In this latest video from MedCram, Dr. Seheult discusses interferon and hydrotherapy. He reminds us that MedCram had first discussed hydrotherapy back in March of 2020 with videos update 46 and update 47. There is new research that is adding more validity to the use of interferon and what we can do in our bodies to enhance the action of interferon.
What types of immune system do we have?
Our immune system is amazingly complex. It consists of an innate immune system that tends to get weaker with age and an adaptive immune system that gets stronger with age. The adaptive immune system is the part of the immune system that after an infection or vaccination will be making T cells and also antibodies.
The innate immune system
We want to focus on the innate immune system that can recognize that something is foreign without previously having seen it before. One of the major components of this system is interferon. If a virus wants to infect your body it needs to be able to circumvent the innate immune system. This article from Nature made this clear. It discussed the idea of how viruses and interferons fight for supremacy in the body. SARS-CoV-2 has genes in it that allows the virus to interfere with the interferon pathway. Another paper discusses this as well. In this paper they found that studies of SARS and MERS suggested that the interferon response is delayed. It was found that type I and type II interferon responses were highest in patients with mild to moderate disease and lowest in patients with severe or critical disease.
So a way we could deal with viruses that are able to circumvent the innate immune system is to come up with ways that can enhance our own immune system and render it more effective. This article showed that the MAC1 gene is required for interferon antagonism and efficient virus replication. This is what SARS-CoV-2 has that allows it to do this.
What about Pegylated Interferon Lambda?
In this article, Pegylated Interferon Lambda was used for early treatment of COVID-19. This is packaged in a way that it can be given and released over time. They found that in outpatient COVID-19 patients, this randomized control trial found that there was a decrease in the amount of hospitalizations or emergency room visits in the group that received Pegylated Interferon Lambda compared to the placebo group. There was approximately 50% relative risk reduction and 2.9% absolute risk reduction with a number needed to treat of 35. If we can do something that can naturally increase interferon levels and decrease the amount of people having to be hospitalized or go to the emergency room this could help reduce the burden on the hospitals.
Does fever help the immune system?
In this article, it showed that at a temperature threshold of 39 degrees C, there was a ten fold increase in interferon released from lymphocytes. In fact, hyperthermia was often the standard of care before antibiotics were discovered as Dr. Seheult discusses the flu pandemic in 1918. During this time hydrotherapy treatments were done until the advent of antibiotics when this was largely abandoned. Giving medications is much less labor intensive than doing hydrotherapy; however, in a pandemic when medications may become scarce this may change things. It should be remembered the story of Julius Wagner-Jauregg and the treatment of patients with neurosyphilis with fevers. He injected these patients with malaria to induce a fever and once the syphilis was cured, he would treat the malaria with quinine. He received the Nobel prize in Medicine in 1927 for his work in 1917. The following year in 1928 penicillin was discovered. So we transitioned into finding pharmaceutical agents that allowed us to treat patients. Again this is good news until there is a pandemic and the supply chains break down. This is a good website to go to if ever needing information on how to do hydrotherapy.
LINKS / REFERENCES:
Viruses and interferon: a fight for supremacy (Nature) | https://www.nature.com/articles/nri888
Interferon Responses Could Explain Susceptibility to Severe COVID-19 (Medium) | / interferon-responses-could-explain-suscept…
Impaired type I interferon activity and inflammatory responses in severe COVID-19 patients (Science) | https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s…
SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 is required for IFN antagonism and efficient virus replication in cell culture and in mice (PNAS) | https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas…
Early Treatment with Pegylated Interferon Lambda for Covid-19 (NEJM) | https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056…
Hyperthermia in humans enhances interferon-gamma synthesis and alters the peripheral lymphocyte population (Journal of interferon research) | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3132509/
The Role of Nutrition in COVID-19: Taking a Lesson from the 1918 H1N1 Pandemic (American journal of lifestyle medicine) | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…
The Value of Sanitarium Treatment in Respiratory Diseases (Life & Health) | https://documents.adventistarchives.o…
or https://northernlightshealtheducation…
Seminary Cinches Flu (Northern Union Reaper) | https://mnsdahistory.org/wp-content/u…
Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857-1940): Introducing fever therapy in the treatment of neurosyphilis (Psychiatrike) | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24185…
Protocol for treating Covid-19 (hydro4covid) | https://sites.google.com/traditionalh…
Fomentations & Hot Footbath (hydro4covid) | https://sites.google.com/traditionalh…
Rational hydrotherapy (Open Library) | https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23328…
Hydrothermotherapy in prevention and treatment of mild to moderate cases of COVID-19 (Medical hypotheses) | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33303…