We, including myself, have long believed that whenever a group of people becomes ill with similar symptoms at the same time, there must be a contagion. However, scurvy was thought to be contagious until it was discovered to be from an absence of citrus fruit in the sailors’ diet. Leprosy is due to a form of vitamin B deficiency. The polio epidemic here in the USA originally occurred during the heightened use of DDT. So what causes COVID-19 and its variants?
The germ theory by Louis Pasteur began 200 years after the 1670 invention of the microscope. Tiny particles were discovered in 1930 when the electron microscope was invented. Those particles were presumed to be infectious, so they were named “virus” from the Latin word meaning “toxin.” It was later discovered that those particles can be found throughout our body, within and outside of cells, comprised of protein fragments and snippets of DNA or RNA encapsulated in a membrane, whether or not being ill..
Following the same search for an infectious agent, a genomic sequence from a particle in a laboratory was designated as a “coronavirus.” There are now, according to the GISAID site, over 505,535,403 genomic sequences for variants from that original particle’s genomic sequence, all of which have been computer-generated. Deciding whether any of them, including the Omicron variant, are transmissible, CDC has utilized a comparison to a pseudo-variant (see bioRxiv) for its choice.
Before the symptoms for the current pandemic were published, an Italian physician noticed all the symptoms noted in her patients can be explained as neurological impairment of the autonomic nervous system (ANS).(A well-referenced article on her, and others’ findings were in the Summer, 2021 issue of Wise Traditions) (If you have one, you may want to review your anatomy and physiology textbook for this and the next paragraph.) The ANS controls those bodily functions that we are not consciously aware of. In general terms, it has 2 components: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) for the “flight or fight” activities and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) for “rest and digest.” The inner part of the adrenal gland (adrenal medulla) produces neurotransmitters for the sympathetic nervous system; such as adrenaline and norepinephrine; the outer part of the adrenal gland (adrenal cortex) produces corticoid hormones for the parasympathetic nervous system.
When the adrenal medulla is not working, as in Covid patients, the adrenal cortex is affected as well. Those patients may be given anti-inflammatory steroids, but those steroids treat the cortical adrenal insufficiency, not the medulla where the problem is. Covid patients have decreased respirations along with a low oxygen saturation, which is the exact opposite of a normally functioning SNS’s warrior mode.It also is a strong possibility why intubation on Covid patients often leads to their demise.
There are other observations that may indicate that Covid is a neurologic response, not an infectious disease. Younger Covid patients often seem to be either cannabis or opioid users or are suffering from chronic adrenal insufficiency, often due to either intense sports activity, poor diet, high stress, and/or lack of sleep. In Texas and Florida, this summer, Covid cases soared when temperatures rose above 80 degrees, theoretically from going from a hot environment outside to an air-conditioned environment inside, with a temperature difference of more than 20 degrees. The thyroid and ANS control our ability to adjust to temperature changes.
My next blog will discuss the multiple, a majority non-pharmaceutical, ways we may resist illness from COVID and its variants. Some are so simple, they may surprise you!