Guest post by Jim Steele
I want to encourage people to go outside and get some sunshine. If walks in the park are outlawed, then limited sunbathing in your back yard, or apartment roof tops would help. I don’t give medical advice, but this is a no-brainer, no-regrets suggestion.
Scientists have long investigated why the flu season dramatically ends in the warmer months. One key factor is our immune systems improve when sun shining on our skin produces the all-important Vitamin D. It is a form of vitamin D that is more effective than what is added to our milk.
Researchers reported, “vitamin D deficiency is common in the winter, and activated vitamin D, a steroid hormone, has profound effects on human immunity. D acts as an immune system modulator, preventing excessive expression of inflammatory cytokines and increasing the ‘oxidative burst’ potential of macrophages. Perhaps most importantly, it dramatically stimulates the expression of potent anti-microbial peptides, which exist in neutrophils, monocytes, natural killer cells, and in epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract where they play a major role in protecting the lung from infection. Volunteers inoculated with live attenuated influenza virus are more likely to develop fever and serological evidence of an immune response in the winter. Vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory infections.
If we do not get enough sunshine, sheltering in place just might have the unintended consequence of prolonging the COVID 19 epidemic. As the elderly become less mobile and spend less time outside, a vitamin D deficiency would only amplify their vulnerability.
April is the time flu infections dramatically fall. Of course, the COVID 19 virus differs from influenza, but our immune system’s ability to fight all viruses is key. Maybe a little April sunshine will minimize the COVID 19 spread and flatten the curve.
Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism
Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net
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50-60% of elderly population in the world has vitamin D deficiency. In critically ill patients, the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (25 (OH) D <20 ng / ml) exceeds 70%.
It would be interesting to see how each countries COVID19 fatalities correlates with sunlight exposure and Vitamin D supplements and why the elderly are so hard it.
"Foods fortified with vitamin D in the United States include milk, orange juice, some breads, margarines, cheeses, and yogurts. In Europe, Sweden, and Finland, milk is fortified with vitamin D3, but most other
European countries still forbid the fortification of dairy products with vitamin D."
In "Vitamin D: a D-Lightful health perspective"
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1753-4887.2008.00104.x
The lack of Vitamin D in countries that forbid fortification seem to be hardest hit.
Vitamin D deficiency may be a factor in Italy's high case load. Other studies noted this for various medival problems "Prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in elderly women in Italy: clinical consequences and risk factors"
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00198-003-1390-7
Thank-you Jim for answering my question.
The beginning of 2020 brought us information about the novel coronavirus emerging in China. Rapid research resulted in the characterization of the pathogen, which appeared to be a member of the SARS-like cluster, commonly seen in bats. Despite the global and local efforts, the virus escaped the healthcare measures and rapidly spread in China and later globally, officially causing a pandemic and global crisis in March 2020. At present, different scenarios are being written to contain the virus, but the development of novel anticoronavirals for all highly pathogenic coronaviruses remains the major challenge. Here, we describe the antiviral activity of previously developed by us HTCC compound (N-(2-hydroxypropyl)-3-trimethylammonium chitosan chloride), which may be used as potential inhibitor of currently circulating highly pathogenic coronaviruses – SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.29.014183v1?fbclid=IwAR1hnK36z4ykbgKTUy1-uI5PvYDV1DhiP9CFdYcc6sgioUMxfUCogjCLi9w
In the Infectious Diseases Clinic of Clinical Hospital No. 1 in Lublin, an innovative method of treating coronavirus-infected patients is being tested, which aims to prevent the development of respiratory failure. The treatment uses drugs that are used in rheumatology and hematology. Their implementation is carried out at the second – third stage of infection.
The drug blocks the mechanisms of inflammatory reactions
– This is not strictly an antiviral treatment, but we are trying to turn off the inflammatory response that is responsible for serious complications. By blocking the receptor of one of interleukins – a substance secreted by our immune system, we do not get to the so-called cytokine storm, which results in respiratory failure – said dr hab. Krzysztof Tomasiewicz.
Vitamin D is great, BUT MOST LIKELY NOT FOR THE CORONA VIRUS!!!!!
“Supporting the Immune System” Can Backfire”
One way to approach this that doesn’t work is to eat foods or take supplements simply because
they support our immune system.
While this seems to make sense, it has a huge potential to backfire. Viruses often hijack things
in our body that ordinarily make us healthy to find their way into our cells. The sneakiest viruses
may then undermine our immune system and stop it from working, or, worse yet, hijack it and
use it against us to make us get even sicker.
For example, the coronavirus gets into our cells by hijacking a substance known as “ACE2”
whose normal role is to keep our blood pressure from getting too high and to keep our lungs
and heart healthy. Vitamins A and D are normally incredibly important to our immune systems.
They help us make antibodies and other virus-busting weaponry. And they support our blood
pressure and the health of our lungs and heart by helping us make more ACE2. Vitamins A and D are good for our lungs, good for our heart, and they support our immune system. Yet, by
increasing the amount of ACE2 that the coronavirus can hijack in order to get inside our cells,
supplementing with them may actually make us more vulnerable to infection.
Copying What We Do for Colds and Flu Doesn’t Work
As with supporting the immune system, we can’t just copy and paste whatever we usually do for
colds and flu.
Sometimes this will work. For example, certain types of zinc lozenges can stop a cold dead in its
tracks, and everything we know so far suggests that zinc offers strong protection against the
coronavirus too. Elderberry is very effective against the flu, and it’s probably just as effective
against the coronavirus.
Yet, other times this doesn’t work at all. For example, vitamins A and D prevent colds from ever
happening in the first place, but they have a strong chance of making us more likely to get the
coronavirus. Umcka makes colds less severe, but has a good chance of making the lung
damage from the coronavirus more severe.
There’s simply no relationship between whether something works for colds and flu and whether
it is likely to work for the coronavirus.
Copyright © Chris Masterjohn, 2020
” For example, certain types of zinc lozenges can stop a cold dead in its
tracks, and everything we know so far suggests that zinc offers strong protection against the
coronavirus too. Elderberry is very effective against the flu, and it’s probably just as effective
against the coronavirus.”
President of the Polish Society of Cardiology and Director of the Warsaw Course on Cardiovascvular Interventions, prof. Adam Witkowski, draws attention to the dangers of the heart associated with the coronavirus pandemic not only to cardiological patients, but also to young and healthy people.
Many factors contribute to the severe course of coronavirus infection. On the one hand, in most cases, patients who suffer from cardiovascular disease are elderly people, therefore they have worse functioning of the immune system, which is able to fight infections, but it is also caused by the fact that the virus itself can attack heart cells. – explains prof. Witkowski. – because the receptors through which the virus enters the lung cells – ACE2 receptors – are also found in the cells of the heart muscle, as well as in the cells of the kidneys or vascular endothelium. SARS-Cov-2 virus can also damage myocardial cells by causing so-called cytokine storm caused by a corrupted T-helper lymphocyte response to infection.