The notion of how folks were prepping to avoid Chinese Wuhan Covid came up in another thread.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2020/08/20/w-o-o-d-20-august-2020/#comment-132797
H.R. says:
10 September 2020 at 5:02 pm (Edit)Sure E.M. I’ll talk, I’ll talk! ;o)
And that’s a great idea to have a thread dedicated to Covid-19 and General Virus Preventatives: What people actually do.
People could also list their physical precautions. For example, I’m sold on masks for Dr. visits during flu season. And I think gloves are far more important than masks when flu season is in full swing and people are sneezing droplets of who knows what all over the place. Shoulda been doing that all along after I turned 60.
Here’s my preventative regimen –
Quinine via tonic water – 83mg of quinine per liter
3 or 4 liters per week which is 249 – 332 mg of quinine per week
…Oh, I drank one or two liters per day the first week I started. As I understand it, you need a large intake up front and then maintenance is about 200 or so mg per week thereafterZinc – 11mg per day in my multivitamin + a 25mg tab every week or too or if I feel a bit sniffly
D3 – 25 mcg tab per day + 10 mcg in my multivitamin
Plus sunshine – Lot’s when fishing or mowing, but I try to get at least 1/2 hour per day otherwiseMelatonin – 10mg per day 1/2 hour before bed
And I’m also getting the daily recommended trace doses of Iodine, Magnesium, Selenium, Copper, Manganese, Chromium, and Molybdenum in my daily multivitamin
I wash my hands a lot and don’t touch my face. I’ve been cleaning grocery cart handles for years now as I’m pretty certain that was where I got my last flu bug about 7-8 years ago.
So here’s what I’m doing:
Vitamin D:
This looks most important. A study found good Vit D status dramatically reduces bad outcomes. (John Campbell video). So I’m out in the sun with lots of skin exposed OR I’ll take 2000 IU / day.
Zinc:
Also important and several treatments use a zink ionophore to get it into the cells. I just take a very nice multivitamin with minerals every day that has the full dose of it all. Zinc 24 mg. Selenium 117 mcg. Magnesium 110 mg. And more.
Vit. C:
I try to get 2 grams a day in. Don’t always do it. IF anything starts to feel off, I’ll definitely get the 2 grams and raise that to 5 grams if any actual symptoms show up. Usually kills “the cold” snivels right quick.
Ionophore:
I had been drinking quinine water (about a quart a day) but that has been stopped due to sloth and running out of gin ;-) I’m likely to get some quercetin next opportunity. In the mean time I’m eating a lot of pears and apples from my trees and drinking red wine.
Isolation:
Not hard core about it, but we generally only go out 2 times a week. One formal grocery / hair cut / medical / whatever run, and then a catch up on any groceries we run out of later in the week (or sometimes just a drive somewhere to shake cabin fever). Mask and gloves in the stores (because the Governor Nuisance insists…) though ever more sloppy about it.
Hail Mary Self Care:
I have a jug of Ivermectin just in case. I’ll go to the Dear Doctor first, but if I get “no joy”, I’m ready with a proven treatment. It would be best to score some Doxycycline to go with it, but I figure I can likely get that from Kaiser ;-) (Or bribe the pimply kid down the street for his stash ;-)
That’s pretty much it. So far, despite being in a hot spot, No Bad Thing. Oh, and I’ve always done a lot of hand washing. Allergies for one thing. Pet the dog and touch my nose? Sniffles and itchy eyes / nose. So “touch dog wash hands”. Around a tobacco smoker? Eyes will turn red and itch the next day, so “Wash hands and rinse eyes”. Grew up in a restaurant so “Enter kitchen wash hands” and “Touch meat wash hands” and “About to plate, wash hands” and… We also carry a box of gloves and a jug of rubbing alcohol in every car. Gloves if I remember, alcohol if I forgot. I tend not to touch many surfaces anyway. I also never did like talking to people in spitting distance. Too many hours of chem lab and bacteriology class… lots of sterile technique. Oh, and working in a couple of hospitals including on the wards. Touch anything I want to wash up. Touch anything, then I don’t touch my face until washed.
Sidebar On Church:
We’ve found a local Catholic Church that is holding Mass in the parking lot. Sound via speakers AND FM radio. Communion delivered to the car by roving nuns and priests! No idea if it’s officially OK or what, but spouse is very happy to have some of her routine back. I suspect any attempt to shut them down would result in a riot and / or lynching of said officious officials….
The Dr. John Campbell video on Vit D Trial:
Musings from the Chiefio 
@H.R. said:
“Here’s my preventative regimen – Quinine via tonic water – 83mg of quinine per liter
3 or 4 liters per week which is 249 – 332 mg of quinine per week
…Oh, I drank one or two liters per day the first week I started. As I understand it, you need a large intake up front and then maintenance is about 200 or so mg per week thereafter”
That sounds about right but does your tonic water contain HCQ or the more toxic Quinine that emits blue fluorescence when excited by UVA photons?
I am following the IMRC (Indian Medical Research Council) recommendation of 2 X 200 mg HCQ tablets once per week for seven weeks. I will complete the course on September 24. HCQ is a long acting drug given that it has a “Half Life” of 104 days which means that the concentration in my body will be significant into April 2021.
Like you I am taking daily Zinc. One 30 mg soft gel of Zinc Glycinate per day.
Here is a link on Quinine;
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3121651/
Tonic water has low dose quinine in it.
@GC – Quinine may (or may not) affect vision with long-time use. Long-time is 10 years +/-.
I intend to take a break from quinine in the roughly 6 months of non-flu season.
I checked with my Dr. before taking quinine and got the OK from her. I will probably switch to quercetin for the coming season, but I like tonic water and that has the quinine. Decisions, decisions…
An article at The Primary Doctor explains why these vitamins and zinc fight covid19.
COVID-19 disease is alleged to be caused by the RNA coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. However, clinical findings from around the world show a sharp inflection point from morbidity to recovery on supplementation of one or another nutrient. In other cases, severe COVID-19 morbidity is significantly correlated with deficiency of a particular nutrient. Any of the nutrients that are discussed in this paper, when used alone or with a co-factor, has been either sufficient for prompt and complete recovery in a majority of patients treated or highly correlated with low morbidity and high survival from the disease.
If any one of several nutrients is adequate for victory over COVID-19, then logically (the contrapositive), the simultaneous deficiency of all of those same nutrients is the necessary preliminary condition for the subsequent presence of the virus to result in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. This paper will show which nutrients are lacking in those with severe pathogenesis, and why all of those nutrients must be deficient in order for severe COVID-19 disease to occur in an individual, and that supplementation with any one of these nutrients is likely to result in recovery.
Article: https://www.primarydoctor.org/covid-19-is-a-lack-of-nutrients
My synopsis: https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2020/09/10/covid-19-is-a-lack-of-nutrients-exploited-by-a-virus/
@Ron Clutz:
Oh, yeah… quoting from your link:
EGCG from green tea… I’ve upped my green tea some for the EGCG. Bought a big box at COSTCO. We have sushi once a week at least and green tea with it. Nori (the dry seaweed wrap) has a lot of minerals including iodine, zinc, selenium, etc. And the fish have anti inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids.
Yes, I’m using both pharmaceutical supplements and informed food choices for the minerals, ionophores and vitamins mix.
I’d forgotten to mention the green tea and nori angle. Thanks for the reminder.
Regarding the great news (scientific study) on Vit D also see YouTube – Drbeen Medical Lectures.
New Study – Vitamin D High Dose and COVID-19, streamed 3 days ago.
Also great: Dr. Zelenko Discusses COVID-19 Outpatient Management
•Streamed live on Sep 3, 2020
Thanks to E.M. and faithful commenters for all therapeutics. None of us will fall ill to any illness easily in the future. I have known about some of these, but not all. I am very grateful.
Check out this zinc source:
https://www.hyperionherbs.com/blogs/news/the-benefits-of-polyrachis-ant
Get out on your nearest nature trails, and stay out in the sun for 3-4 hours.
Make sure to eat some dirt.
That study reported by Dr. John Campbell is very deeply flawed. It showed that people who thad normal vitamin D blood levels were roughly half as likely to get the virus as those who did not. Fine. But I’ll bet that people who took vitamin pills on a regular basis [which is probably why they had normal levels] generally took better care of themselves. Case not proved, alas.
“Vitamin D reduced the rate of ICU admission from 50% to 2%. Do black lives matter?”
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/09/vitamin-d-reduced-the-rate-of-icu-admission-from-50-to-2-do-black-lives-matter/#comment-2364434
Your better half needn’t worry about the “drive by” Mass arrangements. The church we go to has been doing “Mass on the Grass” since about the middle of June when restrictions were loosened in NJ. It goes by each diocese, but I’m sure that no one has gone back to mandatory Sunday obligation. Almost every Catholic church has gone to at least one Mass per weekend as a live feed on YouTube, Facebook, or both. In any event, no one is going to Hell for missing their Sunday obligation under the current circumstances.
Vitamins C (2g) and D3 (5,000IU), plus 4 hours in the morning sun, plus zinc. May Vit D level was 85. Always get a shopping cart from out in the parking lot with a hot push bar. The sun is a great disinfectant. In the Mojave Desert it shines most every day. I avoid masks unless required by a store, and most do these days.
We all know what works, and are doing it, but word needs to get out so everyone can do it.
@Ron Clutz, thanks for the paper links, sent them to some friends.
@Serioso;
Counter hypothesis: People who DON’T take care of themselves are more likely to use vitamin and mineral supplements on a regular basis to “make up” for their lower level of personal care/fitness.
I am going out among the populace. If I get it, so be it.
We cannot live in fear forever. Sorry I am not a shelter in place.
@Serioso ” thad normal vitamin D ”
Thad? How do you thad? And since when have democrats ever cared about science? Pelousi – the earth is mad at us and bringing on wildfires
Seriously? I know you support that bunk. But I would like to see your justification.
Serioso:
Sun exposure is THE dominant source of Vit D. Diet is a minor source and RDA in pills is way low. You are grasping at straws.
The reason whites are white is to increase vit D production in sun poor European winter. The reason blacks are black is to prevent skin cancer in equatorial summers. Whites in high lattitudes have lower deaths from Chinese Wuhan Covid than blacks. That alone points strongly at Vit D. Blacks in high latitudes are far more prone to low vit D and rickets than whites. This is well known.
So why do you so hate blacks that you would not save their lives by having them take Vit D tablets?
This value of Vit D against Chinese Wuhan Covid via improving innate immune function is well proven. Everyone needs to raise their Vit D and zinc levels along with an ionophore and we can bury this faux plague.
Why are you so interested in prolonging fear, angst, sickness and deaths? Agenda much?
Yes, those were “insults to the person”. I am but the mirror. It is your soul that goes there. The mirror can not chose the image. You have made this mirror.
I have ancestry that can beget red hair and blue eyes, and pale skin. Sun and I do not get along. If I am out and I’m out a lot, I am covered up, including a bucket hat and gloves. Not much Vit D that route.
I also live at 47° North Latitude.
Reading over the last 6 months have convinced me that the medical profession and medical educators have neglected to inform patients of the need for Vitamin D. I’ve been getting blood analyses every year and ‘D’ has never been in the results. Via a phone call, my physician’s assistant thought a daily intake of 2,400 units was fine. She suggested a test before going higher.
Masks are a social accommodation. Six feet is a physical metric.
Our betters that chose the phrase “social distancing” flunked both Sociology 101 and Intro to Physics.
I am probably high on my D3… but I’ve been at this dose for a couple of years. Here’s my current regimen:
A – 2,400mcg night
Super B-Complex (Kirkland) – 1 pill morning & night
C – 1g morning & night
D3 – 15,000IU morning
E – 180mg night
MK-7 (K2) – 180mcg morning
Fish Oil – 1,400mg morning & night
Magnesium Citrate (for calcium oxalate kidney stone help) – 250mg morning & night
Turmeric (for diabetes) – 1,500mg morning & night
Zinc – 50mg morning
Forgot to round it out: I ordered 90 HCQ tablets (to cover extended family) from https://www.alldaychemist.com/ last week.
All of the fat soluble vitamins are potentially cumulative poisons. Keep that in mind. That said, I do take D3 supplements. I am on a mild immunosuppressant and it is also a known causative agent for bad photodermatitis, so I do get the Southern sun, but only just enough. I also make kidney stones, so have to be careful about calcium metabolism, too; so no tea for me, sadly. I have to watch certain vegetables, too, for that. Citric acid helps, so if I drink a carbonated drink, I look for plain carbonated water with some flavoring or citric acid containing ginger ale. Excessive phosphoric acid is a no go for me. Other than a regular diet and multivitamin, I don’t do anything else except sensible precautions when in public.
@ the Hultquists, part of that is that some 100 years ago, we started supplementing food with vitamins, so the general thought these days, since deficiency diseases seen in the past are rather rare, is that folk generally get enough and don’t need testing. When I had to go to the hospital more than 10 years ago for my stones, it was only then that I got tested. The nephrologist ordered them in order to do proper care.
@H.R. says:11 September 2020 at 10:13 am
Capers, canned are high in Quercitin 180.77 mg/100g
They are one of the best plant sources high in flavonoid compounds rutin and quercetin. Capers contain various beneficial minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants that work to make the immune system healthy and strong.
These are one of my favorite indulgences, they’re great tasting and go well with other strong flavored meats such as lamb or goat. Also tasty in a simple caper & herb butter sauce with pasta, or in tartar sauce with fish, or as a snack with salami on rye. I like to eat the larger caper berries instead of olives.
More high Quercitin foods are listed here … https://healthguidenet.com/foods/foods-high-in-quercetin/ .
And yes I too am a great fan of both green tea and tonic water (6-10 liters a week).
@N&J H.:
Being also of the Redhead Gene, I’m pleased to report a useful Vit D metric for sun:
1/2 of time to sunburn gives high Vit D production between 10 am and 2 pm. Any skin type!
For me, that’s 10 to 15 minutes in summer.
@Tom0Mason:
I regularly use capers with fish. Had not thought of putting them with lamb. Great idea!
@cdquarles My only big cheat on my stones is covered: I put 2 hands full blueberries into a cup of my homemade Greek yogurt. Enough calcium to bind all the oxalate before it gets into the system.
@Pyromancer76:
Just found your comnent in moderation (likely an IP # changed)
You’re welcome!
Oh, I love blueberries. They’re not native here, so a bit pricey to get out of season.
And remember, barring differences in melanin type, whites are white because all of their melanin is along the dermis basement membrane. The darker the skin, the more of the skin depth has melanin in it. Albinos are melanin deficient, everyone else has similar amounts of it.
Those of us who are of the spotted redhead genes have our mu-melanin in dots surrounded by pink transparent patches. It is why redheads have that unique skin color.
So not only is the melanin less dark, but what little there is gets put into freckles…
I can easily see veins and the rosy red of capillaries can be seen by pressing and releasing an area.
I once spent 2 weeks in Jamaica working diligently on a “tan”. The result was basically manilla. 2 weeks after I returned home, even that was gone again.
I do get full Vit D status with just a few minutes of sun pretty much year round though…
@llanfar – wow! very similar to my diabetes regimen except I only take tumeric here and there and not daily
@tomomason- I love capers! That’s good news for me. And thanks for the link to foods with quercetin. Even though it takes a long time before quinine may affect the eyes, I’d still want to take a break from quinine here and there… but I do really like tonic water.
Back to radio silence. The post-op pain has really set in and I dislike pain pills. I just try to remain as still as possible – couldn’t help but remark on this thread
@H.R. I feel your pain… and hopefully by next month literally. Left shoulder has been in pain over 2 years. Had aN MRI finally late last month… 2 partially torn tendons – 1 of which was dislocated. Meeting with the Dr. in a couple weeks. I take specific additional meds to help get sleep (though I only get 7 hours a few times a month and enough deep sleep a few times a year):
900mg gabapentin
30mg melatonin
1,500 – 4,000mg acetaminophen (depending on how often the pain wakes me)
Recently visited a cousin in OK (dry run EOTWAWKI) and brought back THC gummies. 12.5mg is helping a lot. I much prefer that to oxy, but NC doesn’t have any medical need laws…
Pumpkin seeds for zinc and in my case, and one Brazil nut per day for selenium.
I’m not sure either are really necessary, since I eat quite a lot of venison (minced and liver), on account of knowing a guy here in the SW of England who hunts and butchers deer for a living. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but I’d always assumed than minerals consumed from meat are more readily absorbed than the ones from fruit and veg.
I’ve always kept a few bottles of tonic water in the pantry, ever since I was at a conference 40 years ago, and feeling lousy from some sort of bug. I went to the bar and asked for a Coke, just so that I could burp and feel a little brighter. The ancient barman insisted I had a tonic water instead, and by the next morning I was feeling fine again. I’d always assumed it was some sort of placebo, until the publicity emerged over quinine this year. Whatever, I’ve always poured myself a glass whenever I’ve felt a tightness in my throat, or a temperature coming on, and it’s proven remarkably effective.
Walking the dog whenever the sun shines is probably enough for me to get all the benefits of sunshine (which extend beyond just vitamin D, as I understand it, as it promotes dilation of blood vessels too). I sometimes wonder whether much of the benefit of exercise comes not from the exercise per se, but from the simple fact it gets you out in the sun.
Mind you, I’m happy to lie out in the midday sun with my shirt off whenever I get the chance too. As long as you avoid sunburn, you can’t have too much of a good thing when you live at British latitudes.. Did you know that even the southernmost tip of England is further north than the northernmost point of the continental United States? The period of the year when your skin can create vitamin D from sunshine tapers off quite alarmingly as you live further north in the British Isles. Life expectancy follows a similar pattern.
The medical profession in the USA specializes in diseases of the rich.
When it comes to diseases of the poor or public health in general there is much less interest. Hence our health mandarins like Dr. Fauci pour scorn on anything that is cheap (e.g. HCQ, zinc, vitamin D etc) since they won’t profit from it.
The clear message is that “We the People” must keep dying at a rates of thousands per week until Big Pharma has a vaccine or an expensive therapeutic that the FDA approves!
When this virus was first brought to our attention at the start of this year, I cast about for therapeutics that might work and were available to me. The Chinese Doctor that had been fighting the epidemic in Wuhan had published on the Internet his team’s experience at treating their patients.
The first thing that jumped out at me was Massive doses of Vitamine “C”. I was all taking 1 gram a day, good start. Some kind of Quinine and Zinc. I already take 50mg of Zinc. and found a leg cramp treatment that contains 48mg equivalent of quinine, 2-4 a day is the dose recommended. I already take 1 gram L-Lysine from time to time to control shingles. and my doctor had put me on 125mg vitamine”D3″ because of low blood test results, and I take 20mg melatonin at night as a sleep aid. Throw in 180 mg Vitamin “E”. covers the rest of my regime, so I felt fairly well covered in case of exposure to any virus. I don’t take anything religiously every day but do try not miss too many days per week. Excessive “E” is a risk of reduced blood clotting. a feature both good and bad, but really reduces your oxygen demand.
After surviving 74 years of an adventurous life and now living in a fairly isolated condition, I’m comfortable with my risk of a bad outcome from any exposure to this virus…pg
Vits C, D3. Zinc and melatonin. Also asthma inhaler twice a day and occasional use of emergency inhaler. The asthma medications are steroids or related to steroids, IIRC. Standing by is ivermectin , quinine bark capsules, and quinine water.
@ the Hultquists
I liked your comment on “Our betters . . . Flunking”, but unfortunately most of the general population flunked too.
I think regular extensive blood testing/diagnostics will be more prevalent in the future. What Better way to monitor your body’s performance.
@gallopingcamel: And, yet, Fauci said today that he takes Supplemental Vit D and Vit C as prophylaxis for Covid-19. Whoda thunk that?
For comment
“Lucky
September 13, 2020 at 1:02 pm · Reply
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Their website says, “The US CDC is one of the major operating components of the Department of Health and Human Services.”
However, it is registered as a “for profit” private corporation.
It is not an independent government agency. It is a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry in the form of a public private partnership. It owns patents on 20 or more vaccines. Has $4.6.B sales pa from vaccines.
The CDC is not a public health agency making “independent” vaccine recommendations.
It is not non-political. Director Dr. Robert Redfield, praised the World Health Organization after President Donald Trump announced that the United States will halt WHO funding.
CDC guidelines follow and change with the political wind, eg.
” wearing a mask during prolonged exposure to coronavirus will not prevent possible infection. ”
It claims jurisdiction over all private residential leases! This right is asserted from there remit to control diseases. It appears CDC wants ‘more’, instead of providing reliable auditable disease data.
In May 2020, coronavirus task force member Dr. Birx claimed, “There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust.” ~ The CDC inflates Wuhan flu mortality by as much as 25 percent.
Dr Birx is unpopular from left to right, a possible recommendation.
There are not a lot of sources for this kind of info, least of all gargl, I like-
https://picosico.org/tag/CDCcorruption
very political, humorous and opinionated.
But I would like to see info to contrary. Considering the stakes, in this case the onus of proof is on the defence.”
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/09/weekend-unthreaded-326/#comment-2364687
Interesting to note certain strong / spicy flavor plants are high in quercetin. While capers do win by a lot, I note cilantro as one of my favotites (sliced roast beef with mustard or horseradish or salsa and cilantro in a tortilla…); and dill is interesting as is fennel. Radish leaves are OK but rough. Several are brassicas. The red onions but not white or yellow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercetin
All in all has me wondering if national food preferences could be a significant factor in differences of outcomes.
The link Tom0mason provided has a different pepper listed (green chilies and ancho peppers) leading me to think peppers in general might be interesting. Also buckwheat. I like buckwheat.
Then there are a variety of berries. Looks like berries as a class have potential. Though the cocoa powder was what I noticed most.
So, OK, looks to me like Mexican style, heavy on cilantro, peppers, chocolate mole sauces, with red onions and the odd dill and fennel bits, radishes on the side… main course meat or fish with capers garnish…
Buckwheat has some zinc in it too:
http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/zinc-in-buckwheat.php
So 27% of RDA in one cup, and I like a 2 cup bowl with butter on it as a breakfast sometimes. Add some berries….
I think I’m seeing a pattern.
Older less processed stronger flavor foods good.
“Modern” flavorless corn syrup, sugar and starch laden foods bad.
So folks “like me” who still like and eat sardines, garlic, raw onions, radishes, berries and buckwheat, bitter cocoa and peppers, cilantro and dill have an advantage over the lucky Charms and french fries with a Pepsi generation…
This spring on a whim, I chopped up radishes and their leaves into stir-fry and to my wonder the “Bite” of the radish disappeared and turned sweet. The leaves when well wilted were fine with young beet and cabbage leaves…pg
It is intracellular zinc that is important in the innate immune system. So the body needs zinc in the extracellular fluids and then a zinc ionophore to provide a path across the cell walls into the cells for free zinc. Viruses hijack the RNA transcription in the cells to replicate. Zinc in the cells prevents the virus from taking over the RNA transcription and therefore stops them replicating. This applies to corona viruses, influenza and polio viruses and many others. So the push back from the medics was actually against zinc not the zinc ionophore HCQ. If people knew that a relatively simple dietary change would make them non-susceptible to a whole swathe of viruses why would they want to pay for vaccines?
This is discussed in detail in this paper from 10 years ago which shows an in vitrio experiment. The front like doctors like Zev Zelenko have built up a significant amount of observational confirmation that this regimen works in the early stages of viral infections and as a prophylactic.
“Zn2+ Inhibits Coronavirus and Arterivirus RNA Polymerase Activity In Vitro and Zinc Ionophores Block the Replication of These Viruses in Cell Culture”
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1001176
@Ian W – That’s part of the realization that started hitting me over the past year.
There are a ton of cheap, simple things that people could have and should have been doing over the past many years to minimize cases of all types of viral infections.
One thing, for example, was the grocery cart handle sanitizing stations. Another DOH! was the plastic shields for cashiers. Who needs some fevered, hacking customer wiping out your employee for the next week or two?
And then there’s all the nutritional protections we’ve been discussing on this particular thread, not to forget, “Wash your hands and don’t touch your face.” Oh, and get outside for fresh air and sunshine.
But there’s no money in simple prevention and a ton of money in flu remedies and vaccines.
The ads you see tell the tale. There are zero for prevention, other than vaccines, and plenty for cough and cold remedies.
I think the internet is interrupting that calculus, now. A LOT of people have been digging into the topic of flu prevention and treatment and have come to a view similar to mine.
Still not a lot you can do for the elderly who may have multiple degraded parts in their total health picture. Getting old does suck.
“Why the Covid-19 epidemic is essentially over & current PCR testing protocols are pointless”
Links to
https://lockdownsceptics.org/addressing-the-cv19-second-wave/
powergrab …
“Please Note: We have found at Lost Empire Herbs that the purported high levels of Zinc to be a fictitious thing in the different ant sources we have sourced for possible sale or even the stuff we currently sell. We have also found that other companies ant products are also lacking in zinc even when it is being promoted. Because of this, we no longer promote Ant as having high Zinc levels. This does not mean that the Polyrhachis vicina is necessary lacking in Zinc. It could just mean that we and others have not found a ‘true’ source of this product. The growing conditions are everything and, traditionally, ants were collected which made their nests around old, wild ginseng plants. Additionally, most Ants sold on the market place are probably cultivated themselves and not wild and this too will play a part in the end products nutritional makeup. We at Lost Empire Herbs will continue to find the best Ant we can to provide the most nutrition to our customers. We just want you to know that we are not trying to falsely market you into buying something from us. We do not believe we have to lie to make quality products. The quality of the products should speak for themselves (updated: February 5, 2017).”
But if it was cheap enuf I would eat it….
Serioso: “But I’ll bet that people who took vitamin pills on a regular basis [which is probably why they had normal levels] generally took better care of themselves.”
Serioso is being a skeptic. That’s a good thing. He should do it more often.
But he has hit upon an important point. There is more to protecting yourself from Covid than wearing masks and taking things that might fight the virus. THE most important thing is to stay healthy. To keep your immune system healthy for sure, but more than that, to keep your metabolic system healthy. Vitamins and all that, of course, but not just that, your whole diet.
https://thefatemperor.com/ep94-how-to-address-immune-function-to-beat-viruses-you-can-start-today/
@ DonM:
Thanks for that article. What I had heard about them was that they were “magnetic ants” that grew on the top peaks in China. I can see why not every source of the ants could provide a product that really grew in the proper conditions to be helpful.
C’est la vie!
@PowerGrab:
It’s a constant that minerals are variable in foods. ;-)
Really. Farmers often must adjust particular minerals in the soil so that the forage for their animals contains the needed minerals. The plants grow OK (if not at their best) with deficiencies of some minerals Then the animals have issues.
Ones that come to mind:
Iodine – now added to salt, but in prior generations, goiter was common inland from the sea and iodine was often deficient. China has estimated a 10 point I.Q. gain nation wide will result from their mandatory iodized salt decree (as many areas are very deficient and it does impact I.Q.)
Copper, Zinc, Manganese, Molybdenum
http://www.bettersoils.soilwater.com.au/module3/3_08.htm
A bit different from animal needs, but you must have decent pasture growth to get best animal growth:
So if the ants are eating plants grown in zinc deficient soil, they will not be rich in zinc. OTOH, the oceans have every mineral in them, so seaweed is a good all round general source of “stuff”. Besides, sushi is great! ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nori
Interesting side note:
Buckwheat is often used for bioremediation of soils with too much mineralization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat
Provided it’s in the soil, buckwheat does a nice job with zinc and selenium. It makes a very nice breakfast porridge, goes well as a rice replacement, and can be used as a stuffing base for birds and such. Just cook like most grains. 1 unit grain to 2 units water in a rice cooker (or simmer on low with a lid).
So, IMHO, leave the ants, take the buckwheat ;-)
Amazing (not) how few folk know that organisms absorb preferentially the minerals they need and preferentially exclude the ones they don’t. Dose and route make the medicine or the poison; and growth is limited by the most limited of a fairly large number of factors. The survival (as well as growth) curve is a quadratic. Either side of optimum sees a decrease.
@C.D.Quarles:
What amazes me is that plants and animals can survive in such wide ranges of minerals et. al. Often less than optimally, but survive still.
Our enzyme systems concentrate what we need from poor sources (with a limit, yes, but they do a decent job most of the time) and flush out or reject what is in excess (also with limits when you overrun the mechanism. Kidney stones and calcium oxalate come to mind… also death from too much water or too much salt)
But every mechanism has it’s limits, so not a surprise. You can’t make iodine out of nothing and if you have zero phosphorus input, you can’t just make it (or substitute something close like Arsenic and have it keep working well…) Yet we can live well on a wide range of Iodine in our food, and can survive a bit of Arsenic, or a bit too little phosphorus (or even too much in most cases though it can increase calcium leaching from bones with kidney problems…)
So much cellular mechanism is devoted to getting things in just the right concentration. It is one of the key systems of the cell. Membrane pumps and all.
The system was *designed* ;p with wet chemistry in mind, in my opinion. Thus, no surprise at all.
@GC – Fauci has vested interest his very expensive cure that is not very effective.
About that Fauci question:
I like buckwheat “hotcakes”, as Grandmother called them. She offered us our choice of regular hotcakes or buckwheat. I always chose buckwheat.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen “Buckwheat cakes” mix in the grocery store. I really like buckwheat cakes too (more flavour and less ‘hyper’ blood sugar effects) but haven’t seen them in decades. Or maybe just grabbed “the usual” and didn’t look…
Wonder if the mix is still around or if it will be a DIY thing… (Duckduck…)
That looks like a YES!
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bob-s-Red-Mill-Buckwheat-Pancake-Mix-26-Ounce/31019136
While Walmart is showing out of stock, Bob’s Red Mill brand is all over the place.
Looks like Aunt Jemima, Arrowhead Mills, Krusteaz, and more too. Next time I’m in the grocery store, I’m going to study the pancake mix section more closely…