The Article of the Month Feb/March – Corona Virus & Immunity – Dr. Hertoghe

I have been willing to write to you since the beginning of this pandemic. A coronavirus infection kills mainly immune-deficient men over 80 years of age but members of all age categories and genders may be severely affected in conditions of decreased immunity. The virus kills 10 times more easily than the flu. Nowadays, the flu still kills 50 to 100 times more people each year because of its much greater frequency. My goal is to give you key information to prevent the disease and boost your immune system in order to preserve your health and the one of your patients.

In addition to the excellent preventive public health measures suggested by the governments, you may also:

Keep the indoor atmosphere humid enough

Wherever you are indoors (home, office, classrooms), keep the atmosphere humid enough (at least 65-70% humidity) by using humidifiers that spread vapor into the air or opening windows when it rains, for example. The main reason why viral and bacterial infections are much more frequent in the winter, and not in the summer, is that during the winter the indoor air is too dry because of overheating. The overheating dries the mucosa (mucous membranes) of the respiratory tract (throat, larynx, bronchi, and bronchioles of the lungs). As a consequence, the mucosa becomes much thinner and fragile, allowing millions of viruses to penetrate easily into the body, overwhelming the immune system. When the air is humid enough, the mucosa of the respiratory airways thickens, and resists much better against viruses. Much less or no viruses can penetrate them and the viruses that do, are easily neutralized by the immune system.

Keep your immune system optimal

+ Drink a lot of water (> 2L/day)

+ Follow an anti-inflammatory diet (fresh vegetables and fruit, steamed or boiled meat or chicken), avoid all sweets, unsprouted grains, and milk products that calm down your immune system

+ Sleep sufficiently

+ Take several immune-enhancing nutritional supplements:

1. A high-dosed multivitamin supplement
2. Vitamin A 25,000-100,000 IU/day depending on the levels in lab tests
3. Vitamin D 10,000 IU/day
4. Vitamin C 1-2 g/day

If you are already suffering from a viral infection, Dr. Brownstein (USA) recommends an ideal nutritional treatment would be during the first 5 days of a Coronavirus (or other types of infection)

+ 50,000 IU/day of vitamin D3

+ 5 to 10 g/day of vitamin C (following tolerance; excess produces diarrhea)

+ Vitamin A 100,000 IU/day

+ I would add an intake of iodine (as Lugol 5%) solution: 5-10 drops/day.

The importance of a good hormonal balance

Hormonal treatments are protective, their effects are to prolong life and to be in better health (avoiding age-related diseases).

+ Thyroid treatment improves the immune system in the long-term (several months).

+ The immune system is stimulated the most by thymosin-alpha-1 (which is produced naturally by the body).

+ Cortisol treatment is very important. In fact, patients with adrenal deficiency (cortisol deficiency) are highly prone to infections, so they must correct their deficiency in order to get less risk of infection by coronavirus, other viruses, and bacteria’s.

The Controversy of Cortisol

Online and in newspapers, it has been reported that ibuprofen and other anti–inflammatory medications may reduce the resistance to the coronavirus infection. This is not true for the anti-inflammatory hydrocortisone or any other cortisol derivatives when these supplements are taken in safe physiological amounts to correct an adrenal deficiency, and combined with the intake of a similar amount of DHEA, the other important adrenal hormone, which protects against side effects of cortisol. The higher the DHEA dose is, the higher the cortisol dose can be without causing atrophy and other undesirable effects.

In fact, in case of adrenal deficiency, the administration of cortisol associated to DHEA boosts the immune system. As mentioned above, you should even increase in the first hours and days the dose so to get rid of the infection quicker.

At excessive doses, however, given during prolonged weeks, cortisol and its derivatives reduce the size of the thymus and the production of immune cells and thymosin hormones by the thymus, and thereby, create an immune deficiency.