3083 replies to this topic

[lancebr]

I read that Covid-19 uses the immune system to attack your lungs. If true, then taking immune boosting supplements would be a bad idea.

 

If you are concerned about taking immune boosting supplements then you should look at taking

immune modulating supplements.  These type tend to improve and regulate your immune systems

so that it works better overall.

[Dorian Grey]

Sorry, I see a lot of you guys already posted similar ideas.  This is a weird virus though with the timing.  I'm curious how it can stay so asymptomatic for up to a week and then suddenly turn severe.  That asymptomatic week would seem to suggest that the initial immune response is either extremely efficient or extremely lacking.  Not really sure what to make of it.

 

Functional exhaustion of antiviral lymphocytes in COVID-19 patients

“functional exhaustion of cytotoxic lymphocytes is correlated with disease progression”

 

Sorry I don't have the link, but if you search the title it should come up.  

 

Looks to me like if your immune system (with a little help from some chloroquine) doesn't kick this bug in a week or so, the wheels come off and you go critical. 

[Jdbst56]

 

At this point I want to know how to enhance a cytotoxic T-cell response.   Along with many viruses, this one seems to inhibit T-cell activity as well as NK cell activity.  Mushrooms are good for the NK cell activity.   But still don't have a good solution for maintaining a good T-cell response. 

 

 

Would Cimetidine be of any value?

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC5085004/

[OP2040]

Functional exhaustion of antiviral lymphocytes in COVID-19 patients

“functional exhaustion of cytotoxic lymphocytes is correlated with disease progression”

 

Sorry I don't have the link, but if you search the title it should come up.  

 

Looks to me like if your immune system (with a little help from some chloroquine) doesn't kick this bug in a week or so, the wheels come off and you go critical. 

 

It seems like melatonin could be both a prophylactic and marathon runner in this scenario.  Since it supposedly enhances thymus function at higher doses, you might be able to avoid the immune exhaustion with it.  But then you might also run up against the aforementioned cytokine damage. 

[Mind]

"There were 7 men and 4 women with a mean age of 58.7 years (range: 20-77), 8 had significant comorbidities  associated  with  poor  outcomes  (obesity:  2;  solid  cancer:  3;  hematological cancer: 2; HIV-infection: 1).  At the time of treatment initiation, 10/11 had fever and received nasal oxygen therapy."

 

-------------------

 

A lot of these patients had some pretty substantial comorbidities and already on oxygen with what looks like advanced stage COVID.  I'm not surprised they didn't see impressive results.  Perhaps early initiation of therapy in patients that aren't already dying would have been more realistic for the average Jane & Joe.  

 

That is the problem with COVID-19. Elderly people and those with comorbidities do not have a very good functioning immune system and unsurprisingly, they are the ones with the highest fatality rate. Substances that work in young healthy people are unlikely to be as effective in frail people with damaged and disregulated immune systems.

 

I started a topic about it.

 

https://www.longecit...d-19-therapies/

 

Recall that 80% of the people who develop severe COVID-19 were obese. Maybe radical weight loss would be a better (much cheaper) strategy to protect these people.

[OP2040]

 

 

Recall that 80% of the people who develop severe COVID-19 were obese. Maybe radical weight loss would be a better (much cheaper) strategy to protect these people.

 

I was skeptical of some of these associations since they often seemed to be just proxies for age or immune-senescence.  Cardio issues can be considered so easily.  But the obesity finally drove the point home for me that something else is in fact going on here.  And I had to see it with my own eyes.  When they were showing hospital patients on ventilators in various countries.  Almost all of the ones I saw that were not in the over-whatever-age group were visibly obese.  I say visibly because in modern countries almost everyone is obese by some standards, so these were the outliers among the outliers.  

 

But more to your point, weight loss might help indeed, or it might be too little too late for many.  Fasting I'm sure could be another preventative as it is now known that it rejuvenates immune cells quite rapidly.   Hate fasting though.

Edited by OP2040, 06 April 2020 - 05:10 PM.

[osris]

Well, a simplistic but potentially helpful view is that you are correct and anti-oxidants in particular should be stopped.  That means the G.S.E in particular and possibly the Olive Leaf (not sure on that one)  Antioxidants do clearly have a protective effect on cells and it makes sense that they might limit a cytotoxic immune response.  I do have NAC on my list but it's a separate pathway from the usual anti-oxidants.  And of course Vitamin C, which aids the immune system directly,. despite it's potentially cyto-protective effects.

 

Three weeks is a bit long for a viral illness but not unprecedented.  Seems like Boris Johnson is having that same issue.  Nothing critical,  but lasting for an extended period.  I suppose that's better than a ventilator.

 

Should I just stay on NAM and add vitamin C then?

[osris]

 

 

Titrating to bowel tolerance for sure would help, if you dosed at least above 80% of your bowel tolerance. Just got rid of a persistant cold and cough myself. However, severe colds can need already more than 100 g per day of ascorbic acid. In my case didn't reach my bowel-tolerance with even 67 g/d. But all symptoms gone.

 

The other supplements mentioned I do take on a regular basis, along with 24 g of ascorbid acid per day for more than 11 years now (for maintaining remission from a walking-disabilty due to PAD).

 

 

Thanks. I've never tried that before. Do I just take a lot of vit C initially, wait for a bowel moment, and if when one comes, and it causes diarrhea, then continue on that dosage till the symptoms disappear? 

[OP2040]

It's all a guessing game but we can make educated guesses.  Depends on your budget.  With an unlimited budget there are 20-30 things people could be on that I think could move the needle.  This is a mainstream site that just happens to roughly list the supplements I also happen to think are most effective in this situation.  It might be missing a couple, but it's surprisingly close and with the citations as well.  The main list are all things I'm taking.  And from the bottom list, only taking Selenium, Garlic, B vitamins.  Of course I've never not taken garlic because it's pretty great addition to almost any dish.

 

https://www.healthli...sting-potential

 

If I were forced to take just one thing from this list, I would start with Zinc.

[Mind]

This idea has been asserted many times in this thread, and the evidence for it is thin to non-existence.  If you can provide that evidence, then please do. 

 

We should all keep in mind that ANY virus will make an immune response if we are lucky.  And things like IL-6 going up is not evidence for immune attack, because IL-6 is necessary for anti-viral defense.  I'm not saying it's not a factor, just that we don't have the evidence.

 

At this point I want to know how to enhance a cytotoxic T-cell response.   Along with many viruses, this one seems to inhibit T-cell activity as well as NK cell activity.  Mushrooms are good for the NK cell activity.   But still don't have a good solution for maintaining a good T-cell response. 

 

I'm basing all of my strategy on the fact that young people are indeed not being killed at remotely the same rate as old people, and particularly very old people.  To me this implicates immunosenescence and a lack of effective immune response as a major problem here. 

 

I second this thought. We just don't have enough data to know if something is weird or different with this virus. I have heard people develop severe symptoms rapidly, or after a few days, or even after 2 weeks. We will not know until more careful analysis is done after-the-fact.

 

It is more likely that the people who develop the severe symptoms have a "condition" that pre-disposes them to a damaging immune response. As of last count, 99% of the fatalities occur in people who are elderly or have at least one co-morbidity. The immune system uses complex signaling. Being obese, having high blood pressure, having diabetes, are all factors in the functioning of the immune system. The number of people who develop severe symptoms in the young healthy cohort is very small. Perhaps some of them have other genetic or environmental factors that contribute to the severe immune response.

 

For myself, I am absolutely trying to boost my immune system, prior to possible infection. I wouldn't try to dampen my immune signaling unless I was slipping into the pneumonia-like condition.

[Dorian Grey]

Lactoferrin Acts as an Alarmin to Promote the Recruitment and Activation of APCs and Antigen-Specific Immune Responses

 

https://www.jimmunol...ent/180/10/6868

 

Lactoferrin is an 80-kDa iron-binding protein present at high concentrations in milk and in the granules of neutrophils. It possesses multiple activities, including antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, and even antitumor effects. Most of its antimicrobial effects are due to direct interaction with pathogens, but a few reports show that it has direct interactions with cells of the immune system. In this study, we show the ability of recombinant human lactoferrin (talactoferrin alfa (TLF)) to chemoattract monocytes. What is more, addition of TLF to human peripheral blood or monocyte-derived dendritic cell cultures resulted in cell maturation, as evidenced by up-regulated expression of CD80, CD83, and CD86, production of proinflammatory cytokines, and increased capacity to stimulate the proliferation of allogeneic lymphocytes. When injected into the mouse peritoneal cavity, lactoferrin also caused a marked recruitment of neutrophils and macrophages. Immunization of mice with OVA in the presence of TLF promoted Th1-polarized Ag-specific immune responses. These results suggest that lactoferrin contributes to the activation of both the innate and adaptive immune responses by promoting the recruitment of leukocytes and activation of dendritic cells

 

----------------------

 

If you can't get or tolerate lactoferrin supplements, I've heard "whey protein" that is sold all over as a body building supp is supposed to be rich in lactoferrin, though I haven't confirmed this.  

Edited by Dorian Grey, 06 April 2020 - 05:53 PM.

[pamojja]

Thanks. I've never tried that before. Do I just take a lot of vit C initially, wait for a bowel moment, and if when one comes, and it causes diarrhea, then continue on that dosage till the symptoms disappear? 

 

That linked to article explains it pretty well. As one can see in that table, healthy tolerate maybe only 2-3 gram in on dose. In my case with multiple cronic conditions (in remission) I can easily take 10 g in one dose of ascorbic acid. For reaching such high doses as described in that article, one has to take as much as possible as many times as tolerated. With bowel flushing reduce the next dose a bid and condinue on the lower dose/lesser frequency. Only use pure ascorbic acid powder, since in such high doses you would get too much binders or fillers with caps/pills, as would be healthy.
 

[OP2040]

We've been trying to unravel the metabolic syndrome for years and while it is interesting, we certainly won't find the magic bullet during a pandemic.  I've been perusing the literature on obesity and immunity  and of course it's wildly complicated as expected.   I suspect that there is an immunological reserve issue with MetS.  This could explain the seemingly paradoxical data which shows things like increased WBC counts and inflammation, alongside various immunosuppressive findings.  The idea being that in a person with MetS, the immune system has been working overtime for years and the reserve forces are spent.  So when an infection comes along, there is very little thymic or lymphoid function left, and the battle-weary T-cells left on the frontlines are exhausted.  Here's a good snippet from one review on it, but there are many examples.

 

 

Several studies have further demonstrated the complications of obesity after influenza exposure. Diet-induced obesity has been shown to impair memory CD8⁺ T cell responses to an influenza virus infection, resulting in increased mortality, viral titers in lung, and worsened lung pathology (37). These adverse effects were associated with an obesity-induced failure to maintain influenza-specific CD8⁺ memory T cells, which are essential in ensuring vaccine efficacy (37). Accordingly, obesity has been shown to increase the risk of vaccine failure, including the vaccines for hepatitis B (70), tetanus (72), and influenza (17). Obesity is also associated with a greater risk of influenza-related complications and hospitalizations (73,74).

 

 

 

But what does this mean for your average, middle-aged slob like myself and many others, who may not be technically, or extremely obese but definitely metabolically-challenged and tied to an office chair?  It's definitely too late to reprogram your metabolism during a pandemic.  But if the above is true, then priming the immune system may just be whipping those battle-weary soldiers who are already lying half-dead on the battlefield.  So rather than a T-cell immunotherapy approach, perhaps focus on innate immunity (NK cells)

 

Potential strategies given the above:

1.  Innate immunity - generally this goes up with aging and obesity perhaps as a compensatory.  It is possibly even the cause of inflammaging.  However, it is at least still largely intact and harder to exhaust and therefore may be helpful if stimulated before infection and in relatively younger and less MetS subjects

  a. Mushrooms, etc.

2. Rebooting T-cell immunity - Fasting is the easiest way to do this if you can do it.  But it takes several days and if you get infected during the reboot I'm not sure what would happen.  Senolytics probably help here, but these are things that should have been done long before infection

3. Rejuvenating thymic and lymphoid function

   a. Melatonin - looking pretty great as both a short term and longer term helper here

 

Given the temporary nature of the crisis, I suspect most people can just wily-nily stimulate the heck out of their immune system for a couple months unless they fall into one of the more vulnerable groups which may need a more subtle approach.

 

A little incentive for the group, anything that "solves" viruses would also likely "solve" cancer, so there's that.

 

Edited by OP2040, 06 April 2020 - 06:39 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

If this is the case then the Virus is perhaps mutating quickly which puts a bit of a damper on a Vaccine.

 

 

The most likely explanation is that they never cleared the virus initially, not that they were re-infected.

[OP2040]

I'll just put this right here:

 

https://www.melatoni...cle/view/79/502

[xEva]

Logically, you would want all the receptors blocked all the time. So I would take the maximum dose that I could safely tolerate, broken as evenly as possible throughout the day (probably delivered IV at a measured rate). I have no insights as to which particular drug would be ideal.

 

I suspect that studies which find them to be harmful involve patients on the drugs who, upon admission, quit taking them (because they usually need to be consumed orally, which isn't viable on a ventilator, or because they forgot them in the rush to the hospital), resulting in an explosion in viral load above and beyond their previous growth rate. And all else being equal, they're a proxy for cardiovascular age, so there's some degree of sample bias at work.

 

 

re ACE2, I have seen reputable sources recommending diametrically opposite approaches in this regard, based on very reasonable rationales.

 

But more importantly, your idea of blocking ACE2 does not take into account the following:

 

1. blocking ACE2 can lead to its overexpression (via feedback mechanism). This may be especially true, if you just started to take the drug, or suddenly upped its dosage. 

 

2. What if covid-19 has a higher affinity for ACE2 receptor than the drug you are planning to use?

[Izan]

That is the problem with COVID-19. Elderly people and those with comorbidities do not have a very good functioning immune system and unsurprisingly, they are the ones with the highest fatality rate. Substances that work in young healthy people are unlikely to be as effective in frail people with damaged and disregulated immune systems.

 

I started a topic about it.

 

https://www.longecit...d-19-therapies/

 

Recall that 80% of the people who develop severe COVID-19 were obese. Maybe radical weight loss would be a better (much cheaper) strategy to protect these people.

 

 

The Dutch now claim that it is hovering at 90 % in some hospitals in The Netherlands.

 

Dutch scientists believe that ace2, besides organs like the lungs, heart etc is also heavily expressed in fat cells. They say: the fatter you are, the greater the chance (and easier it will be for) covid-19 will enter your body and start attacking host cells. They also say this: The bigger your belly is, the heavier the cytokine storm will be. They blame estrogen and inflammatory responses. Study is still ongoing. Very interesting findings.

[Izan]

Hmmm,

 

Melatonin binds to its own receptors and causes a decrease in expression of estrogen receptors, thereby blocking estradiol from binding to the estrogen receptors.

 

https://onlinelibrar...9X.2004.00207.x

 

Effect of melatonin treatment on serum and tissue zinc levels in rats

 

''In conclusion, MEL increased Zn levels in the salivary glands and small intestine. Daytime liver Zn levels and nighttime serum Zn levels increased in MEL‐treated group.

 

It is clear that there is a tight relationship between ZINC and MELATONIN''

 

 

 

[lancebr]

The Dutch now claim that it is hovering at 90 % in some hospitals in The Netherlands.

 

Dutch scientists believe that ace2, besides organs like the lungs, heart etc is also heavily expressed in fat cells. They say: the fatter you are, the greater the chance (and easier it will be for) covid-19 will enter your body and start attacking host cells. They also say this: The bigger your belly is, the heavier the cytokine storm will be. They blame estrogen and inflammatory responses. Study is still ongoing. Very interesting findings.

 

So did they get specific as to how estrogen is playing a role?

 

This article seems to say that one reason women are doing better with this virus is the protection

they get from estrogen:

 

https://www.latimes....-than-for-women
 

[Izan]

remember this study again? --->   Relationship between the ABO Blood Group and the COVID-19 Susceptibility

 

blood group A was associated with a higher risk for acquiring COVID-19 compared with non-A blood groups

 

https://www.medrxiv....3.11.20031096v2

 

 

''decreased melatonin levels, was found in the group A blood donors''

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC6343596/

 

 

 

mind = BLOWN!

[Izan]

Baseline Characteristics and Outcomes of 1591 Patients Infected With SARS-CoV-2 Admitted to ICUs of the Lombardy Region, Italy (April 6, 2020)

 

https://jamanetwork....article/2764365

 

 

Those 4 markers at the top ( hypertension, cardiovascular disease, hypercholesterolemie and diabetes type 2) are all associated with obesity.

Attached Files

•  covid-19.png   137.4KB   0 downloads

[lancebr]

An increasing number of patients between the ages of 30 and 50 have presented with severe symptoms,

despite having no underlying conditions that would make them high-risk, the Brussels Times reported.

 

Their lung scans were terrifying showing extensive damage and scarring, doctors said.

 

https://nypost.com/2...-of-terrifying/

 

https://www.mirror.c...ifying-21672219

Edited by lancebr, 06 April 2020 - 09:45 PM.

[Izan]

So did they get specific as to how estrogen is playing a role?

 

This article seems to say that one reason women are doing better with this virus is the protection

they get from estrogen:

 

https://www.latimes....-than-for-women
 

yes, disturbed balance in testosteron-estrogen ratio.

 

estrogen dominant> more inflammation = bigger cytokine storm.

 

dutch scientists were mainly talking about men, because they are being hit harder by covid-19 than women.

[kurdishfella]

I think that heat kills the virus that is why I experience my lungs got hot. In theory if this is true would people that take blood pressure medication have a less chance of fighting it off?

[zorba990]

Ozone v Corona
https://healthimpact...nd-very-rapidly

Ozone Autohemotherapy—-A new trial for Novel coronavirus pneumonia

Patient gender: male, 56 years old. He was sent to hospital due to the fever symptom. The nucleic acid testing for the Novel coronavirus was positive, PaO2 74.8mmHg, [Rowen note- this number, 74.8 indicates gravely diseased lungs. The number should be near 100] oxygenation index 80.43, SaO2 95%, Chest CT: ground—glass opacity [really really bad]. The patient was a critical patient.

Specialist consultation team decided to use Ozone Autohemotherapy as follows: ozone concentration 30ug/ml, draw 100ml blood from the patient and mix the blood with the ozone, then transfuse the blood into the body.

The index after 3 hours, PaO2 99.2mmHg [outstanding improvement, only in 3 hours], oxygenation index 132.3, SaO2 98% [this is saturation of blood. 98% is just fine].

The patient felt good, and had a relieved symptom. [Not bad for a critical patient]

[Florin]

We've been trying to unravel the metabolic syndrome for years and while it is interesting, we certainly won't find the magic bullet during a pandemic.

The magic bullet is to eat less.

[lancebr]

Hopefully they will make the results public since it should be interesting to see how these elderly patients do:

 

https://www.texastri...loroquine-drug/

[Florin]

The hydroxychloroquine hype train says:

 

Hydroxychloroquine + zinc = all severely-ill patients are symptom-free in 8 to 12 hours
Hydroxychloroquine + nothing = nothing

 

https://abc7.com/cor...oquine/6079864/

Edited by Florin, 07 April 2020 - 04:55 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

* zorba990 & OP2040, numerous friends have pointed me to the reinfection reports over the past few weeks. I consider it a positive sign that the reinfection rates seem to be well below the false negative rate for RNA tests, which are in the range of 20 to 50%. (We need a better approach, and antibody tests are too latent.) So I agree with Daniel Cooper: I suspect these reinfections are simply examples of weak immune systems which have failed to fully clear the virus. They can presumably be minimized by remaining in bed for a few days after temperature normalization. Actual reinfection is of course possible but probably rare. As to mutagenicity, I think the jury is still out, but just because a virus mutates frequently doesn't mean that parts of its epitope aren't conserved, and therefore amenable to vaccination. We also don't need a silver bullet vaccine, just something that hampers growth and therefore transmission to the point that the pandemic dies out.

* zorba990, that's a bizarre case report about ozone. It's super toxic, so I wouldn't try it in anything other than desperate patients. Perhaps it's acting hormetically on the immune system and killing senescent, metabolically unstable cells. "So far, every patient I have heard about who has received ozone therapy for this disease has recovered, including the two critically ill patients here." It's tragic when an unabashed conspiracy theorist like Dr. Rowen happens upon potentially lifesaving information, because they've cried too much wolf to have any social credit left. Ignore reputation. Focus on numbers and reproducibility.

* izan82 & lancebr, I read the BCG update from the University of Texas. I find it further supportive of the initial weak hypothesis. (I say it was weak because the P values hovered just under 1%, which is unimpressive, as the world has probably looked into 1000 potential factors by now, which means a few of them would have proven "effective" predictors by chance.) Too bad the US shut down its vaccination program decades ago (but one could theoretically travel to obtain it, even now, although the justification for taking that risk is questionable). Not to say that it's worth taking for the prevention of TB -- it's almost certainly not -- but perhaps quite so for the sake of acquiring partial immunity to a variety of respiratory pathogens, if for no other reason than to avoid competing for hospital resources. I look forward to more information on this, hopefully including a breakdown of patient outcomes by BCG status within a single medical system, such as the Australian healthcare workers.

* lancebr, the Texas study is probably doomed. No zinc, no azythromycin, all high risk patients. Just hope that this doesn't "prove" that HCQ is useless, in the eyes of the administration.

* xEva, definitely blocking a receptor is indeed likely to invoke overexpression; such is homeostatis. But all else being equal, it should still reduce the unbound population. It also doesn't matter if the virus has a higher affinity for ACE2, as it would just bind to more of a smaller number of available sites. I think the key is keeping as many sites bound as often as possible, which would be challenging in an overburdened hospital setting, but less so for an individual resting at home.

* All, if you want to activate your natural killer cells early in the course of the disease, then in addition to shiitake mushrooms, LEF has NK Cell Activator. That's all I know, apart from the fact that I took it myself long before the outbreak, and had no adverse reaction. No opinion for or against it, otherwise.

 

More generally, I think it's high time to make a distinction between immune aggression and immune noise, which explains why thin but healthy people aren't getting nearly as impacted, despite having overall tamer immune systems. Less noise, stronger signal, better targetting.
 

[resveratrol_guy]

The hydroxychloroquine hype train says:

 

Hydroxychloroquine + zinc = all severely-ill patients are symptom-free in 8 to 12 hours
Hydroxychloroquine + nothing = nothing

 

https://abc7.com/cor...oquine/6079864/

 

OK, you win. That's the most uplifting post I've seen in a long time, especially since he's having success in less stable patients, and apparently without (or sometimes without) azithromycin.

 

This looks to be a major victory for the value of noisy information, and the sloppy scientist known as Vladimir Zelenko. The FDA and CDC would do well to listen to Fields medalist mathematician Terry Tao, who codiscovered compressed sensing for the recovery of heavily damaged signals. The human brain simply didn't evolve to deal with extreme noise because most natural signals are extensively redundant, so our intuition is wired to label anything we don't crisply understand as uninformative. There's nothing simple about the approach, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean it's invalid. AI itself is a broad vindication of it, although still difficult to apply in this case.

 

Time will tell.

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 07 April 2020 - 05:27 AM.