Antibiotics got us in this mess, so how are they likely to get us out of it?
Integrated doctors have been saying for decades that we prescribe too many antibiotics, with dire consequences. Now even the Chief Medical Officer says so — but she goes on to urge newer, more powerful antibiotics as the answer. This is a kamikaze response – a suicide mission to the glory of the pharmaceutical industry that sold us this sub-prime solution in the first place. Is there a better solution? Yes, it just requires some smart thinking.
Vitamin D
Right now (mid-March) everybody in Britain is running short on the sunshine vitamin because we haven’t seen the sun for months. That is the main reason flu outbreaks happen in Jan/Feb; John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council and colleagues clearly showed this in a 2008 study in the journal Virology; http://www.virologyj.com/content/5/1/29. My advice is just take a tiny 5000 unit vitamin D pill every day you’re not out in real sunlight. Start now, and don’t worry about taking too much — it’s almost physically impossible.
Probiotics
These are the “friendly bacteria” that are killed off as collateral damage by antibiotics. You would be well advised to take some whenever you really do have to swallow the medicine, to give back to your bowel the healthy bacteria it needs. But that’s not all, because according to a placebo-controlled 2005 study taking a probiotic along with the antibiotic stopped all the bugs from becoming drug-resistant; http://www.ijaaonline.com/article/S0924-8579(05)00117-2/abstract — which is good for the patient and good for the rest of us. Of course, if you can you should avoid taking antibiotics altogether, because that’s good for us all too.
Vitamin C
I’m on the editorial board of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service — http://www.orthomolecular.org — and we do get tired of pointing out, again and again, what nonsense the endless attempts to discredit vitamin C are. Of course, if it didn’t work they wouldn’t bother trying. Let’s state it again; In massive doses, vitamin C (ascorbic acid) stops a cold within hours, stops influenza in a day or two, and stops viral pneumonia (pain, fever, cough) in two or three days.
See http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n24.shtml for details. It also works against cancer, depression, and can even improve your lovelife. Take some now and every day, and take lots if you think you’re going down with something.
