C19 #2 COVID-19 File Ep 2

Welcome KBMD Health fans and Gut Check Project fans, it’s time for COVID installment number two. These are the COVID files where essentially, myself and Dr. Brown, my co host, we’re going to address the latest in research for coronavirus as it applies to healthcare and our community. Dr. Brown, how are you doing?

You know I’m doing is I’m doing well considering the state of how a lot of people are probably struggling through this process. Once again, the COVID files I think you and I really enjoy joking around and stuff, but this is not something that I want to joke around with today. So the show right now we’re becoming much more sciency than we’ve ever been. And it is because I want to make sure that anything we discuss has a reference to it. So let’s begin by saying that this is a show and not intended to treat diagnose anyone. I’m a medical doctor. With the current state of anxiety I’m trying to sift through hundreds of articles being published daily because this is a global problem. And I am fortunate enough to have our secret weapon which this week I was on Dr. Chang Raun’s in Darrel Hill summit with Dr. Hyman and some other incredible people, Dr. Pompa, Dr. O’Brien and all these people and I, I told them all that Angie Cook is our secret weapon. And then on the CBOE SOS summit yesterday with Chevonne Sarna, I let it drop again. So Angie, thank you so much for working hard and diligently with me to try and get through all of this literature. Cats out of the bag. She is a certified nutritionist and Rn one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, and she sent me this email right before we went on. Today the numbers are staggering and the stories of what our healthcare workers are facing is heartbreaking. Please be careful. So what we’re going to talk about today is mind blowing, to be honest. And I’m just going to be honest. In the sense this is no, this is not opinion. This is not based off of anxiety, or based…this is strictly the science. And this is not the time that I want to, I want to be perceived as I mean, because one of the concerns Eric, you and I’ve talked about this, I want to shout everything that I’ve learned from the rooftops, but I don’t want to come off as somebody that’s saying that I want to try and make money off of this particular crisis. That’s not at all what I’m trying to do here. What I’m trying to do is show you the science. So that being said, I’ve got so much new information. Last time on our COVID one files, we’re going to say how we’re going to talk about what you can do with lifestyle and supplements. We’re still gonna do that. Absolutely. And I actually learned a lot from being on Chang Raun’s summit. You can look that up. It’s Raun, Chang Raun. Some of his experts are functional medicine experts that understand the supplements better than I do. And I took notes while I was there. And I was a panelist on that. And the stuff that I talked about was really well received by his panelists as well. So everything is a moving target right now. So this is going to be I’m calling it a mic dropping show. Because if I don’t get too geeky, and that’s your job, Eric makes sure that I don’t go into the weeds and be a nerd because I am a nerd to the nth degree. Angie and I have been nerding out crazy, like hair, you know, like reading articles and your hair just stands up because you’re like, oh my gosh, there’s no way this is here. Nobody else is talking about this. So if I come across here, and you’re like, I’ve never heard of this. I feel like this it’s because you’re not spending 12 hours a day with the…a beast like Angie and I. She’s uploaded over 20,000 articles to our Mendeley account. So I remember Dave Asprey when I listened to one of his podcasts. He’s like, let me log into my Mandalay. I’m like, I wonder if his Mendeley is as big as my Mendeley, which is a repository of journal articles. So I’m super excited to get into this show. So that’s my initial thoughts. That was my ramble. And I will, I will have everything else will be scientific data from here on out.

Well, let’s go ahead and start there. So we last on episode one. Basically, we broke down the various aspects of what is coronavirus? How is it directly affecting and we even talked about the stresses on resources. But now on today’s show, not only do we want to leave everyone kind of with an idea on what they can do to supplement their own diet and the day to day things that they could be doing to basically improve their immune system as well as basically weather the storm better. Well, let’s get a little bit more into the science of what’s been some of the more recent data that I know that you and Angie shared because we’ve we’ve had a lot of conversations between last show, you going and doing now virtual clinic, me going and having meetings on transitioning the ASC over to possibly new ICU rooms, which is something we’ve never had to do before. So I’ll let you kind of take it away there.

Yeah. So you know, this is this is daily. It’s hourly changing, let’s be honest, and this is a global problem. So there’s so many studies coming in what I think that makes us a little bit unique on the gut check project, is what we’re doing is we’re looking at the the data being published right now. 2020, late March, everything’s been published, but then because of trying to link it to the 2003 we are able to look at articles back then also, because the SARS COV-2 virus structurally is extremely similar to the SARS first virus the COV. So a lot of these articles are a transitioning like that, where you can say that this is this and then because of that the links allowed us to find other things. So, a lot of what I’m going to talk about is preprints, meaning that I have access to articles that aren’t even in publication yet. But the scientists are so passionate about it, that they’re just sending it out. A lot of it comes from China because they have the most experience. I believe that when we did our first COV files last week, I don’t know what was their 160,000 cases, something like that. I don’t remember.

Yeah, they confirmed and that’s that’s a pretty important thing. So we talked about that last week to confirm just because we’re increasing confirm number doesn’t necessarily mean Doomsday. It’s just that we’re able to actually confirm that a number of people actually have it. However, it does become a data point that we need to reconcile with.

And we will yeah, we can we can get into that. But I just want to tell you I just looked about an hour ago and right now, the confirmed cases are 577,495.

Mm hmm.

That has jumped a bunch. There has been 26,447 deaths. I’m getting a lot of emails from healthcare workers who, when these patients are funneled to one institution, like my hospital, that institution, those health care workers are putting themselves on the front line. They are, they are the heroes. They are defending all of us by taking care of this and I just want to say thank you to every healthcare worker that is working shiftwork, that is in hospital, because you are the frontline of this and many times you don’t even know if the person you’re treating has this extremely virulent virus virulent being very contagious. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, without question. Thank you.

Now, I this is not a doomsday podcast at all. In fact, to the contrary, what this is going to be is a complete bright light on this whole viral pandemic. I feel like we have spent this whole time figuring or looking at data and piecing together things that will bring hope to everyone. And that’s what this podcast is going to be: how do you actually protect yourself? This is based off science. This is based off a bench research. I understand that some doctors would say, well, we need a randomized placebo control trial. We are not in an era right now where we need to do that. I understand that that is ultimately what we want to do. But in this I just want to protect people with things that we know have been around a long time. It doesn’t have a whole lot of downside. So I have a moral obligation to do this and to share it with everyone here.

Definitely, without question.

All right, so let’s let’s talk about transmission, some of the newest information that’s been learned. So everybody if anybody’s new to the show, if anybody’s wondering like, Why in the world is gastroenterologist talking about COVID19? Well, everyone’s talking about cobit 19. So, doesn’t matter if you’re human, you’re talking about it, but it’s actually specifically relevant to me. And some of the newest information is this is that we now realize that the virus can be passed both through droplets in your respiratory system, and it can infect your gastrointestinal system. As it turns out the h2 receptor that we believe the virus attaches to that most have agreed to that the highest concentration is in the stomach and the duodenum which is the first part of your small intestine. So if you are eating food, that somebody has cooked for you or that, or maybe you’ve well, somebody else has to have cooked it for you, and you eat it, the virus can then get into your body through your gut, we now realize that somewhere between 30 to 48% of the COVID19 cases are actually starting in the gut. And 85% of those present with anorexia, or they’re just not hungry. What’s fascinating is that when you and I were talking, and we were going over those numbers last week, I was like, why is that and then the very next day, articles have come out and it’s made the news now, but we were talking about it last week, about how one of the early signs of this could be Anosmia, which is lack of smell, right? Ageusia which is lack of taste. So my theory is that those people that have that that precedes the symptoms by a long time, or not a long time, we don’t really know but it certainly is one of the preceding symptoms. So when I’m walking into my hospital and they have to scan me and see if I have a fever, first question that I’m asking is, how’s your sense of smell? Because that is now a screening tool. So keep that in mind. The letter there was a article published from my college, not my college, I went to but the American College of gastroenterology, which is the society that I belong to. There was a report from China reporting that cases with someone who had contact with her brother from Wu Han, so a woman shows up with a fever to a hospital. Her brother had come from Wu Han to stay with her. She gets a fever she shows up says my brother was in Wu Han. I’ve got this they do a CT on her. And she has the ground glass appearance of the classic COVID19

Right.

tested negative four times on the sputum. One of the doctors was savvy enough to go test her stool. They did an immediate polymerase chain reaction a PCR. Her stool is positive, her sputum was negative.

So the sputum technically you’re saying that they the margin, there was a she basically was a false negative, correct?

She was a false negative on the swab that they did. They did a total once they got her diagnosed, they knew that they were dealing with COVID19. So then she became sort of a case study where they did like five more swabs on her all negative. So what we’re what we’re talking about here is that the gut so as a gastroenterologist, I’m telling everyone right now your gut is your first line of defense. And we need to protect that you can do all you can for barrier to avoid droplets to get it in your eyes, your nose and everything. But you still gotta eat and all these people that are ordering takeout and everything. somebody’s preparing your food That’s a route of admission. And then this is not to create anxiety. This is just so that everybody understands this. And then I found another study, shockingly, that showed that there was viral shedding in the stool. Five weeks after viral shedding in the lung went down. So they recovered from COVID19. And then a group of physicians tracked these patients and they kept checking their stool. Five weeks after being normal, they still had virus in their stool. And on the last show, we did talk about the fact that the virus can live three to four days on steel and plastic, it can live in the air for hours. So if you’ve got maybe what we’re talking about here is fecal oral. And I hate to say that because everybody cringes when I say that, but that’s how all gastrointestinal bugs get passed.

Well, I think we should address it you know, you’re talking about science to layman’s terms. So If we’re addressing things like, keep your six foot distance, etc, that has a lot to do with the droplet transmission. Everyone’s been told and we’ve learned as children growing older that we should wash your hands after going to the bathroom. But specifically, if you’re going to the bathroom and and you’ve, you’ve had a bowel movement and you certainly if you’ve known that you’ve had exposure to Coronavirus or COVID19 be certain to be diligent about washing your hands after you finish the bathroom, even more so than in the past. So if you’ve always been washing your hands great, it’s now’s the time to make certain that you’re diligent in the process of washing your hands, keep your hands clean, because the fecal to oral transmission is a real, is a real problem.

I got called by a doctor today who wanted my opinion. Very intelligent doctor and he was like, hey, man, what’s going on with this? It’s it’s all hype, whatever and I I started telling him about this kind of stuff. I said, no, it’s this is this is real. We all need to…education is the key to controlling your anxiety. Remember that we’re not here to cause anxiety. What I’m trying to say is, the more you know about this, the more you can control it. And what what we’re going to do is talk about how to protect your gastrointestinal tract. Yesterday in shavon saunas CBOE SOS summit, I discussed how unfortunately, my theory is that if you’ve got CBOE bacterial overgrowth, or any other gastrointestinal problem in your upper small bowel, you probably have a compromised tight junction that will allow easier penetration. So my job is to let’s fortify your gut. Let’s make sure that your gut is strong. So when somebody comes knocking, you don’t open the door. That’s all you have to think of it.

Just a quick reset it when he says tight junction is being breached. He’s basically talking about the barrier in your GI tract basically, it can become permeable allowing you to become more inflamed or, or ill. So basically he’s saying if you have this issue, what we’re trying to do is protect it so you don’t have that problem.

So you’re gonna do this a lot for the rest of the show. Basically, I want to say things that because I have been so into the weeds reading just super sciency stuff

like what he says when he says into the weeds, he means like he’s going to drill it, no I’m just kidding.

I just it’s just rabbit hole after rabbit hole because you hear a term and you’re like, oh my gosh, what is that gonna go down over here and this and that. Alright, so I’m just going to talk about one of the coolest things coming out of Germany is there are some scientists that have a new rapid test to diagnose SARS COV-2 remember SARS. COV-2 is the virus that causes COVID 19. SARS COV-2 is the coronavirus the coronavirus is a family of viruses, this is the ridiculously tough, virulent, you know, bad one that’s creating this pandemic. So some brilliant scientists realized that certain flavonoids, or polyphenols have a very high affinity to attach to the SARS COV-2 spike proteins. So you always see that picture of the, of the of the virus they always had it shown with a bunch of those little spikes all over the place. That’s how come, Eric, you told me this earlier that’s why they call it the corona because it looks like a

Looks like a sunburst. That’s what it is. That’s how I learned it long ago, but it was called Corona because microscopically It looks like a big, big sunburst.

Yeah. So normally, the way that these tests are done to try and determine this, what they’re talking about is a diffusion test or what’s called an agglutination test, but what these researchers showed is that two polyphenols luteolin and quercetin have a very high affinity and an inhibitory effect on the SARS COV 2 virus, I’ll say it again, basically natural products, natural molecules in nature have the ability to attach to the virus. And what these guys proposed is that normally, when you have a test like this, you have to have an antigen, which is a protein that the antibody has to buy into or in this case, what you would do is use a very expensive antibody against COV-2. So they’re trying to do tests like this, but they’re taking blood from people or animals, getting the antibody and then if you put your sample if the antibody attaches, then you know that you’ve got SARS COV-2. These cats figured out that natural polyphenols attached to it. So what they do is they put the sample in, they put some polyphenols, there luteolin and quercetin and then if it clumps, then they go, that’s positive. If it doesn’t, then it’s just chilling. That’s, that’s mind blowing.

Yeah. So essentially, what you’re saying is, is these polyphenols made the SARS COV-2 virus nonreactive. The antibodies had no, they didn’t discern it whatsoever. So it was a negative test.

No. So what it is, is they didn’t necessarily make them reactive or non reactive. All they did is they could show that they surrounded it and smothered it. So when they found this in clumps, they knew that they had SARS COV-2. So this is just a preliminary test to say do you have it or do you don’t, you can extrapolate that it can be both diagnostic and therapeutic. Meaning you can look at this and say not only can you diagnose it, but there’s a very good chance that this same type of polyphenol may treat the virus. And that’s what these researchers basically said in their conclusion. And what’s awesome is they said this could probably be done with a lot of other viruses because of the antiviral activity. So

it’s very, very interesting diagnostic, I’m almost certain whether it’s therapeutic or not remains to be seen. It certainly is a natural compound to, at a minimum run interference for the SARS COV-2 virus.

Yes, so you’re probably wondering, Well, why in the world did you bring up some obscure tests that isn’t even out yet? Because what’s awesome is, these are all like preprints. These are scientists sharing stuff around the world. And I can almost follow when one guy references another guy, and then they do a study. The studies that I’m going to talk about in the beginning are all bench research that is called in vitro. When we describe something in vivo it’s one we give it to a human. Right now, the virus is so new the novel Coronavirus is so new, that everything has to be done in a lab first to see what could be potentially effective in a human. So keep that in mind because that’s that’s an argument that a lot of people will say is oh, well, there’s no randomized placebo controlled trials on humans blah, blah, blah, we’re not we’re not we need to stop something first. Need to control this and then we can flatten the curve. Get that R0 watch this, watch the first episode because we get way into the R0 thing get that R0 down, and then we can go there. So, dude, what I’m going to talk about is absolutely nothing short of extraordinary, extraordinary. And these are drugs that President Trump is telling all these private companies. I think there’s like last week there was 35 different companies trying to produce products against this. There’s a lot of them are called protease inhibitors. A protease inhibitor is an antiviral drug that we, that got discovered during the HIV era, where what they do is they block the virus’s ability to grow up. So in other words, a virus tries to release his buddy. And then the protease inhibitor says, nope you’re gone, and then they kind of kill the new viruses being produced. This is, and this, this prevents the viral cells from growing and maturing. And according to the scientists that are looking at clinical trials, they’re trying different protease inhibitors to block SARS COV-2. So there’s clinical trials going on with protease inhibitors that we know So, the first article that I want to talk, this is the title of the article, and I will let you, layman for me.

Okay.

All right. This is the actual title of the article. It is a pre print article. So it should be what we’re talking about here. When I say pre print is I’m giving you information before way before it’s going to make the news way before. So this is why this is a hopeful podcast, very hopeful podcast. Potential inhibitor of COVID19 main protease empro, from several medicinal plant compounds by molecular docking study.

Okay. Well, let’s see, it sounds to me like what we’re trying to do is use a naturally occurring substance, to eventually stop a virus.

Through the protease inhibitor method,

Well you said layman’s terms last time my neighbor said protease was never.

You’re right. Yeah, yeah. You and I have different neighbors. My neighbors and I talk protease all the time. I’m surrounded. All my neighbors are infectious disease doctors. So

I know it. That’s, that’s what my takeaway is from that is, we are going to find how nature can allow mammals, humans to consume a natural compound and stop a virus from spreading.

Yeah, so correct. So what they did is a researcher in China was able to successfully figure out or crystallized the COVID19 protease, that’s the key step. And these guys took that person’s science and said, okay, what is a potential target, to stop that protease? And they develop this very complex, cool study where they could show the binding energies. So when they say docking, the cell has to dock onto another cell. And then if it infiltrates, then if you give a protease inhibitor, it can’t move. So they want to know how tight it binds to that protease enzyme. And what they figured out was they looked at three HIV protease inhibitors and 11 polyphenols.

So and then just to reset into layman’s terms, if you’re trying to keep track of the the words, the way that I kind of have charted this together is a virus uses a protease like a key. The protease is the key for the virus to infiltrate and then deposit this mRNA so it can replicate what Dr. Brown is talking about doing is how can I stop their key from working? How can I make it so that this virus can can’t use the key the protease to where the virus is using that protease to break down the protein so it can inject its RNA?

Yeah. So the viruses, like we talked about before, are amazing parasites, they have to get into a cell, they have to replicate, they take over the cell, and then the virus starts going around. So these guys knew that there’s three they looked at three HIV proteases. And then they realized that there’s naturally occurring molecules in nature called polyphenols. And they demonstrated that the drugs and these 11 polyphenols appeared to have potent attachments to the M Pro with the M Pro is the protease on COVID19. Therefore preventing the virus from replicating their fin…their final conclusion was like all good bench researchers. Further research needed to do human trials.

Sure.

So they have a model with the virus and these polyphenols bond tightly. Super cool.

Yeah, no without question. So essentially, they’re saying if we can find a way to stop impro from unlocking the cell, then SARS COV2, or the coronavirus cannot infiltrate these cells.

Yeah, so that was really cool. And then mic drop. Another study comes out of this one’s out of Turkey and Pakistan. And I’m going to reach out to these researchers. They were kind enough to list their cell phones and emails on this study. I’m not sure that they meant to do that.

Doesn’t happen all the time!

I’m gonna I’m gonna hit them up and I just gotta find somebody that can translate for me if necessary. We’re going to do this. Their article title is identification of potent COVID19 main protease. Now you know what a main protease is empro. These guys took the research from the person that discovered it and did the exact same thing as these other guys did. So identification of potent COVID19 main protease inhibitors from natural polyphenols. And in silico, strategy unveils a hope against Corona. What? These guys saw that study and went, wait a minute polyphenols seem to be the way to go. This could be a new hope for Corona. This is what these guys are talking about. It’s out of two very prestigious academic centers in Turkey and Pakistan. These guys are absolute beasts, I should say, guys, I’m just assuming there’s probably women on the team also, that’s rude of me to say these guys, but these scientists are beasts. So since its main protease was figured out, and remember I’ll say it one more time, the protease allows the virus to grow and replicate. That is why we figured it out for AIDS. So they did a study where they looked at 26 polyphenols and one prescription protease inhibitor called nelfinavir.

Okay

So these guys had the guts to say let’s see what happens when we compare polyphenols to the current antiviral therapy that we use for AIDS. These results are absolutely shocking, Eric, this is I cannot make this stuff up. This is where my skin my hair just starts bristling. Basically 24 of the 26 polyphenols bound tighter to the COVID protease, then the prescription drug did. I’ll say that one more time. It bound tighter than the drugs that we’re thinking of using.

Nice.

And I’m really having a hard time trying to not be enthusiastic here and try to be scientific. I said it’s gonna be very somber, scientific thing, but I’m just now um these are lab people. And these these guys, I could tell by the writing that their that excited I mean, when, when the title says, you know, exciting new treatment for Corona like these are bench researchers that if the numbers make sense. So this is not something to say that 100% this will work in humans, what we have is bench research stage one, stage two is to work to a human pilot trial, stage three is to do a randomized placebo control trial and so on. But this is so exciting to see that this is proven in a lab that these 24 out of 26 polyphenols and what this tells me is certain polyphenols did slightly better than others, as best they could tell. But the molecular mechanism is very similar it all is and then what they determined was it was a dose dependent, so you had to have enough of it to do it. So pretty wild.

I don’t want to jump too far ahead. But questions that are popping up in my mind are going to be number one is binding for the most part, preventing the virus from carrying out its activity. Because, you know, you don’t want to just bind and be happy that you are bound, and the virus can go on. And the other question would be, what, what are the categories of polyphenols that happened to perform better than others? And do they all still you said 24 out of 26. So we know that two probably aren’t ideal, but what were the categories?

No, no. 24 out of 26 outperformed the prescription drug. The other two just were about at the level of the prescription drug.

Thank you for the correction. So 26 bound.

And I just want to clarify one thing I’m you and I are not virologists. The concept of protease I think, is more of a replication thing than a that’s how come it works so well to stop the virus. I think it’s more of a prevents the virus from replicating as far as binding. There’s some different science with that. So just and I’m not a virologist, I’m a butt doctor. So um, so then of course that starts, you start going down some crazy pathways. I found another article that identified myricetin and scutellarein or something like that, which are polyphenols. Somebody else did a study as a novel chemical inhibitor of the SARS coronavirus. by blocking the helicase. The helicase was described as something needed to replicate.

Yeah.

So what I meant by I’ve just been exhausted is I read these articles and then of course, you stop. And it’s like, I gotta go look that up. And then you end up going down a helicase pathway and I was just like, oh my gosh. The science doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is there’s people that are now looking in 2020, because they’re doing the same thing I’m doing, they’ve seen the data from 2003. And now they’re trying to see if that works on SARS COV2. And it appears it does.

Well, is it a helicase? Isn’t that an enzyme? Yeah, we hear about the double helix or whenever you see DNA after it’s been scripted, and you see the winding, you know, mirrored image. Helicases, the enzyme that allows the assemblage of the mirrored DNA if I if I remember correctly, I could be wrong on that.

So that is, that is med school year two USMLE. was done with that. As long as it passed. Um, here’s another super

I think I get pulled a gene like they pulled the gene out or something like that. Sorry, I don’t wanna get sidetracked. I’m just kind of like…

I don’t know. I mean, dude, it’s like clearly We’re gonna have to get a virologist on to explain all the terms just say you guys are idiots. You’re using the terms incorrectly. Let me explain it to you cool. I I welcome any virologist to to help us get through this because this isn’t our thing. I’m trying to figure out how to take care of my patients. That’s all I’m doing right now. Speaking of that. Another study titled small molecules targeting severe acute respiratory syndrome, human coronavirus. These guys looked at over 10,000 compounds, including over 500 protease inhibitors, 200 drugs, 8000 synthetic compounds and 1000 traditional Chinese herbs. Of all of them 50 were found to be anti SARS COV not COV2 anti SARS cubs. So this was a study done after the original SARS outbreak.

Okay.

Two made the best cut, one being a molecule called Aescin-AESCIN, the extract of horse chestnut.

Horse chestnut. Yeah. Wow.

And the other is a drug called reserpine which is a high blood pressure drug used in Europe. Huh 10,000 different compounds and Aescin the extract of horse chestnut is there. Okay, that’s cool.

Yeah, it’s a polyphenol,

that is a polyphenol/saponin. And we know a lot about that you can go on atrantil.com and learn about Aescin and if you want. Pretty wild. So that’s my this is where this is going to go. We’re going to be able to figure out how to optimize the appropriate polyphenols to protect your gut to protect your health. Those are astounding studies. It’s I mean, I’m just fascinated. Alright, so everyone knows this. We developed atrantil. Atrantil are three polyphenols I have been into the science of polyphenols for over 10 years now. So now that I’m looking at this, this is not a sales pitch. This is a oh, my goodness, the molecule that I’ve been studying for 10 years, which is super complex and all this, I’m finding scientists around the world studying it and having positive results. That’s what this is about. Nothing more.

Now, here’s here’s the interesting part, though. So if it happened to only be a prescriptive drug or something that were synthetic, it would almost be completely imperative that that multiple rounds of trials and testing be carried out. Simply for the safety profiles so that they can be safely used somewhere. The exciting part to me is that what we’re talking about is something that is already naturally occurring and is safe for us to begin to utilize as kind of like internal PPE. That’s how I think about it as a frontline worker…

Say what…say what PPE is

Oh sorry, personal protective equipment. So that was…

Yeah, so one of the issues that if you’re not in healthcare, the term PPE is being used because we’re all running out of gowns, masks, gloves.

Everyone is and it hasn’t even hit our area nearly as intensely as it has like the northeast or the west coast, we’re we’re running out

And you you as essentially, somebody who controls airways and you have to intubate people, you aren’t so in the line of fire, so to speak, you’re on you’re that frontline person. You’re one of those if you’re an ICU nurse, if you’re an anesthesiologist if you’re a respiratory tech salute all of you, because you guys are right there getting into it. Now, some would say, hey, you spent the first half of the show talking about gastrointestinal issues. Yeah, I salute my gastrointestinal colleagues as well. Because it looks like we’re in the fight now also.

Definitely. It’s just it’s the takeaway, though, from those those studies, those reviews that you just had, though, Ken, don’t you think that the exciting part on top of we think that we may be onto something is that people can begin to take action now with at least the data that is applicable, it’s safe to use it worst and at the bare bones worst if someone happened to just simply start eating more polyphenols that they would take in from fruit yet, if it didn’t work? Well. They’re still getting great fruit and fiber etc. There’s there’s really no downside to applying a little bit of this, this reviewed science as we as we wait to find out that these are actual adversaries to the coronavirus.

Correct. So polyphenols if somebody’s like man they’ve been talking about polyphenols this whole time, what does that polyphenols are the molecules that make vegetables and fruit, colorful, it’s on the skin. Those are the molecules found heavily in the Mediterranean diet. And those are the molecules that we now believe are anti aging anti inflammatory molecules. That’s how come that we’ve been studying this so much. So I’ve been using it for gut health. So if at the very least, when you eat, make sure your plate is colorful, everything should be colorful. If you can imagine when you go to McDonald’s and get your whatever it is. thing you lay it out. It’s got a monochromatic tan across the…

Very yellow…very yellow plate.

Very yellow plate. You want to have green reds and purples and When you’re doing that you’re getting your polyphenols in knowing that the polyphenols could potentially help this. So that’s super make sure that you at the very least do this. We know that they are very potent antioxidant, anti inflammatory antibacterial and antiviral. Yes. data to show all of that.

Yeah, definitely. No, that’s that’s it’s just a great takeaway to know that you can actually possibly be taking some serious action for your benefit and your family’s benefit today.

Yeah, totally. Um, so let’s kind of get away from polyphenols and talk about what else you can do. But you’re gonna hear a recurring theme here. It’s, it’s or fortunately, Mother Nature knows how to do this. And you got to take advantage of that. So let’s talk about something so I’ve been getting tons of emails and patients calling in everything, what do I do for this and that, so let’s talk about zinc. Why is everybody saying zinc? Why did they get buy get bought off the shelves? Why is it there? Well, zinc, if you’re low, then your immune cells won’t function well. And intracellular zinc can block the enzyme that allows the virus to replicate, which is an RNA polymerase enzyme. One more time, you take zinc in, very small percentage of it gets put into the cell, where the zinc then just goes, come on now, and they just starts working on the virus’s rep replicating system. That’s how it works as an immune product. And so zinc is an essential mineral that we need to take in, but you got to get it into the cell. So some scientists realize that we have to figure out how to get more zinc, intracellular. I got to quit touching my face, I just realized I’m messing up my hair and I…

I’ve been doing it the whole time.

Yeah, I’m realizing just I mean, I just get I get, I get excited about this. We know that zinc can inhibit, specifically Coronavirus, RNA polymerase activity in labs, but it has to be intracellular. The problem is that once it’s in the cell, it can do that. But it has to get in there. And that’s difficult to do. Scientists have realized and I keep saying scientists have realized I’m just referring to other smarter people that have done these studies is what I mean. So other people that are smarter than me have figured this out that it needs something called an ionophore to get in. So it’s like a fast pass or it’s a it’s there’s a security guard at the cell door, and zinc like a my humans eating all kinds of zinc. I’m here to help out and the security guards like you need to come in with somebody you need to have a VIP with you. Well, they’re looking at different things that work as VIPs and as it turns out, flavonoids which are In the class of polyphenols, not only act as antioxidants, but appears in this particular study that they drove zinc into the cells, then they showed that with mice, they could actually show a rapid increase in intracellular zinc, when the zinc was taken with polyphenols, or if you’re taking polyphenols. And also taking zinc doesn’t have to be the same time. And they did this through very complex fluorescent staining. So that is super wild. You need zinc, but you need intracellular zinc. So really pretty, that one kind of blew me away also. So I just got done talking about two bench studies, where they work as protease inhibitors. And now I just showed you how polyphenols can work as zinc ionophores. That should be like enough, and we actually have more stuff to talk about, which is nuts. So

So just in just a quick aside if if you have a diet that’s comprised of good Healthy meats. What else? Beans probably seeds, nuts, various nuts. That’s where you’ll find naturally occurring zinc or…

Cashews. Cashews are a big one.

Definitely there’s there but there are definitely some zinc supplements out there. So as a as Brown lays out different things that you probably could take at a molecular level, I’m going to try to keep up and say, places where you can find them so that you can incorporate them into your daily intake of foods.

Yeah, so unfortunately, I’m just geeking out on this. So if you if you figure out how to say, Well, if somebody’s sitting there going, Wow, where do I get it? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. Um, something else. There was a study that came out of Korea, which showed that by certain probiotics in vitro, they could actually stop the hearing metabolism which this particular virus uses to get energy and one step further. That was in vitro then I found an article that showed that polyphenols work as an antioxidant by blocking xanthine oxidase which is part of the pureeing pathway. So the energy gets taken away from the virus as well. So that’s super geeky. It’s like, wow, it’s like almost like every time somebody chooses to do a study on these polyphenols, they’re finding a positive effect. We have gotten sicker since we have become industrialized, and we have refined foods. Having soil with rich and minerals and everything and eating the seasonal vegetables is probably a very effective way to protect yourself from a lot of illness. Not trying to say specifically COVID19 but doing that is probably a great way to protect yourself from a lot of things.

Definitely hundred percent. I don’t have a whole lot to add to that.

Alright, so I’m tired of polyphenols, if I could ever say that I’ve only been talking about ’em for 10 years. So, alright. We did say on the first one that I want to give some recommendations about things that I’m telling my patients that I’m doing that my kids are doing that everyone that I think there’s some science backing this. So other recommendations I’m telling I’m a big fan of fermented foods. I don’t understand why but Germany continues to have this profound or I haven’t, or a very a much lower death rate than the rest of the world. And I always laugh because I’m like, Is it the sauerkraut? I just keep coming back to them because the sauerkraut is it the beer. What is it, but so fermented foods, especially those that have Lactobacillus plantarum and bifidobacterium and lactobacillus generally will actually have been shown to have some antiviral activities. So now’s the time to go out and get that kimchi now’s the time to go out and eat that sauerkraut and that kind of thing. As you know, I’m not a huge fan of probiotics based on the science because not that it’s there they’re bad. But the science just isn’t there and I don’t want people spending a whole lot of money on things that don’t work. I’m a big fan of polyphenol wrapped probiotics, kimchi, sauerkraut, things like that, because the insoluble cellulose, in my opinion probably works as a vehicle to get that bacteria to the colon. So, fermented foods. I’m kind of a fan of right now. We discussed zinc and vitamin C is an essential micronutrient that works as an antioxidant. What you will hear online right now and in forums is that studies in humans are extremely conflicting. So you have to go a little deeper than that. And that’s the knee jerk that every doctor will say as well. The studies don’t show that. I want to say this. Angie and I discovered an article with mice genetically grown, that do not have the capacity to make vitamin C. And then they took mice that are normal and they exposed…they exposed both groups to influenza, those without vitamin C died. Those who had it had a lot less inflammation and a lot less inflammatory cytokines. Right now in China there is an ongoing study where they’re looking at giving IV vitamin C. So if you want to compare old studies that talk about the rhinovirus and does vitamin C help, what we know is looking at animal data, vitamin C is extremely important. And the reason why it’s important is that we know it down regulates and inflammasome, inflammasome called NRLP. What that is, is we know that people are dying from what’s called a cytokine storm, which is where your immune system overreacts to the virus. It starts with an inflammasome and then it becomes a domino effect. And just start turning on all these cytokines. So it also helps regenerate glutathione, which we’re going to get into. And one of the only problems with vitamin C supplementation is if you take too much it can create some gi upset. When I was on Dr. Raun’s summit, Dr. Lundqvist, who went on before me who’s an expert in this did discuss something really cool, which I was unaware of when you are sick, you increase what’s called your glute one receptors. So you will absorb more vitamin C that you take in, so your body knows when you’re sick. So if you’re not sick, and you’re taking tons of it, you’re probably gonna have some gi upset. If you’re sick and you take a little extra, you’ll probably be fine, which I thought was really cool. So I love learning from other really smart doctors. Next product everybody goes on vitamin D. Yes, we know that most people in the United States are vitamin d deficient in a systematic review, vitamin D appeared to protect individuals from acute respiratory infections. Vitamin D is expressed on both B and T cells, which are our immune cells. And what it does is it can modulate your immune response. I’ll say that again, it can control your immune response. So it almost works more like a hormone in that it tells your body to not overreact, which is something super important. And low levels are associated with increased autoimmune disorders and increased infection rates. So looking at a different study, it looks like that taking high dose vitamin D on a weekly basis, which is what many doctors recommend, is not as effective in this particular case as taking a daily vitamin D supplement. So I would recommend somewhere around 1000 milligrams a day. Most supplements come in the 2500 to 5000 range but I’m on it and my family’s on it as well. So super important to do that

Thing here so vitamin D foods are lot of your oily fishes, dairy milk cheeses and I think some of the greens like collard greens and mustard greens I think have vitamin D and of course don’t forget you need to convert it. Get sunlight, get sunlight every day.

Yes, go out for walks. walk your dog Get out right now is a great time to get out. And yeah, thank you for saying this. I should have started with everything. I’m not saying get out. I should have started from the very beginning. Don’t go out and buy a bunch of supplements. Try to eat the diet that has these ingredients in them first. Supplements supplement a healthy lifestyle, but is no substitute a healthy lifestyle. So that being said, Yeah, so thank you for bringing up those foods. And I will throw this at you now. A diet in healthy phytosterols. Phytosterols are vegetable oils that appear that they may block the binding site of these different Coronaviruses. In other words, the ACE-2 receptor that they keep talking about in the news uses cholesterol to bind to what is called a lipid raft and then that lipid raft of the virus binds to it and then it kind of slides down. I always think of it like the way that they describe those inflatable rafts when a plane lands on the water they come out and people come out that’s how I think of it.

Don’t you want to get into a situation where nobody gets hurt but you get to pull it I always wanted to inflate that stinking thing.

So a diet high in phytosterols. So things like you know what I’m gonna beat you to this one because I had that I actually had to look this up phytosterols isn’t something phytosterols are very high nuts, legumes, grains and fruits and vegetables. It’s a common theme here. We keep saying the same thing over and over. I mean, don’t eat at McDonald’s, eat your fruits and veggies, and healthy fish and things like that. And two more. And then this is this rounds out my list of science backed supplements that I can, I can at least lean on some data. Because there’s a lot of things out there that people talk about. That is not my specialty is not my that I have not had a chance to get into. But n-acetylcysteine is something that I’m a big fan of, n-acetylcysteine (NAC) has some mucolytic properties. And in a 2017 meta analysis, meaning in 2017, they took all these studies, they found that treating patients with NAC NAC and n-acetylcysteine led to shorter duration of ICU stays in acute respiratory distress syndrome, which you geeked out on on the first episode explaining all about ARGS. So go back and watch the first episode because this is Eric’s specialty, keeping people alive with that kind of problem. So salute to you for doing that kind of stuff. And Chinese protocols right now Chinese hospitals are using n-acetylcysteine as standard treatment when somebody comes in with coronavirus. It also does something really cool it increases glutathione levels. Glutathione is one of the most important cellular antioxidants. So what that does is it is a potent cellular antioxidant, and we need this for cellular health, cellular health kind of funny the guy that went on after me was Dr. Dan Pompa, who I who I love and his his whole his whole mission is cellular health, which is cool. A study looked at people with community acquired pneumonia, and they randomized them to either conventional treatment which would be antibiotics, and…conventional treatment antibiotics plus NAC. And what it showed was the NAC group healed quicker and had lower inflammatory markers. I’m currently taking like 600 milligrams BID, the dosages were all over the map in all these studies, but wow, okay. There’s studies out here that show this and they essentially are you and I have talked about how NAC helps with alcohol metabolism, but this is a whole separate method. This is getting the glutathione and then ultimately, I’m recommending melatonin as well. Melatonin is a potent antioxidant. But one of the reasons is to make sure that you have everything functioning well. You got to sleep. During these very stressful times. You’ve got to get…try get eight hours of sleep. Please, please, please, please, please. And this is nuts. Kids don’t seem to be affected by this virus and one of the speculative things is that kids have much higher melatonin than adults as we age we decrease our melatonin so over the age of 70 you have much less melatonin. I read an article describing how the higher melatonin that you have you in your NLRP3 inflammasome.

inflammasome yeah.

Is down regulated by melatonin

Nice.

You have your highest melatonin traditionally between ages one and five. And as we age it decreases and if you do not have a high melatonin you are susceptible to a cytokine storm cytokine storm as we talked about is your body overreacting. So one last time did you write those all down Eric? Can you…

I did.

Tell everybody what what what I feel science backed things may help during this pandemic,

In addition to a healthy diet of polyphenols or supplementation with polyphenols and of course we know where you can get that with Atrantil. There is strong science to suggest that you should couple a polyphenol diet with zinc, vitamin C, NAC or n-acetylcysteine, vitamin D, phytosterols, and melatonin. You can get zinc and NAC from meat, eggs, etc. Your vitamin C obviously comes from great citrus fruits and vegetables. Let’s see here phytosterols there’s tons of plants and seeds that have that in it and of course, if you don’t produce enough melatonin that is a very common supplement. However, I will say though, that you want to be selective on probably where you where you buy melatonin that seems to be one of those.

Oh yeah, yeah we that’s a whole separate show. I actually pay to belong to examine.com and consumer labs.com. I’m a user because I go there and I have them do the analysis. That’s a third party analysis. So any of these supplements make sure that they’re third party analyzed. So those are the ones that I can sink my teeth into really deep and go, this clearly looks like this. Now, there’s other things that a lot of other people will be like, oh, well, what about this? What about this? What about that? I’d like for instance, broccoli, broccoli, or sulforaphane? Sulforaphane comes in broccoli sprouts. I found some articles that show that coronavirus may decrease your NRF two pathway which is the pathway that leads to inflammation and that so I’m also taking that we know that that actually has some antibacterial effects. Shivan and I got kind of deep into it yesterday in the CBOE summit, where we talked about how I’m using that in my CBOE people as well. I’m having pretty good results. So that would be one that I can’t really say, I’ve looked at the science, but I’m seeing anecdotal evidence and it’s probably good for you anyways. So if it has some ability to help with this infection, that would be awesome. And we know that like, CBD attenuates the immune system, so it at least gets you back to balanced immune and neurologic systems. So I’m obviously a big fan of that. And that’s you can go to our website and take a look there. I’m not saying not recommending it, that this is any type of cure treatment or benefit to this particular pandemic. I’m recommending to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to try and improve your immune system.

Definitely, if you’re if you’re a frontline health care worker, just be certain that you’re doing all you can to take in a good diet. Be certain to get your exercise and know that you’re probably hustling all over the hospital floor or OR just taking care of patients even if they don’t happen to be COVID patients. You want to be certain that you’re keeping yourself nice and healthy in that environment, get sleep, no matter what just prioritize sleep, your immune system just will never be as strong as it possibly can if your body is not getting rest, so sunlight, sleep in addition to a good diet, it will make for a much better outcome in the long run for certain.

Definitely, we and we won’t stop these installments for the COVID talks until we we more or less feel comfortable that we’re heading that direction. I will say that we’ve been put in contact with an infectious disease doctor in the Department of Defense that actually he probably can’t join us live or recorded on the next installment of of the COVID file. However, he is going to vet some questions that Dr. Brown has sent his way. Basically just just read his responses back.

Yeah, absolutely. And we want to, once again, thank everyone who’s worked in the hospital systems working, shift work, or EMS people. You guys are the true heroes because you are doing shift work you affect your sleep cycles, you’re getting a lot of stress. I know I’ve talked to some emergency room physicians who are seeing other issues with this shut-in like, unfortunately some more domestic abuse going on and things like that because people are forced to being you know, the finances are tight, and the the quarters are tight and everybody is you know, struggling but hang in there. We’re gonna get through this and what I just got done telling you even if you even if you’re sitting there like it’s been like what I like turning it because you guys like to joke around what do you do? I was just nerdy. Just bottom line is, it looks like we’re heading in the right direction for figuring out how to how to stop this.

That’s perfect.

Got a little bit different perspective as an ID doc, as well as tending to the pediatric side in combination with ID. That said, though, it probably won’t be a full week until we come back with the next installment simply because we’re finding some more time to dedicate collecting research and kind of really getting it organized. We certainly appreciate everyone sharing the last installment. Hopefully, we’ll do the same here. And when the show notes for this one on the YouTube YouTube presentation, we’ll be sure and list all of the supplement lists that that Ken laid out for you. And I don’t know, it’s a pretty powerful episode. I hope that people can begin to arm themselves and I think that the next time we’re going to have some some good feedback and start rounding the corner to better days.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, appreciate everyone tuning in. appreciate everyone staying home. It is real. We still have to practice at least right now. What’s the you know we’re in March. We’re still practicing social distancing.

I almost forgot and I’ll put this in show notes also, if you’re looking to just make a difference in your community, Ron Lynch is a really close friend of Dr. Brown and I his name as name is Ron Lynch. He just started intellihelp about a week ago or a week and a half ago and intellihelp and intellihelp.org

Intelahelp

Help. HELP. Intellihelp can be founded intellihelp.org. And intellihelp is intellihelp on Facebook. What it does, it’s a very free service if you are available to give and help in service in any way. They’ve done really, really well over the last almost 10 or 15 days of if a woman needs diapers to take care of her kiddos and she doesn’t want to leave the house. She just basically posts it someone who happens to be coming back from grocery store drops it off someone that kiddo needs to have an availability to have a free lunch dropped off because they’re not getting lunches from school. Yeah, intellihelp is there to serve those people and to give you the ability to give back to them and trust me, if you feel a little bit down in the dumps, you’ll feel a lot better once you’re able to help somebody else and you feel like that you’re not

That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So how do we prevent like a you know, our partner Mike Logsdon from gettin’ on Intellihelp said I need a Guiness delivered to my house right now.

There’s no way to prevent that from happening because because Mike may need that Mike may need that Guiness.

That is true.

I have a feeling that as close as you live once you get on intellihelp Ken you’ll be…

Loyda goes where are you goin’? Mike needs his Guiness again.

There’s nothing I can do. I’m going to drop off some diapers and some can some some black aluminum cans at Mike’s house.

Yes. I love that. Awesome. Well, Ron Lynch, kudos to you. That is badass. Awesome. Thank you for being part of the solution.

Definitely, definitely. All right. Well, I think that’s the the end of second summit will be like I said it won’t be a week until we get the third in. And we’ll get a little bit more regular, a little bit more frequent as more news evolves. We’re just kind of setting the stage here. But yeah,

And if everyone can just comment, and let me know if you want it this sciency not so sciency. I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re all learning as we go during this, because the because everything’s coming out by the hour. Yeah. And we have the ability to go as deep as you want. We have the ability to find stuff that is not in print yet. And that’s what I like when we’re talking about stuff. And then three weeks later, the news we were talking about the anazmio well before it even made the news.

Yeah. Well wondering if it was true, right. Remember that you said have read this. I have no idea if this is even accurate. I mean, between that and people shoving hair dryers up their nose, we didn’t know which direction to go.

True. Heat up the nose. That’s right.

Don’t do that. It’s terrific idea. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank y’all so much for tuning in and sharing a next installment here rather soon and they may not all be nearly this long, we may have some shorter…

How long was this?

Right in an hour?

What?

Yeah.

It felt like 10 minutes.

It’s just a lot of info. Well, thank you Ken and, Paul, thanks for of course for putting everything together. We will see y’all next time on next COVID installment. I’m Eric Gregor. That’s Dr. Ken Brown here with a gut check project. We will see y’all next time.

Stay safe, everybody.