TB, old disease – new threat

(Alliance of Natural Health is such a good source. . .[in the blogroll], they really can help us in keeping up with current information, not always easy to get. Haven’t posted from them in a while – but today, here are two. Jan)

What’s the Biggest World Pandemic Risk Today—Untreatable by Conventional Medicine?

September 18, 2012

Hint: It’s not the flu.

Tuberculosis (TB) is one the world’s most common diseases mainly because it is so highly infectious—it’s spread with a mere cough or sneeze. It’s second only to HIV as the leading infectious killer of adults worldwide, and it is the third largest cause of death among women aged 15 to 44.

The World Health Organization estimates that two billion people—that’s one-third of our planet’s population—are infected with the bacteria that cause TB. Ten percent of these carriers will become sick, and if left untreated, half of those will die from the disease.

Conventional medicine is panicking because TB is becoming resistant to multiple drugs and fear it may become “virtually untreatable.”

According to a new study published in The Lancet, among 1,278 patients in eight different countries who were resistant to two or more first-line tuberculosis drugs, 43.7 percent showed resistance to at least one second-line drug. Interestingly, the prevalence of drug resistance correlated with how long the second-line drugs have been available in each country. The countries where the drugs had been available the longest time—twenty years—had the highest resistance rates, while the countries where the drugs had been available for ten years or less had lowest rates.

What does this mean? That the innate effectiveness of drugs diminishes over time, and that an absolute reliance on drugs is unsustainable. Dr. Justin Denholm, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia, put it this way: “The reality is that this one-size-fits-all approach is a major part of what’s led to this drug resistance issue. I think individualized treatment is what we should be aiming for.”

This, of course, is exactly what natural health and integrative medical practitioners have been advocating from the start. Moreover, two studies have now linked vitamin D to the successful prevention and treatment of TB. In the first study, white blood cells converted vitamin D to an active form of the vitamin which helps make a protein that kills the TB bacterium. In the second study, Indonesian scientists compared vitamin D to a placebo, testing them on seventy patients for nine months. The patients who received 10,000 IU of vitamin D (rather than the 400 IU recommended by conventional medicine) led to an astounding 100% cure rate.

Even more exciting, a study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that high doses of vitamin D, administered together with antibiotic treatment, appear to help patients with TB recover more quickly. The vitamin D dampens the body’s inflammatory response to infection, which leads to faster recovery and less damage to lungs.

TB is caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. But there are many foods and supplements that are natural and powerful bacteria killers. Garlic, for example, has antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties. Intravenous vitamin C, the herbs Cat’s Claw and Artemisia, and hyperbaric oxygen have been used to fight variousdangerous bacteria, while colloidal silver is a powerful bactericide.

The incidence of TB is high in certain countries, so if you are traveling this year, you may wish to take precautions. Swaziland, South Africa, and a quite a few other countries on the African continent have especially high TB rates, but so do Russia, the Philippines, and Korea. This list will help you assess your potential risk

(Jan’s Comment:

I remember it well, my son had just started kindergarten,  and I had been ill, as I usually was with either cold or flu and the occasional pneumonia – – especially as fall rolled around.   Barely got him into school when I was off to a stay at a TB sanitarium in Griffith Park where Dodger Stadium was.  A beautiful place.  Didn’t matter,  I was crushed.  Who would care for my child?   They put me in a ward with other ladies.  I cried so much (that’s all I did), for I was inconsolable to have left my child without me.

Out of compassion to the other patients, they offered me a private room at the top of the building.  I was grateful for it and leapt at the  chance  [the previous patient had left this plane].   I think it was a three story building [it seemed really high up]  and it turned out this little cubicle was only the top of the elevator shaft to which they had added a toilet.  A doctor would visit me frequently [can’t remember – think it was weekly],  but the elderly lady who was my nurse struggled climbing up those stairs.   She never complained.  She was most pleasant if not rather quiet.

My husband had brought down my arsenal of vitamins and personal stuff like pens, pads, pencils and watercolors and of course, a small TV and a sweet, thoughtful item – – walkie – talkie,   so that I could speak with my son when he brought him over.  I could amble out to the edge of the building where the railing was and peer down at him and wave and we could talk.   This helped save my sanity.

When I said this place was beautiful, what I meant was the location; the facility itself was rather ancient.  But the scenery was spectacular, surrounded in a forest of  trees with the fragrance of fir  – one of my favorites.  Views and the visiting birds were magic.    But I digress,  had wanted to mention that I didn’t enjoy the “cure,”   there were a ton of pharmaceuticals to take on a daily basis – – a lot  [I, who gag at the the thought of pills].  There was also a shot administered twice a week which I truly hated:  took about 5″ to give in the bum as it was thick and so took extra time to get it done.  That was bad enough, but the headaches which ensued were a bit of a nightmare.  

In my case, it was over soon;  I was home by the end of the year as the washings from my stomach into the little rabbit proved I had not had tuberculosis at all (because it can’t be cured in only three months), but must have been a particularly hardy variety of pneumonia after all.  Lest anyone misunderstand, this was not my idea in the first place – a specialist by the name of Briggs – from the Briggs and Stratton fame had stated while pointing to the x-rays,  “That, Mrs. Turner, is TB until proven otherwise.” Aside from the weight gain and emotional trauma, all ended well for us.    Unknown then, I  had always been off-the-charts-low on Vitamin D  found to be only 13  a few years ago.  Started with 50K weekly, then upped it to 10K daily which keeps me around 70 now.  It works as haven’t had a cold or flu or pneumonia since I started taking this magnificent vitamin D-3

So back in the sixties,  those potent anti-biotics apparently DID work and could get the job done.  

But Dr. Max Gerson  (GERSON THERAPY)   had been having success in curing tuberculosis using his own therapy of healing the body and allowing the body to then obliterate whatever disease was plaguing it.   Apparently, his first case using his ‘therapy’ just happened to be TB.  Since he had been having such good successes with other less severe health problems, he simply did what he thought might work and it did.   His book  “A Cancer Therapy” Results of Fifty Cases   how his technique works, how he developed it and why.    

But this was the sixties, and I didn’t have the internet then – –  Vice President Gore hadn’t invented it yet,   (that’s a joke friend),   so I of course didn’t have the world of information at my fingertips as we all do now.   I was then as now, an independent thinker (rebel),   just not sophisticated or on top of my game.  .   .   .  so I guess, we just have to take what comes around, til we start figuring stuff out.     Jan)