Nutraceuticals and nootropics for anti-aging

There is now a bird-flu epidemic occurring in Asia which is wrecking the poultry industry there and scaring the public. But so far, only a few dozen humans have died from it. Should we consider this disease a serious threat to us? And if so, what can we do to avoid getting infected?

Avian Influenza (‘bird-flu’) is a serious threat to us all. The strains of bird-flu virus that are killing chickens and other birds in Asia happen to be passed easily between birds, but they infect humans only with difficulty. This is why birds are dying by the hundreds of thousands, but only a few dozen humans have been infected. However, of those people who have been infected, about 80% have died of the disease within a few days.

Unfortunately, the characteristics of viruses can change quickly. A viral strain that today finds it difficult to infect a human being may evolve tomorrow into a strain that infects humans easily. If this happens, an epidemic is likely to occur. An epidemic of bird-flu that spreads rapidly and kills 80% of those it infects could become a disastrous world-wide ‘pandemic’ — an event that could rock civilization.

Although most of the recent recent bird-flu victims have died from lung damage, several have died instead from damage to the brain. Different variants of the virus may target different tissues in the body. Other influenza strains have been known to target the heart and other organs. The arrival of a bird-flu pandemic may or may not be heralded by an increase in the number of people coming down with respiratory problems.

Let us now consider preparations that individuals can make to increase their chances of surviving such a pandemic:

• ways to minimize exposure to the virus;
• ways to prevent infection in case exposure occurs; and
• ways to ameliorate the disease in case infection occurs.

We will then discuss the virus itself, the flu pandemic of 1918, the scenarios that have been put forward by officials of health agencies, and the preparations being made by the U.N. and by governments.

WAYS TO MINIMIZE EXPOSURE

Flu viruses are passed from one person to another mainly by direct or indirect contact. While it is possible to be infected by breathing air where an infected person has recently sneezed or coughed, most infections occur when an infected person touches his mouth, nose, or eye, then touches an object (such as a doorknob or railing), leaving a smear of infected saliva, mucus, or tears on it; if that object is subsequently touched by an uninfected person who then touches his own mouth, nose, or eye, the virus can gain access to the uninfected person’s body.

This being the case — and supposing that you find yourself in a town where an bird-flu epidemic is in progress — it is fairly obvious what you must do to avoid exposure:

• Stay away from public places. In fact, stay at home as much as possible.
• Buy enough canned goods to supply your meals for a month or two, so that you won’t be forced to go out for food. Don’t rely on frozen food — in a really bad pandemic, there may be long-lasting electric power failures.
• Get some medical face masks for protection in case you do have to go out in public. The purpose of wearing a mask is not so much to protect you from other people’s sneezes and coughs, but to prevent you from touching your own nose and mouth after your hands have picked up infected residues from objects recently touched by infected people (for example, from doorknobs, railings, and merchandise).

WAYS TO MINIMIZE INFECTION IN CASE OF EXPOSURE

If you visit a public place during a bird-flu epidemic, you cannot be sure that you haven’t been exposed to the virus, even if you take the precautions listed above. Therefore, you should take additional measures to reduce the chance that exposure will result in infection:

• Wash your hands with soap and water as soon as you return from a public place. Then rinse your eyes, nose and lips with soapy water.
• Take quercetin and green tea supplements to reduce the infectivity of the flu virus. (See December’s article in Supplements in the News.)

HOW TO AMELIORATE THE DISEASE IN CASE OF INFECTION

• Adopt an aggressive antioxidant regimen and stockpile enough of the antioxidants to last for at least a month or two. The regimen should include quercetin, green tea extract, vitamin E, vitamin C, N-acetylcysteine, and selenium — these have all been shown to reduce the amount of lung damage done by influenza viruses.
• If you can get a supply of anti-flu drugs, by all means do so. Oseltamivir (Tamiflu^®) and Zanamivir (Relenza^®) appear to be the best choices for fighting the existing H5N1 strain of bird-flu. This strain is thought to be resistant to the other two anti-flu drugs: Amantadine and Rimantadine.

ABOUT FLU VIRUSES

Flu viruses consist of RNA molecules (containing the viral genes) and certain enzymes, folded up inside a complex envelope. The envelope is studded with molecular knobs that serve as tools for entering the cells of your body. Two of these knobs, ‘hemagglutinin’ and ‘neuraminidase’, give rise to the terminology used to describe the subtypes of flu viruses — for example, ‘H5N1’ is the subtype of the avian flu virus currently loose in Asia. It differs from the virus that caused the great 1918 flu epidemic (an H1N1 subtype) mainly in the structure of the hemagglutinin knobs.

The ability of your immune system to recognize the hemagglutinin knobs of a flu virus is the main determinant of how fast your body responds to an invasion of flu virus particles. If recognition occurs quickly, your body can destroy an invading viral horde before it gains a foothold in your body. But if your immune system is unfamiliar with the hemagglutinin subtype of an invading virus, the virus may proliferate in your lungs, heart, brain, or other tissues, and do tremendous damage before your immune system takes effective action.

The infectiousness of flu viruses can change easily and rapidly because the genes of these viruses undergo constant changes. The most worrisome aspect of these changes is the ability of flu viruses to swap genetic material with each other. This is a form of evolution, and it is the reason why flu strains change from year to year. Flu viruses that are good at infecting birds (but poor at infecting humans) can pick up genes from flu viruses that are good at infecting humans, and use these genes to replace their original infectivity genes. This could result in a strain of virus that is good at infecting humans, but which still has the virulence (i.e., harmfulness) of the bird virus.

A given strain of influenza has different effects on different species of animals. For example, the H5N1 strain of flu that is running rampant in Asia is highly contagious and fatal to chickens and storks, highly contagious but not fatal to ducks, somewhat contagious and highly fatal to tigers, and poorly contagious but highly fatal to humans. A slightly different strain, differing in just one or two genes, might completely change this pattern and be highly contagious to humans but not to birds.

THE FLU EPIDEMIC OF 1918

The flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people during and after World War I was caused by an H1N1 strain of flu virus. It was also a bird-flu. Despite the fact that it is often referred to as ‘the Spanish Flu’, the first wave of this pandemic seems to have begun in Kansas in January 1918 as a highly contagious flu with unusually severe symptoms. It spread from the countryside to army bases, and from there to Europe where American troops were being sent in huge numbers. By summer it was world-wide.

The death rate from this first wave of influenza was generally low, but there were exceptions — meaning that more damaging substrains were evolving. For example, in late May, 5% of a group of 1018 French army recruits died of the flu.

By August the disease had run its course in the U.S. and seemed to disappear. But in September a more virulent strain was brought back from Europe by returning U.S. soldiers — this time the fatality rate was much higher. Constant troop movements between army bases soon spread the disease across the country and out into the general public.

What is especially shocking is that President Woodrow Wilson and his administration made no effort at all to deal with the influenza epidemic. The government’s attention was focused entirely on the war and on putting as many soldiers as possible into the battle. Medical experts urged the government to limit the movement of troops between military bases, and to temporarily halt the transport of troops to Europe. Their advice was completely ignored. Troops were freely shuttled between army bases, spreading the disease. When soldiers aboard ships bound for Europe came down with the flu, the ships quickly ran out of hospital space. Men were lashed to the decks and exposed to the weather and waves. They died by the thousands and their bodies were dumped overboard. Those who survived, many of whom were now infected, were then mixed in with the troops already in Europe.

The current situation in the U.S. and that in 1918 have enough similarities to be disturbing: on-going military adventures that occupy much of the administration’s attention; a tendency by the administration to act on the basis of ideology rather than physical reality; a willful ignorance of medical and biological knowledge; a failure to address potential threats before they become manifest.

SCENARIOS

The World Health Organization (part of the U.N.), is carefully monitoring the bird-flu situation and giving advice and assistance to the countries most affected. The task faced by the WHO is, however, full of obstacles and it would be too much to expect that these efforts will actually prevent the emergence of a bird-flu virus that can easily be passed from human to human but which preserves some of the virulence of the current strains. In fact, experts at WHO fully expect the emergence of such a virus within a year or so — possibly much sooner.

The WHO, being part of the U.N., is subject to political pressures. One can see this in the public statements of WHO spokespersons who feed watered-down scenarios to the news industry. Thus we keep hearing predictions of 2 to 7 million deaths as a ‘best-case scenario’ and up to one hundred million deaths as a ‘worst-case scenario’.

But if you look at the WHO’s own statistics, you find that they consider the fatality rate for humans infected with H5N1 strains of bird-flu to be about 80%, and they suppose that a contagious strain will evolve that will infect about 30% of the world’s population. Since the world’s population is about 6,400,000,000 people, simple arithmetic would give a worst-case prediction of 1,500,000,000 deaths. This is fifteen times the number WHO is willing to state publicly. Apparently the WHO has decided that honesty might cause panic.

We have no such political qualms here at LifeLink. We consider our customers to be level-headed and ready to take rational actions instead of panicking. Let us therefore take an honest look at the most likely range of scenarios we face:

Good-case scenario: Suppose one of the current bird-flu strains picks up human transmissibility genes that make it highly contagious, but at the same time it loses its virulence genes, becoming a relatively benign flu — i.e., we all get infected with this flu, but it has mild symptoms. We thereby become immune to the H5N1 strains that might develop in the near future, including some that would otherwise have been highly fatal to us. Under this scenario, the first wave of a bird-flu pandemic would make many of us ill, but would also make us immune to a more virulent strain of H5N1 virus that might evolve later. In fact, if enough people become immune, such a virulent strain would be unable to maintain its pandemic potential. Note that this scenario is much better than the WHO’s ‘best-case’ scenario.

Bad-case scenario: Suppose that a few weeks from now one of the H5N1 bird-flu strains picks up human genes that make it highly contagious, but it retains its 80% fatality rate in humans. Suppose, further, that most people fail to take adequate protective measures, and that 90% of the human race gets infected with this new strain. In that case, 4,500,000,000 people could die within several months. The population of the U.S., for example, would drop from about 295,000,000 to about 83,000,000 — about what it was in 1905. With the economy in shambles, we might then see a wave of starvation and disease that would kill many of the survivors. This could bring on a new Dark Age. This scenario is clearly much worse than the WHO’s ‘worst-case’ scenario.

Both of these scenarios are entirely possible. Current knowledge does not allow anyone to predict with confidence where, in the range between two these two scenarios, the actual events will play out. The WHO and other experts are just making educated guesses when they talk about 30% of the population being infected, or when they talk about the fatality rate falling as the virus evolves.

Plans for events like these should be based mostly on bad-case scenarios rather than on optimistic ones, because if the actual events turn out less dire than you’ve planned on, you only lose some time and a little money, whereas if they turn out more dire than you’ve planned on, you may lose your life.

PLANNING FOR A BIRD-FLU PANDEMIC

The governments of some Asian countries and a few western countries are doing some serious planning for an epidemic. The Chinese government, for example, is developing detailed plans for quarantining whole cities, setting up temporary hospitals and staffing them, stockpiling medical supplies, and even locating sites for mass burials. The British government, too, has been reported to be doing some serious planning.

Despite the grave concerns of government health agencies, such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the ruling politicians in the governments of most countries (including the U.S.) are not taking the threat seriously. A bird-flu pandemic would likely find these countries unprepared. Even so, there is only so much that government could do to protect you — the rest is your responsibility. As is shown earlier in this article, there are relatively inexpensive measures that individuals can take to greatly increase their chances of surviving a bird-flu pandemic.

CONCLUSION

A deadly bird-flu pandemic may or may not occur in the near future — there is no way to predict with any confidence. If one does occur, the countries most likely to escape disastrous consequences will be those in which the best preparations are made in advance. Government-level preparations are being made in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and a handful of Western countries (not the United States), and may limit the impact of a pandemic within their borders. Preparation by individuals is most likely to help in countries such as the U.S. and Canada, which have a strong tradition of individual initiative.

— Dr. Alexis Zarkov, Ph.D.

You can contact Dr. Zarkov at AskDrZarkov@yahoo.com.

Last modified 2005.Feb.24

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LifeLink carries all of the antioxidants suggested in this article: Quercetin, Green Tea Extract, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, N-Acetyl cysteine, Selenium.

LifeLink may also have a supply of face masks available by the time you read this article — your local drugstore will probably sell out of them on the day when the news industry reports that an epidemic has started. (You can call LifeLink at 1.888.433.5266 or email us at info@lifelinknet.com.)

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References

Book:

The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry (Penguin Books, 2004). This is an interesting account of the 1918 flu pandemic, with special emphasis on the people and techniques used to understand and fight the disease.

A good tutorial about flu viruses:

The "Flu"

Other references relevant to this article:

Quercetin and green tea for flu prevention

Inhibition of adenovirus infection and adenain by green tea catechins. Antiviral Res. 2003 Apr;58(2):167-73

Protective effect of n-acetylcysteine in a model of influenza infection in mice. Int J Immunopathol Pharmacol. 2000 Sep;13(3):123-128.

Some information on anti-flu drugs

Population of U.S. prior to 1980

U.S. population, 2005

World population estimates to 1950-2050

World population estimates for 2005

Selenium deficiency and viral infection. J Nutr. 2003 May;133(5 Suppl 1):1463S-7S.

The argument for increasing selenium intake. Proc Nutr Soc. 2002 May;61(2):203-15.

Immune response to influenza vaccine in healthy adults and the elderly: association with nutritional status. Vaccine. 2005 Feb 10;23(12):1457-63.

WHO warns of dire flu pandemic

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Disclaimer: The information provided in this “Ask Dr. Zarkov” article contains no medical advice whatsoever — it contains ‘biological information’. Nothing in the article constitutes an effort to persuade readers to use, or not to use, this biological information as a basis for action.