The new outbreak in Africa is significantly different. Thousands are dying and sick. It is growing in size at this moment. It has the potential to move from country to country. At this time it is only transmitted by body fluids. They keep saying that, then they say you get it by riding in a taxi. How does that happen? We know that viruses are famously adaptable and some can become transmissible by airborne infection as they mutate. They mutate a lot.
So how does that have anything to do with this blog. Easy. It could come here quite easily by airliner. It is a virus. What do we know about viruses. WE KNOW IMPROVED IMMUNE FUNCTION WARDS OFF VIRAL INFECTIONS.
How do we know this. Flu, colds and shingles are all attenuated by improved immune function. How about HIV. Yes, according to some reports people with HIV do significantly better with improved immune function. All these illnesses plus EBOLA are viral!
What improves immune function? Vitamin D has shown to help with all the above and significantly improves the health in many ways. What else. Fermented foods improve function because they directly reduce inflammation by their action on the immune system which is at concentrated 80% in the gut.
I am sure in ten or twenty years even the most doubting of the medical professions will know this. In the mean time it is very clear that this works and there are no significant down sides to following a agenda of improving your immune system and health.
Or you can wait and see.
Interesting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opinion/what-were-afraid-to-say-about-ebola.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140911&nlid=745484&tntemail0=y&_r=1
BB
9/16/14
This just in. The Government has ordered 160,000 hazsuits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JmKtyCphzI
9/21/14
I don't do any of this blog to alarm people. My aim is to inform so that a informed decision can be made. I know decisions, for me, are better if I have run a scenario through my mind first. Just reacting without forethought is apt to be not the wisest way to go.
BB
9/23/14
i read the news and wonder what is going to happen. WHO ( World Health Organization) just made a prediction of 555,000 to 1.4 Million cases by late January. Some says this is to pessimistic. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't.
The article. You decide.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/09/22/world-health-organization-ebola/16076067/
BB
9/25/14
A interesting point. People of colour have a lower vitamin D level. How much lower? Well it is not uncommon to see a level that is in the single digits whereas those who are white tend to have a level in the mid to high teens.
What is normal? Normal is not a good word. A better question is what is optimum? There is a great deal of debate about this. Some say optimum or "normals", as they say on lab results, ranges from fifty to 100 ng. I will end by saying the lab normals for John Hopkins Hospital, one of the best in the country is 30 to 100 ng. How do you get to these "normals"? Read my about page.
BB
9/28/14
Back a year or so I read a article in Discover magazine on viruses and where they hide out. They turned one of their big electron microscopes on and studied the chromosomes located in our cells. It was a unusually strong electron microscope so they saw things they had not seen before. It was astonishing what they saw.
They saw viruses. Lots of viruses in our chromosomes. Just oozing with viruses. Our chromosones are just packed with viruses and we make use of some of these in our make up. In fact they stated that our origininal human chromosomes where in a vast minority. Seems we hook on to different chromosomes and just incorporate them into our make up.
So why don't we get sick from these viruses. It appears they are switched on when our immune system is weakest. I think that some just sit there and wait and others actually have useful purposes that help make us what we are. The double edged sword comes to mind.
Bottom line ....keep your immune system in top notch form and it will prevent these viruses from being activated. Here is a article that illustrates the point.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/03/27/dormant-viruses-can-hide-in-our-dna-and-be-passed-from-parent-to-child/#.VCfw3q0gTtR
And to illustrate another point: we get colds and the flu during the winter when our vitamin D level are lowest. That would be January and February. Ebola is a virus and that enterovirus that is going around these days effecting mostly children is one too. Schizophrenia tends to occur more often in children born these months. With schizophrenia there is inflammation of the brain.
Of course vitamin D is a strong immune system booster and for that matter so are probiotics. For me it is a no brainer to embrace a strong immune system as a disease and pain preventitive.
I like to rehash these points when there is special concerns about health in the news. I hope these ideas make sense to you. Again just click on comments if you wish to comment or for a clarification.
BB
9/29/14
Of late I am seeing a considerable increase in traffic to this website. I want you to consider reading my "about" page. That page has evolved over years as I have evolved in my understanding of immune function, inflammation and pain control. All huge items in quality of life especially as you and I age.
If you run this page pass a health care provider you will be not encouraged to make use of this information. Why? Well it is not what every other main stream health provider does. And why is that?
I can not answer that question except by asking another question. Why do you receive a certain treatment when you visit your health care provider? I mean will it be different or the same as every other health provider with in that speciality. It will be very close to the same. Why?
What is determined to be the proper treatment is "standard of care". A standard that is officially recognized by all licensing agencies of the government for medical providers. " Standard of Care" means what 90% of health providers do for a certain illness or treatment, is the correct treatment. If you differ from this group, who are all doing the same thing, you can be censored, sued, and / or lose your license.
So, if a health care provider comes up with a new treatment that "works" he is in danger of losing his lively hood or being sued for a lot of money because it differs from the standard of care. So, how do you change treatment that recognizes new and advanced treatments. I think if a drug company sponsors a study or a noted expert does a study, things can change.
One question more. Why would a recognized person do a study like that and how many of those studies do you suppose are financed by a drug company or major supplier of medical appliances?
BB
10/1/14
This story keeps developing and we are seeing a real life test of EBOLA. We have seen our first patient, in the USA, come down with Ebola. He was on a plane from Liberia, Africa and had no symptoms, on the plane, so he was not contagious, our medical experts tell us. So if passengers on that plane become sick we will know that is not true. I.E, it is a airborne disease and contagious when no symptoms are present. Time will tell.
He arrived on the 20th of September and walked around, visited relatives etc. He did not become sick until the 24th, they say. Only then was he contagious, they say, can he spread the disease. However, he was not admitted to the hospital until a couple of days later and could have infected people during that time, they say. Time will tell.
So, they say, it takes up to 21 days to come down with Ebola. If no one becomes infected from the plane I think, we can say it is not airborne. A very good thing and I believe everything is under control. It is a entirely different ball game if any of those become sick. If no one becomes sick from the plane I think, the virus is very controllable if good isolation and quarantine measures are implemented.
I am going to insert a note of pessimism here. I worked in a hospital for over 50 years. I was trained as a RN to be very careful about sterile technique. Very careful about isolation technique. Our medical people have become over reliant on antibiotics to cure any contamination due to poor technique. Antibiotics do not work on Ebola. If any breaks are made in isolation technique with this disease we will see a outbreak of the disease in the hospital in which this patient is "isolated".
Is the government telling us all the truth or are they leaving out things to not alarm the public. Our government routinely lies to us. They all do it and of late it has become more of a pattern and almost routine thing to do. Again, time will tell. Bottom line ....21 days from 20 September is 11 October. 21 days from 26 September is 17 October.....you get the idea.
Time will tell.
BB
October 3/14
At this point the news is reporting that there maybe cases in Utah and Hawaii. Also, clothes in the Ebola patients apartment have not been removed. They can find no one to do it. The people living in that apartment have refused to stay inside. They are now under armed guard. These problems are with only one patient!
This thing maybe metastasizing. I have on hand food for two months. I could isolate myself for even longer. Maybe going on a diet would be a good thing. If we see more and more cases popping up this will cause a great deal of concern. People may hoard food and stop doing what they normally do out of fear of contagion.
How much food do you have on hand. How soon would you have to go shopping if it became obvious that leaving your home could be dangerous.
BB
10/12/14
I watch the news and I read the reports. I see there is another case of Ebola. They say it was a breach in technique that allowed the infection to occur. A RN made a mistake and got infected. I believe it. I have seen technique on the wards that required isolation. I wondered about how good it was.
I have read recently that a Doctor said, why are we allowing our hospitals to be exposed to this disease. The very important people we rely on to care for us are being exposed needlessly. Lets face it, if you go in for a appendectomy, do you want that care taker to have been exposed to Ebola. I suspect not.
They are saying (CDC) we need a dedicated team in the hospital to take care of these people. Sounds like a good idea. How about a separate building with dedicated people to care for them. They would be payed more and specially trained.
I know how real hospitals work. A call is made at five thirty in the am. We need some one to work in the Ebola ward. Will you come in? Been there, seen it, done it. All I am saying is this requires serious dedicated people with a dedicated spot to care for these people. They need to be compensated accordingly.
It is time for Big Government to stop reacting and start planning appropriately.
BB