Dr. Timothy Scott
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 Though it has often been suggested that it is the flu virus that mysteriously damages the brain, it is not mysterious, and the damage can come from many different sources. In 1964 the U.S. experienced a German measles (rubella) epidemic. Thousands of mothers caught the disease and exposed their unborn babies to measles during pregnancy. Those who were thus exposed were more likely later to develop schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders than were those not exposed to the disease.29
Of course, many explanations could be suggested for the traditional viral theory. |
James F. Balch, M.D. and Mark Stengler, N.D.
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 In the case of an actual threat to the body, in the form of, say, a flu virus, these reactions would form an important line of defense against the invader, helping to trap it and expel it, and encouraging you to rest and recover. But during the false alarm of an allergic response, the body overreacts to a harmless agent.
Most allergens are found either in the environment or in food. (For information about allergic reactions to food, see Food Allergies. |
| Most communities see an outbreak of at least one flu virus every winter; every two to three years, the flu reaches epidemic proportions.
As with the common cold, there is no conventional cure for the flu. However, specific natural therapies described in this section have the potential to abort a flu in its early stages. The wisest course of action is to keep your immune system strong and healthy during the winter months, thereby reducing the virus's ability to take hold in your body. Eat well, exercise, rest, and follow the other general recommendations for health outlined in Part Two. |
Kevin Trudeau
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 Expose them both to the flu virus at the same time. One person comes down with all of the symptoms of the flu and becomes very sick. The other person shows no symptoms whatsoever, stays healthy, and does not "get the flu." They both got the flu virus! One person succumbed to it and got sick; the other person did not and remained healthy. Throughout your life you will pick up thousands of bacteria and viruses. That is natural. The real question to ask is why your body does not do what it was designed to do: fight off and handle the bacteria or virus. Why did you succumb to the bacteria or virus? |
Stephen Cummings and Dana Ullman
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 Influenza can be a life-threatening disease among young children, the elderly, and those debilitated by chronic illnesses—especially because severe bacterial infections such as pneumonia can develop when the system is weakened by the flu virus (ear and sinus infections also may occur). Also, the flu viruses mutate rapidly, and some strains have been much more virulent than others.
GENERAL HOME CARE
Home treatment for people with influenza is the same as for those with fevers and colds (see chapter 4). |
James Howard Kunstler
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 What frightened public health officials was the prospect that a flu virus like avian H5N1, having demonstrated its ability to infect humans, might jump species to transmit itself from human to human, not just bird to human. That would have been the takeoff point of a very severe human-to-human influenza that could kill a third of its victims and spread with lightning speed around a hyperconnected world. |
Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA
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| She took his advice and was able to isolate some proteins that deactivated a flu virus in the laboratory.
Mumcuoglu theorized that the elderberry worked because viruses cannot replicate themselves on their own. They invade living cells and alter their DNA. If you can stop the virus from entering cells, it can't get to the DNA to replicate
Every fall Americans are put through the annual flu season vaccination ritual. The ritual goes like this: You go to your physician, he or she tells you that the flu can be deadly and that a flu shot will prevent it. |
| The preapproval studies of zanamivir have found that the drug decreases the duration of flu virus only by "up to" one to one-and-a-half days (meaning that the duration may be shortened by less than a day). This small a benefit is hardly worth using a drug that has been around for so short a time and is generally unproven. You're better off avoiding this drug and staying in bed an extra day.
Keep in mind that zanamivir does not prevent you from passing the flu on to others.
Oseltamivir Phosphate (Tamiflu)
What Does It Do in the Body? |
| Others include palpitations, rapid heartbeat, chest tightness, angina (heart pains), tremor, dizziness, vertigo, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, joint and back pain, muscle cramping, generalized muscle aches, giddiness, susceptibility to flu virus and viral gastroenteritis, itching, dental pain, fatigue, rash, menstrual irregularities, nasal allergies, runny nose, laryngitis, bronchitis, dry mouth, and cough. |
| And because the strains of flu that sweep through North America are different every year, the antibody response will only be protective if the manufacturers of the vaccine are lucky enough to pick the right flu virus! A study from the Netherlands showed that among two groups of elderly people, one that received flu shots and one that received a placebo, the group receiving the flu shot had only a 1 percent lower incidence of flu than the placebo group!
One supplement that has been found to help older people marshal a better immune response to flu shots is the steroid hormone DHEA. |
| The flu virus invades cells by puncturing cell walls with tiny spikes called hemagglutinin that cover its surface. After watching viruses and elderberry in the laboratory, Mumcuoglu found that the active ingredients in elderberry actually disarmed the spikes by binding to them and preventing them from piercing the cell membrane. The viral spikes are covered with an enzyme called neuraminidase. This enzyme acts to break down the cell wall. Mumcuoglu believes that bioflavonoids, present in high concentration in elderberries, may inhibit the action of this enzyme. |
Gary Null
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| In that way, when the body comes in contact with a cold or flu virus, for example, it is able to destroy it. When we are in a polluted environment our body is able to recover from it. We can keep on going, despite an assault on our system. In effect, we are rejuvenating our cells.
Before we begin exploring specialized treatments for individual ailments, I want to offer a baseline wellness protocol. This one-size-fits-all program of supplementation is based on the work I did in the health support groups and represents one of the pillars of my Wellness Model. |
Earl Mindell, R.Ph., Ph.D.
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 How does elderberry extract work? A flu virus enters a cell by puncturing the cell membrane (which encases the cell) with tiny spikes covered with an enzyme designed to destroy the cell membrane. Elderberry is rich in bioflavonoids, substances that can strengthen cell membranes and make them less easy to penetrate. In addition, researchers believe that elderberry may inhibit the enzyme that weakens the cell membranes.
Elderberry extract has been tested on a wide variety of flu viruses and is effective against all of them. |
Kevin Trudeau
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| They both got the flu virus! One person succumbed to it and got sick; the other person did not and remained healthy. Throughout your life you will pick up thousands of bacteria and viruses. That is natural. The real question to ask is why your body does not do what it was designed to do: fight off and handle the bacteria or virus. Why did you succumb to the bacteria or virus? The answer: Your body is out of balance and your immune system is weak. |
Patrick Holford
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 In a double-blind controlled trial she tested the effects of the elderberry extract on people diagnosed with any one of a number of strains of flu virus. The results, published in 1995, showed a significant improvement in symptoms—fever, cough, muscle pain—in 20 percent of patients within twenty-four hours, and in a further 73 percent of patients within forty-eight hours. After three days, 90 percent had complete relief from their symptoms compared with another group on a placebo, who look at least six days to recover. |
The Life Extension Editorial Staff
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 Tamiflu enables patients to recover from a flu virus 1.3 days sooner than placebo. If you can get to a doctor in time, using Tamiflu could spare you some discomfort and get you back to feeling normal sooner.
Critics of Tamiflu and a similar drug called Relenza argue that the effort and expense required to obtain a prescription may not be wotth the relatively modest benefit. Of course, it you are living in the same household as someone who has the flu and Tamiflu then prevents you from becoming infected with the vims, it would be of enotmous value for you to have obtained the dmg. |
| These included herpes simplex-1 and -2, which cause cold sores and genital herpes; Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, chlamydia, and flu virus; and Helicobacteria pylori, which causes stomach ulcers. Then they looked at the patients again 3 years later to see how many had survived. The death rate was 3.1% in patients who tested positive for only a few of the viruses or bacteria, 9.8% for those with four or five, and 15% in those positive for six to eight. |
Earl L. Mindell, RPh, PhD with Virginia Hopkins, MA
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| The influenza or flu virus tends to sweep into an area and cause widespread illness. Symptoms tend to be more severe with a flu, including a higher fever, aches and chills, and nausea.
Neither a cold nor flu can be effectively treated with an antibiotic. Antibiotics kill bacteria, and colds and flus are caused by viruses. While a cold or flu can cause a bacterial infection, you are best off allowing your own body to fight it and heal it unless a doctor determines that you are at risk for pneumonia or some other serious infectious disease. |
Kathi Keville
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 Most likely, they are the result of a cold or flu virus or a bacterial infection like strep throat, which is caused by the bacterium Streptococcus. If you have strep throat—to find out, go see your doctor—you should probably treat it with antibiotics to prevent the onset of rheumatic fever.
If you are coughing because you have a relatively minor cold or an irritation that would normally send you running to the drugstore for over-the-counter medication, you can easily switch to an herbal alternative. |
| Diarrhea is one way in which the body eliminates unwanted visitors, such as an intestinal flu virus or badly digested food.
Even when diarrhea is severe or lasts longer than a day, it is rarely a sign for alarm, since it can be quickly relieved with herbs. A tea of catnip, cinnamon, peppermint, slippery elm and raspberry or blackberry leaves usually stops diarrhea. Or you can use a tincture of blackberry root, an old backwoods favorite for curing diarrhea. Garlic also helps to rid the body of flu and other viruses that can cause diarrhea. |
| Sure enough, subsequent research at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem found that more than one compound in the berries prevent the flu virus from invading healthy cells in the laboratory.
To prove that this worked in the natural world, the researchers gave an elderberry syrup to some of the local kibbutz members during a flu epidemic. Those who took the syrup got better much sooner than those who opted for more standard treatments. Continuing research leads scientists to conclude that elderberries may even inhibit more serious viruses such as herpes and Epstein-Barr. |
The Editors of Prevention Magazine Health Books
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 After a flu virus attacks, for example, the lining of a normal throat will repair itself. Not so in those who are vitamin A-deficient. "Instead, you might get that once-healthy cell replaced by an abnormal cell," says Charles B. Stephensen, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of International Health at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. "That may predispose you to having a more severe episode of an infection or having another infection on top of a viral infection. |
Robert W. Hill, Ph.D. and Eduardo Castro, M.D.
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 It is as though ADD is sweeping the country like a flu virus. The simple fact, however, is that ADD has been here forever. The human brain has always been vulnerable to injuries and disorders. However, we didn't start trying to label the symptoms we observed until the beginning of the twentieth century.
A typical scenario in our society is that Johnny is disruptive in class, so the teacher tells the parents, "He needs to be on Ritalin." The busy parents, both of whom work, take Johnny to the overworked pediatrician. |
Gina Kolata
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 Realizing that Private Vaughan's lung tissue might not be enough, Taubenberger went back to the warehouse sam-pies and screened another thirty-five of them for footprints of the flu virus. One proved positive, the lung tissue taken from the corpse of Private James Downs, a thirty-year-old soldier from Camp Upton, New York, who had died just two hours before Private Vaughan in South Carolina. Private Downs had entered the base hospital on September 23, 1918, and died at 4:30 a.m. on September 26. His lungs were heavy with fluid, exuding a "bloody froth" according to the autopsy notes. |
D. Lindsey Berkson
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 One single dose of dioxin to mice significantly decreased their resistance to the flu virus. Seals fed pcb- and dioxin-contaminated fish from the Baltic Sea had significantly lower killer-T-cell activity (cells to fight off illnesses like cancer) and other diminished immune responses when compared to seals fed less contaminated fish. It is also thought that contaminated fish were the cause of massive die-offs of seals in the North Sea, seals in the Baltic Sea, and dolphins along the Eastern U.S. |
Gina Kolata
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| And yet, if she could find the 1918 flu virus, the work could help scientists to make vaccines and test antiviral drugs; it could help protect the world from another catastrophe if that virus returned. "It's an impossible decision. It's a decision I fought with every day."
Agonizing over the moral thing to do, Duncan turned to her parents and her family for counsel. In the end, her father helped her decide, telling her: "Kirsty, if I held the secrets to this deadly disease, I would hope that someone would come along and unravel them. |
| They know how they are put together— flu virus particles are wrapped in a slippery fatty membrane, held in place by a protein scaffolding underneath. They know how the viruses burrow into a cell and burst out again by using hundreds of sharp protein shards that poke out of the virus's membrane. They even know why human influenza viruses infect only cells of the lungs—those are the only human cells with an enzyme that the virus needs to split one of its proteins during the manufacturing of new virus particles. |
| And perhaps the most extraordinary story yet comes nearly a century later, when three people among the millions who died of the flu are turning out to contain, within their miraculously preserved lung tissue, a sort of Rosetta stone for the killer flu virus. Unknown to anyone when these three people suddenly died, they alone would hold the clues to protect the world in the twenty-first century.
The first of the three to become ill with influenza was an Army private, Roscoe Vaughan, just twenty-one years old in September 1918. |
| But the tiny paraffin cubes encasing lung cells from the autopsies of Roscoe Vaughan and James Downs remained in their boxes, of no interest to anyone until, at the end of the twentieth century, they were rediscovered by molecular biologists who thought it just might be possible to resurrect the flu virus from those ancient slices of lung.
Two months after Private Vaughan's death, influenza came to Teller Lutheran mission (now called Brevig), on the flat frozen tundra of the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. |
| Once they began their studies, the investigators focused on a single strain of influenza, a decision that saved them money by allowing them to exactly replicate their experiments without worrying about variations between influenza viruses. The flu virus they used was isolated from Wilson Smith himself, who had gotten the flu when a sick ferret sneezed in his face. That strain, called "WS" after Smith, still exists.
The ferret experiments were a resounding success. The first question was: Could the investigators transmit flu to ferrets with bacteria-free filtrates from sick people? They could. |
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