually could do, like take vitamin C, they are saying "no, no, no, that's not going to work. Just wash your hands". There was actually an article up on Green Med Info called Tons of Vitamin C to Wuhan - maybe you can pull that one up Damian. If you scroll down a bit there is a tweet there from DSM and I just wanted to show that because they just show a truck delivering 50 tons of vitamin C to Wuhan. What was the date on that one? I guess they've cut off the date so I can't see it. The article was on March 3rd. Clearly, if they are delivering 50 tons that is a hell of a lot of vitamin C so they were using it. It's pretty disingenuous for the western media to completely ignore that fact.

If outbreaks in Italy or if anywhere else start to get really bad then they could benefit from this information. The doctors could benefit because they could actually be helping people who aren't at the hospital and who are fighting it at home could benefit from this information. So it makes the blood boil that they would pull this kind of shit, it's terrible.

Erica: We had a good article called From Vaccination to Viruses Vitamin C is a Potent Antidote from Orthomolecular Medicine News Service in January and they talk about China. They have a list of addendums regarding practical treatment for the approach to coronavirus in China and there were some things that really stick out, was a strong immune system is really the only significant protection an individual has - again, keeping that vitamin C going, and also they said that a great deal of the immune system's strength, possibly most of it, comes from vitamin C content in the immune cells. "When the levels of vitamin C in the body are low the immune system can never function at full capacity. There are many measures that can strengthen and support the immune system, but regular supplementation of vitamin C with multi-gram doses - 2,000mg daily, or more - is probably the single most important preventative measure. Much larger doses can be given if it is determined the virus has already been contracted."

They are also talking about nebulising hydrogen peroxide. It destroys all or most of the sorts of viruses in the body with the help of vitamin C, and magnesium can then mop up the rest of the virus. That's pretty helpful if people are freaking out and they don't think that there is anything that they can do. That is something that you can do - keep taking it as a preventative measure more than anything.

Doug: The professional doctors are doing the intravenous vitamin C. It should probably be stated that even if you don't have access to intravenous vitamin C, which few people actually do, it's still worthwhile to be taking it orally as well. Take as much as you can until you start to feel digestive symptoms. There are no real side effects from it except some diarrhoea if you take too much of it. Which would you rather deal with? The Coronavirus or a little bit of an upset tummy?

I should mention that the website http://orthomolecular.org/ where the article you were talking about came from is actually a really good site. If you go to orthomolecular.org and scroll down to where it says News Releases they have a number of things specifically about the use of vitamin C for Coronavirus and they talk about how it has been used in Wuhan and about the different Chinese doctors who have been reporting on that. Anybody who is interested in more information on this, that is a very good resource.

Erica: What about something like liposomal? I know that we have talked on the show before about making your own liposomal vitamin C so that it survives the digestive tract a little bit better. Obviously with intravenous you can get so much more, but with the liposomal it is encapsulated in spheres so that it can survive the digestive tract and get into your body more effectively.

Doug: It is just basically increasing the absorption. With any nutrient you take there is a certain percentage that will get absorbed and the rest won't. Taking the liposomal, or liposheric as it is sometimes called, increases that amount that is getting across the digestive tract and into the bloodstream. Yeah, it's effective.

Elliot: With making it, you can't really make it very effectively. There are people who claim that you can make it but it doesn't hold up to testing, To make proper liposomal, you need proper liposomal technology so if you really want liposomal vitamin C then you are better off just getting a really high quality one and paying the money for high quality vitamin C.

You could probably get similar benefits just by taking a small amount multiple times throughout the day. You wouldn't take a high dose at any one given time because you can only absorb so much at any one given time. If you are taking 1g every hour then you are going to have this continual absorption and you are going to be opening up the transporters to absorb more, if that makes sense?

There are lots of options that you can do. If you can't get intravenous, liposomal or oral is going to be the route you have to take. In terms of what vitamin C actually does, there are so many ways to look at this. Vitamin C is well known as an immune booster. Primarily, what it is doing on one level is it is promoting how our immune cells function. So, certain immune cells which are responsible for engulfing pathogens and identifying and clearing out infections quickly become depleted of ascorbic acid. These immune cells which are responsible for surveillance, have a lot of ascorbic acid within them and as they are doing their job they lose that very quickly. By taking ascorbic acid, you are essentially topping up your immune cells. Your immune cells really like ascorbic acid.

Then if we look specifically at the Coronavirus, there is a very interesting article written by a lady called Doris Loh. She has done a lot of writing on vitamin C and the various properties of it, specifically in relation to vitamin C and the Coronavirus. She is looking at how the mechanisms by which it actually infects and causes problems for the human body. As a virus, what it is doing is trying to trick our immune system. It has evolved ways to affect our immune system so that it goes undetected and so that we are unable to kill it off.

So on the context of how it tricks our immune system, what it's doing is that while we are trying to surveil the environment and pick off these invaders - which takes a lot of energy - the virus disrupts how our immune system is working by affecting how well the cells are able to synthesise energy. There are certain proteins called (N)-proteins of this virus and what they do is block the mitochondria and stop it from synthesising ATP.

I had no idea that this was how vitamin C it was working, but the way cells are synthesising energy in the form of ATP is that they are using these things called electron carriers. We have something called NADH and FADH2 and these are being transported into the mitochondria and donating an electron and that is going through another various set of processes so that we can make this usable energy. When this virus infects a cell and disrupts how the mitochondria is functioning we can no longer do this. We can actually become depleted in NADH, or the NADH is unable to effectively donate the electron. What Ascorbic Acid can do is take the place of NADH and can act as an electron donor so that we can synthesise energy. It's almost like ascorbic acid can act as an energy source for our cells - in the context of immune dysfunction.

That is not usually a function of ascorbic acid, it's usually used as an antioxidant. When damage occurs in our cells there is what is called oxidation so our cells lose electrons. The function of vitamin C is to donate an electron - it's called reduction - but essentially, it is an antioxidant it's not used in how we are making energy; whereas, what Doris Loh is saying is that in some cases where the mitochondria are so screwed because of a viral infection, vitamin C no longer just becomes an antioxidant. It is actually donating the electron for us to make energy! That is not a well-established fact, but it might be one of the reasons why having such high doses is actually necessary, because it is actually providing a sustained form of energy for the cells when the cells are so infected by some virus that they are unable to make it by other means.

Doug: That's interesting!

Elliot: This might be one of the ways that vitamin C is actually so beneficial aside from all of its other roles. One of the other ways that the Coronavirus is messing with the immune system is by activating something called a cytokine storm. That's when our innate immune system, the inflammatory process ramps up completely. In someone who is very susceptible, they can't necessarily turn that down. It's not the virus that kills them per se, it's their immune system. It's the inability to shut off their immune system. What vitamin C is potentially doing is allowing us to effectively shut off the immune system when we need to.

There are lots of different ways in which vitamin C might be helping, but it is definitely not just as an antioxidant. There are multiple different mechanisms and it is absolutely fascinating. I would recommend listeners to read it, it's called Mitochondria & the Coronavirus, The Vitamin C Connection. All that people really need to know is that Vitamin C can be really useful and we shouldn't downplay the effects of it, it's not just an antioxidant.

Doug: Is it also used as a pro-oxidant as well? I had heard that it had pro-oxidant capabilities as well, which is something that the immune system uses to eliminate viruses and bacteria and things like that.

Elliot: Exactly, and I think that that is one of the main mechanisms against cancer. I don't know if it is happening against viruses? I'm not familiar with that effect but it would make sense if that is the case. When you take ascorbic acid in low doses it is generally an antioxidant, but when you're giving it in ultra high doses then it actually generates hydrogen peroxide. That is having a pro-oxidant effect, particularly against cancer cells - it is quite selective for cancer cells. I don't know if it would work against viruses or not. I think it works against infections in a similar way. Again, I think that there is lots of stuff that we don't know about it.

Erica: Going back to what you were saying about the cytokine storm, stress also has an effect on this. The reaction that everyone is having, the fear, the stress that people are feeling, I'm sure you folks are feeling it in Europe, but also here in the US the stress is just adding to that cytokine storm and the inflammation in the body. It's creating a worse environment for your body by ruminating on it or stressing about it instead of trying to calm that system down.

Elliot: It's really unfortunate, because it seems like that is causing a lot more harm. It's inherently destructive. The sheer amount of frenzy and hysteria which is going on seems relatively disproportionate to the actual threat of the Coronavirus. When you compare it to the statistics of other infectious outbreaks it seems relatively minor and it is pretty much a "nothing-burger" in my opinion but the media makes it out to be worse.

It's the boogeyman at the moment and I think that people are really scared, understandably if they are not well informed, and they are not well informed of how to boost their immune system and all of this other kind of stuff. It's very unfortunate, but ultimately what is really important to know is that cortisol - which is a stress hormone - also modulates the immune system like you were saying Erica. We have multiple branches of the immune system and what the stress hormones are going to be doing is suppressing the branch of the immune system which is responsible for surveilling against infections and against viruses and against parasites.

The type of immune cells which are responsible - the ones that I was talking about, the natural killer cells, the lymphocytes, all of these different things which go around the body and are on constant lookout for viruses or bacteria or pathogens - are very sensitive to cortisol. Cortisol will quickly downregulate that system. At the same time it will upregulate the system which is responsible for attacking our own tissues, so we have autoimmune conditions which are massively on the rise. People tend to get sick very frequently as well, so again allowing yourself to get overly stressed is definitely the worst possible thing that you could do if you want to protect yourself against an infection like this. It is very difficult watching the media.

Doug: Turn it off!

Erica: We were saying before the show that there are those of us who walk outside and things seem normal until you turn on the computer and it's the end of the world which is coming via this Coronavirus. It's the unknowns.

Elliot: Is there anything else that anyone would like to say?

Doug: One thing that we could say is that there is a popular conception that vitamin C is very high in oranges and orange juice. That is just marketing. You want to get yourself an actual vitamin C supplement. The amounts that you will find in most foods unfortunately is negligible. We are talking about therapeutic doses here so just eating oranges or drinking some orange is really not going to cut it. I just wanted to point that out. You want to be taking at least a gram at a time which is 1,000 micrograms.

Damian: Milligrams. [Laughter]

Doug: Milligrams, thank you Damian. 1,000 micrograms is not going to cut it either. [Laughter]

Erica: It is probably better and more cost effective to buy ascorbic acid powder as opposed to the chewable ones that the Flintstones make. [Laughter] You know what I mean, the Flintstones vitamins. The powder on it's own is better than having a cocktail that has got lord knows what kind of filers in it. My point is don't buy the Flintstones vitamin C.

Elliot: It is much cheaper to get the powder. You can get 100g for about $6. There is no reason not to. What people often notice is that when they are suffering from some kind of an infection then their tolerance goes way up. Usually if someone can only take 4 or 5 grams and any more makes them get digestive symptoms, if they have an infection that can go up by at least 5 times. You can tolerate 5 times what you usually could have tolerated.

I know a couple of people who have managed to go up to 30 or 40 grams when they have been poorly, where previously they could only tolerate 3g. It definitely does get used in some way when you are sick. You don't need that much every day but when you are suffering from an infection I find that it tends to help.

Erica: Why not be proactive and prevent the stress mechanism from taking over and keep making your little detox cocktail of vitamin C and water. It's not the most enjoyable taste but there are a lot of worse things out there.

Doug: True.

Elliot: Ok, if that is all for today then I want to thank everyone. Thanks to my co-hosts, thanks to Damian and thanks to the audience, thanks for listening. If you come down with the Coronavirus - I hope you don't but if you do - then you know where to go, get some vitamin C, drink some elderberry tea and rest and don't stress! If you liked this show, or found it helpful, please "like" and subscribe to the page. We do one of these shows every week and we will be with you next week for a new show. See you next week! I think that's everything.

[Goodbyes]