From Dr. Joseph Mercola
Since COVID-19 first entered the scene, alternate of concepts has mainly been outlawed. By sharing my views and people from varied consultants all through the pandemic on COVID remedies and the experimental COVID jabs, I grew to become a major goal of the White House, the political institution and the worldwide cabal.
Propaganda and pervasive censorship have been deployed to grab management over each a part of your life, together with your well being, funds and meals provide. The main media are key gamers and have been instrumental in creating and fueling worry.
I’m republishing this text in its authentic kind as a way to see how the development unfolded.
Originally printed: April 6, 2020
While a restricted variety of medication have been enlisted within the remedy of extreme coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) an infection, a lot of dietary dietary supplements have risen to the forefront for his or her obvious usefulness. In addition to quercetin, zinc and nutritional vitamins C and D, vitamin B1 (thiamine) could also be very important to guard in opposition to infectious respiratory sickness.
Thiamine can also be a part of Dr. Paul Marik’s sepsis remedy, which requires 1,500 milligrams (mg) of intravenous ascorbic acid each six hours, 200 mg of thiamine each 12 hours and 50 mg of hydrocortisone each six hours.1
Sepsis, as you might have heard, is a serious contributor in influenza deaths generally, and a major trigger for COVID-19 deaths particularly. In one medical trial,2,3 Marik, [formerly] a vital care physician at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital in East Virginia, confirmed his remedy lowered sepsis-related mortality practically fivefold.
More current analysis,4,5 printed on-line January 9, 2020, discovered Marik’s sepsis protocol lowered mortality in pediatric sufferers as nicely. At the 30-day mark, controls and the hydrocortisone-only teams had a mortality price of 28% whereas the remedy group had a mortality price of simply 9%.
Vitamin C, Thiamine and Steroids Have Synergistic Effects
All three components in Marik’s sepsis protocol have synergistic results, which appears to be why it’s so efficient. Vitamin C is well-known for its capability to stop and deal with infectious ailments by itself.
Influenza,6 encephalitis and measles7 have all been efficiently handled with high-dose vitamin C, and former analysis has proven it successfully lowers proinflammatory cytokines and C-reactive protein.8,9,10
Vitamin C and corticosteroids, nevertheless, have been proven to work synergistically. This was demonstrated in a examine11 by Marik in collaboration with John Catravas, Ph.D., a pharmacology researcher at Old Dominion University, and others, by which endothelial cells from lung tissue had been uncovered to lipopolysaccharide — a kind of endotoxin present in sufferers with sepsis — within the absence or presence of ascorbic acid and hydrocortisone.
Interestingly, when both vitamin C or the steroid was administered in isolation, little or no enchancment in endothelial barrier perform occurred. When administered collectively, nevertheless, the an infection was efficiently eradicated and the cells had been restored to regular.
The addition of thiamine (vitamin B1) can also be vital. Not solely is thiamine required for metabolism of a few of the metabolites of vitamin C, thiamine deficiency syndrome (beriberi) has many similarities to sepsis, and thiamine deficiency is comparatively frequent in critically sick sufferers.12
As famous in a 1955 examine,13 thiamine deficiency can also be prevalent in pulmonary tuberculosis, and the extra extreme the case, the extra extreme the thiamine deficiency.
Studies have additionally proven thiamine will be useful for a protracted record of ailments and issues, together with mitochondrial issues,14 coronary heart failure,15 delirium,16 thyroid fatigue and Hashimoto’s (a thyroid autoimmune dysfunction).17 These and different well being results could assist clarify why thiamine works so nicely along side vitamin C and hydrocortisone for sepsis.
You can study extra about Marik’s sepsis protocol in “Vitamin C — A Game Changer in Treatment of Deadly Sepsis,” together with commonsense suggestions for how you can decrease your danger of sepsis within the first place.
You can even evaluation Marik’s PowerPoint presentation, “Hydrocortisone, Ascorbic Acid and Thiamine for the Treatment of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock,” introduced on the 2020 Critical Care Reviews assembly in Australia.
Thiamine Deficiency Implicated in Severe Infections
Thiamine deficiency has additionally been implicated in extreme infections particularly. A 2016 examine18 within the journal Psychosomatics sought to research this by taking a look at 68 sufferers with Korsakoff syndrome, a reminiscence dysfunction brought on by extreme thiamine deficiency.
While thiamine deficiency is commonly the results of alcohol misuse, it’s additionally related to persistent infections, poor diet and/or malabsorption. As defined by the Alzheimer’s Association, “Thiamine helps brain cells produce energy from sugar. When levels fall too low, brain cells cannot generate enough energy to function properly.”19
In the Psychosomatics examine, they discovered that 35 of 68 Korsakoff sufferers suffered extreme infections throughout the acute part of the sickness, together with meningitis, pneumonia and sepsis. According to the authors, “Infections may be the presenting manifestation of thiamine deficiency.”
Thiamine Helps Regulate Your Immune Function
Another examine20 printed in 2018 discovered thiamine helps restrict Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) by regulating your innate immunity. According to this paper:
“… vitamin B1 promotes the protecting immune response to restrict the survival of MTB inside macrophages and in vivo by means of regulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR-γ).
Vitamin B1 promotes macrophage polarization into classically activated phenotypes with sturdy microbicidal exercise and enhanced tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 expression no less than partially by selling nuclear factor-κB signaling.
In addition, vitamin B1 will increase mitochondrial respiration and lipid metabolism and PPAR-γ integrates the metabolic and inflammatory indicators regulated by vitamin B1 … We display that vitamin B1 enhances anti-MTB actions in macrophages and in vivo by down-regulating PPAR-γ exercise.
Our knowledge display vital features of thiamine VB1 in regulating innate immune responses in opposition to MTB and reveal novel mechanisms by which vitamin B1 exerts its perform in macrophages.”
The Link Between Thiamine Deficiency and Fever
Thiamine deficiency can also be related to the event of excessive fever, and in keeping with a letter to the editor,21 “Is Parenteral Thiamin a Super Antibiotic?” printed within the Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism in 2018, thiamine injections are “likely to eradicate microbial infections” inflicting the fever.
The authors cite some medical case stories by which thiamine injections had been capable of reverse a lot of acute sicknesses by which excessive fever was an element, together with one case the place the affected person introduced with excessive fever, headache and asphyxia (emotions of suffocation), and one other the place a comatose affected person had excessive fever and extreme pneumonia.
“… another laborer with much milder pneumonia, 38°C fever with few rales in the left lung died within 24 h, although a full dose of penicillin G was used, but no thiamin was given,” the authors be aware.
“This sharp contrast between the two cases made such a deep impression that it was strongly remembered. Fifty-six years later, it became a life-saving suggestion for a critical case with fatal viral pneumonia.”
The authors go on to element an much more exceptional case involving a 38-year-old Chinese girl who was dropped at the hospital with excessive fever (39 to 40 levels C), ache, swollen legs and bloody sputum. Laboratory testing confirmed she was anemic and had low platelets, extreme pneumonia, femoral thromboses and coronary heart failure. She additionally examined optimistic for hepatitis C.
“An exhaustive identification study revealed that the pathogen of her pneumonia was diagnosed to be an unknown kind of virus,” the authors be aware. “Pulmonary lesions had been extraordinarily extreme, unusual, and uncommon with a number of small perforations within the left lung …
After 12 days of immunoglobulin, anti-viral, antithrombotic, and antipyretic treatment, she was about to die when her household promptly carried her house … At house, thiamin 200 mg and VB complicated 1 ampule (containg thiamin 10 mg, riboflavin 2 mg, niacinamide 30 mg, pyridoxin 2 mg, pantothenic acid 1 mg) had been injected thrice day by day.
Temperature returned to regular after 2 days and leg edema disappeared in 5 days … After 58 days, she was checked within the Beichen Hospital … The outcomes revealed a traditional coronary heart; hepatitis C destructive … much less effusion within the left thoracic cavity; pleural thickness particularly on the left aspect however no adhesion. Lung perforation was absent … She thereafter loved glorious well being with none signal of embolism or pneumonia recurrence.”
About 10 months after her preliminary hospitalization, she underwent a second follow-up, which revealed regular blood counts and electrocardiography. Her lungs additionally seemed utterly regular on X-rays, “with no thickening or adhesion of pleura except for a few texture thickenings in the lungs.”
According to the authors, this case made them wonder if thiamine could be “a super antibiotic.” “It seemed to be surely so and was emerging to be a powerful alternative in the event of antibiotics failing,” they mentioned.
Thiamine Deficiency Might Impact Pandemics
The World Health Organization has additionally printed details about the significance of thiamine and how you can stop deficiency throughout main emergencies.22 According to WHO:
“Thiamine deficiency occurs where the diet consists mainly of milled white cereals, including polished rice, and wheat flour, all very poor sources of thiamine. Thiamine deficiency can develop within 2-3 months of a deficient intake and can cause disability and death.”
Other proof suggests thiamine insufficiency or deficiency can develop even quicker than that, maybe as rapidly as two weeks, as its half-life in your system is simply 9 to 18 days.23
The WHO report additionally factors out that “Thiamine deficiency occurs sporadically in people who are socially isolated, suffer loss of appetite and self-neglect” — some extent that’s significantly pertinent in present circumstances of worldwide “shelter in place” necessities. What’s extra:
“The requirement of thiamine is increased when carbohydrates are taken in large amounts and is raised during periods of increased metabolism, for example, fever, muscular activity, hyperthyroidism and also during pregnancy and lactation. A diet based on polished rice is high in carbohydrates which augments the thiamine requirement and is compounded by a low thiamine content.”
Aside from rice, junk meals of all types tends to be loaded with carbohydrates as nicely, which may necessitate a higher-than regular thiamine consumption to stop unwanted effects of thiamine deficiency. In adults, thiamine deficiency is split into two major varieties:24,25
- Dry beriberi (thiamine deficiency with peripheral neuropathy) — Polyneuropathy with paraesthesia of the extremities (particularly the legs), lowered knee jerk and different tendon reflexes, progressive extreme weak spot and losing of muscle tissue, and vastly elevated susceptibility to infections.
- Wet beriberi (thiamine deficiency with cardiomyopathy) — Edema (particularly of the legs, but additionally the trunk and face), excessive cardiac output, ventricular failure, sinus rhythm, dilatation of arterioles, depressed erythrocyte and leukocyte transketolase, elevated serum lactate and pyruvate, and pulmonary congestion with pleural effusions; demise from congestive coronary heart failure could happen abruptly.
By dramatically rising susceptibility to infections, thiamine deficiency may doubtlessly have the flexibility to influence the unfold of nearly any pandemic infectious illness.
The Importance of Thiamine in Septic Shock
With regard to sepsis — which is a major cause why individuals die from COVID-19 — thiamine could also be of important significance. In a Journal of Thoracic Disease article with the evocative title, “Do Not Forget to Give Thiamine to Your Septic Shock Patient!” the authors stress that:26
“[Thiamine] is a water-soluble vitamin that’s an indispensable constituent of mobile metabolism. An absence of this vitamin can, subsequently, be doubtlessly life-threatening … Thiamine diphosphate, often known as thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) … is crucial and energetic type of this vitamin …
Thiamine pyrophosphate … acts in concomitance with magnesium to expedite varied mitochondrial oxidative decarboxylation reactions.
Thiamine pyrophosphate is critical as a cofactor for branched-chain ketoacid dehydrogenase complicated important for the metabolism of the branched-chain amino acids and for 2 vital complexes required for the mitochondrial synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP): pyruvate and 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase (α-ketoglutarate) complexes …
Also, TPP serves as a coenzyme for transketolase, a cytosolic enzyme implicated within the pentose phosphate pathway that features in sustaining cell redox standing by means of the manufacturing of NADPH (lowered nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) and glutathione …
Lack of thiamine results in alterations in intermediate metabolism that end-up in lactic acidosis …
Thiamine deficiency can also be prevalent in septic shock sufferers, with charges starting from 20% to 70% relying on the cutoff worth used to outline the presence of thiamine deficiency. Lack of thiamine reduces the flux of pyruvate to the Krebs cycle, thus rising lactate manufacturing by altering the cardio metabolism.
In a potential, observational examine, Donnino et al. investigated the connection between thiamine ranges and lactic acidosis in 30 septic shock sufferers …
After excluding sufferers with irregular liver perform exams, the authors noticed a big destructive correlation between thiamine concentrations and lactic acidosis, implying a possible affiliation between thiamine ranges and lactic acidosis in septic shock sufferers with regular liver perform.
Thus, the likelihood that by lowering the exercise of pyruvate dehydrogenase complicated, thiamine deficiency can contribute to elevated manufacturing of lactic acid in critically sick septic sufferers exists.”
The authors cite further analysis strongly suggesting “the administration of thiamine is advantageous in septic shock patients with severe thiamine deficiency (thiamine level ≤7 nmol/L).” Considering the security of thiamine, even at excessive doses, the authors stress that “septic shock patients should be given thiamine … without waiting for the results of thiamine level.”
The European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism tips for sufferers in intensive care conditions are 100 to 300 mg of thiamine per day “during the first three days in the ICU for all patients with suspected thiamine deficiency.”27
In circumstances of septic shock, nevertheless, dosages of 500 mg could also be required. According to “Do Not Forget to Give Thiamine to Your Septic Shock Patient!”:28
“Because anaphylaxis has been reported in rare instances, guidelines in the United Kingdom have recommended that thiamine should be administered over 15- to 30-minute interval in a mixture of saline solution or dextrose, with the intention of averting potential adverse reactions.”
Vitamins C, D, Thiamine and Magnesium for Critical Illness
A 2018 report29 in Intensive Care Medicine additionally focuses on thiamine — right here along side nutritional vitamins C and D. It cites analysis displaying septic shock sufferers with thiamine deficiency who got thiamine had far decrease mortality (13%) than those that didn’t obtain it (46%).30 They had been additionally far much less more likely to undergo kidney failure.
Like thiamine, acute vitamin C deficiency is quite common throughout vital sickness but tends to go unnoticed. As famous on this report, “Acute vitamin C deficiency may contribute to hypotension, exaggerated inflammation, capillary leakage, microcirculatory compromise, oxidative organ injury, and impaired immune defense and wound healing.”
Vitamin D deficiency can also be frequent, and may worsen sickness and enhance the danger of demise from acute sickness. According to the authors of this report:
“Preliminary knowledge utilizing novel strategies counsel that glutathione and glutamate pathway metabolism, that are vital for redox regulation and immunomodulation, are affected by vitamin D standing …
The VITdAL-ICU examine (n = 475) didn’t discover a distinction within the size of hospital keep between teams, however there was a big discount in mortality within the predefined subgroup of sufferers with extreme vitamin D deficiency. The most up-to-date meta-analysis concludes that vitamin D within the ICU could also be related to mortality discount.”
Surprisingly, magnesium has not been given a lot, if any, consideration in all this. It could also be simply as vital for the prevention and remedy of an infection, nevertheless, seeing how magnesium is required for the activation of each thiamine31 and vitamin D.32,33,34
