Kentucky Fried Chicken is the Antidote for Bird Flu!.......
Vitamin C prevents the common cold.
These people have been dying from a contagious vitamin deficiency?
As usual, I expect the FDA to say those magic words, ".. but more research is needed", while pushing a more profitable drug.
Saw that you had pinged some people about the bird flu situation, and thought this might interest you.
It is a HUGE leap from this type of information (eg., the effects of vitamin A on TNF) from actually having a CLINICAL effect on avian flu. Often, logical thinking in science fails when tested.
bump
According to the New Yorker, it was filed in the White House waste basket.
This article might have a shred of credibility if it wasn't so snarky.
This isn't a science piece. It's an editorial with an agenda.
"At these [ therapeutic ] amounts it should be possible to defend every person on earth from avian flu for a fraction of the cost of Tamiflu."
Well, the drug companies are gonna work hard to prevent a simple vitamin from taking center stage over their Tamiflu production, that will coincidentally make them many $$$$. They cannot patent a vitamin, so that means no $$$$ for them if word gets out...
As nearly as I can sort from the dross, they are stating that Vitamin A has some efficacy in muting the body's autoimmune response, especially when that response is excessive, i.e., destructive to the body.
There are a number of conditions in which autoimmune disorders cause the body to attack itself, and many of these are of a chronic nature. Osteoarthritis comes to mind.
Similarly, an acute overreaction by the immune system can cause the overproduction of Cytokines, aka a "cytokine storm" which has been implicated in the deaths of Avian Influenza patients CIDRAP link , and possibly was involved in the "spanish" influenza pandemic of 1918, leading to rapid death in some patients, complete with the characteristic darkening of the skin, as descrbed in many accounts.
The crux of the matter is one of whether Vitamin A is effective at stopping the cytokine event from occurring.
That alone could improve the survival rate, but the flu is still present, even if the immune response is muted.
This is not a guarantee, even if it is assumed that Vitamin A would prevent the immune system from 'running wild' that the now suppressed immune system could handle the virus itself.
From the first link above: at flu wiki:
However, it is reasonable and plausible to say cytokine dysregulation might be involved in some virulent influenza infections. In desperation, clinicians have treated patients with potent anti-inflammatory drugs, usually steriods. There is no evidence that this helps.
A “cytokine storm” of a more limited nature is sometimes seen in cancer chemotherapy patients, where it is treated in its earliest stages by iv. benadryl and steroids, with some success. However in these cases, there is no infectious agent involved; even if steroids worked for influenza-induced cytokine storm, they cause a general downshift of the immune system which might allow the virus to run rampant and kill the patient via ordinary viral pneumonia.
In ordinary infection-related sepsis, steroids are shown to slightly increase mortality (Crit Care Med. 1995 Aug;23(8):1430–9.)
This is but one of the complicating considerations that clinicians will have to navigate during an outbreak.
An isolated study showed that in children with central nervous system (brain) symptoms—an early sign of cytokine storm—due to (human, not H5N1) influenza infection, mild and controlled reduction in body core temperature (hypothermia) seems to reduce damage to brain cells as well as reducing the progression to a full-blown cytokine storm and multi-organ failure. (Pediatrics International Volume 42 Issue 2 Page 197 - April 2000.)
With these thoughts in mind, reduction of body temperature might be just as effective, without risking toxicity from vitamin A overload.
Now, I am not a doctor, so I reccommend researching this and making up your own mind. But as with all knowledge, just a little is a dangerous thing.
This, (Vitamin A, beyond a balanced diet/ordinary supplements) in view of the published studies, does not seem to be the magic bullet to me.
Thank you, I had heard there was an over the counter pill that would help, but the person didn't want to say what it was over the air. Now I know.
Very interesting. I wonder how it works on rheumatoid arthritis. All the new RA drugs work by blocking TNF-alpha.
Really. Well, if people want to take advice on flu prevention from a web site dedicated to the proposition that HIV does not cause AIDS, I say, go right ahead. Darwin can always use a little help.
Here it is! Get your vitamin A!