For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Health Issues page and our Appetite For a Change page.

Could it be because there is little profit to be made from them?
Action Alert!

With Ebola panic taking hold of the country, we hear very little about the natural ways to prevent the disease or treat the patients.  This becomes even more important when you consider that these natural ways are less expensive and can often be self-administered. In addition, they often build up the immune system, and people susceptible to Ebola are more likely to have compromised immune systems.

As we discussed last month in our article on Ebola and natural remedies, the “Catch-22” of drug economics-that no one will spend the exorbitant sums needed to run clinical trials if the product can’t be patented and turned into a huge money-maker-practically ensures that natural treatments will be ignored.

The status quo in which government creates and protects drug company monopolies was always outrageous. Now with the threat of major and deadly pandemic in sight, it is completely unacceptable. It is essential that voters become aware of what is going on behind closed doors in Washington so they can speak up and move the political system-before millions of lives are needlessly lost and our economy also dealt a savage blow.

In our earlier article, we discussed how silver has been used as an antimicrobial for thousands of years and has the ability both to attack viruses and to inhibit their transmission. We also showed how intravenous vitamin C would be a tremendous benefit to patients in hospitals and clinics who have already contracted Ebola.

In addition to these approaches, some new research has uncovered other natural and effective treatments for Ebola:

• According to an important study published in the
Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, the Ebola virus seems to be selenium-dependent-that is, the virus rapidly drains its host of the mineral selenium, making the patient vulnerable to high levels of oxidative stress, which in turn contributes to hemorrhaging and a breakdown of the immune system. Patients who are already selenium deficient-as people in developing nations often are, due to food and nutrition insufficiencies-are most vulnerable to Ebola. 

• Multiple studies have looked at selenium yeast-the organic form of selenium, which is superior in terms of bioavailability and metabolism when compared with inorganic forms of dietary selenium such as selenite-as having a profound impact on the incidence and progression of a variety of infectious and degenerative diseases. There is no question that selenium yeast is associated with increased ability to counteract oxidative stress. 

• Intravenous vitamin C may be useful in hospitals and clinics, but it isn’t offered there, and many patients won’t get that far or might not even be welcome if they did. Such patients might be given high doses of vitamin C in a liposome version-it is gentler on the body, and can be gotten to patients in rural areas where medical facilities may be lacking. Glutathione-also in a liposome version, if taken orally-helps recirculate vitamin C and helps strengthen the immune system. Liposomal forms of oral C are not a substitute for IV C, but any form of C could help tremendously if given to bowel tolerance. 

• Vitamin D is a vital necessity for our immune system to fight off viruses. Unfortunately, the darker one’s skin is-that is, the more melanin one has-the more sunlight one needs for the body to make its own vitamin D, so supplementation is critical. Megadoses would be indicated for patients who have already come in contact with the Ebola virus. Of course, at the moment, the dosages the government describes as megadoses barely get a patient into the upper range of “good” on a blood test. The current reference range in conventional medicine for adequate vitamin D in the blood is 30-100 ng/ml. Many people need 10,000 iu a day of supplemented D just to get above 60. Vitamin D in the blood is thought by many experts to be most antiviral around 70 ng/ml.