Lessons from The Pandemic: What Have We Learned? Part 2

by Ronald D. Whitmont, MD

Presented to the American Institute of Homeopathy (AIH) October 30, 2022
(Continued from the last journal edition – AJHM Spring 2023)

All bactericidal antibiotics including quinolones, aminoglycosides, and β-lactams, cause mitochondrial dysfunction and generate harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) overproduction in mammalian cells:

“We were surprised at how strong and common the effect was across the different [antibiotic] classes, [but] the largest effects were seen in the quinolones.”⁷¹

Every single fluoroquinolone tested damages mitochondria in human liver cells, having what is characterized as “a strong effect” at therapeutic concentrations.⁷² Ciprofloxacin was found to cause breaks in mitochondrial DNA in mammalian cell lines leading to cytotoxicity after only 2 days of exposure, which is significant since the average course of therapy with these drugs usually falls between 7-14 days.⁷³

The fourth pathway leading to dysbiosis is the loss of beneficial infections. According to authors in the peer-reviewed Journal of Perinatology,

“It is becoming increasingly evident that the lack of exposure to a variety of microorganisms, especially during early life, may result in the development of diseases such as type 1 diabetes, asthma, allergies, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease and obesity.”⁷⁴

This phenomenon was first graphically represented in a 2002 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) where the author stated, “The main factor in the increased prevalence of these [inflammatory] diseases in industrialized countries is the reduction in the incidence of acute infectious diseases in those countries over the past three decades… The relationship between the reduction in the incidence of infectious diseases and the increase in the incidence of allergic and autoimmune diseases, on the one hand, and the apparent protective effect of infections against immune-mediated diseases, on the other hand, have clear clinical implications.”⁷⁵

A different article from the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine found that the greater the number of acute lower respiratory-tract infections suffered by children at a young age, the lower their risk of developing asthma later in life, that day-care attendance in early childhood protects against developing allergic disease, and that the absence of robust immune challenges early in life is strongly associated with a greater incidence of both allergic and autoimmune diseases later.⁷⁶

In addition, authors in the Journal Diabetic Medicine noted that young children with older brothers and sisters at home and those who attend a daycare center during the first six months of life subsequently have a lower incidence of asthma and type 1 diabetes than do children who do not attend a daycare center and who don’t have older siblings (who bring infections back to the home).⁷⁷

Chronic infections with parasites are a slightly different example of how organisms in the microbiome can impart long-term health benefits and protect against chronic inflammatory illnesses. The worldwide prevalence of chronic geohelminth (worm) infections is inversely associated with the prevalence of allergic and autoimmune diseases. World maps of these prevalence zones are mirror images of each other. Anti-helminthic treatment (deworming) is associated with the increased prevalence of allergies and autoimmune disorders.⁷⁸ In Caracas, Venezuela the regular anthelmintic deworming treatment of children in slum areas, where helminths are endemic, is associated with an increased incidence of immediate hypersensitivity to environmental allergens in those children.⁷⁹

Even in developing nations where expectant mothers are de-wormed to improve anemia, they subsequently give birth to offspring with a 400% higher rate of eczema than mothers with worms who don’t receive anti-helminthic treatment.⁸⁰

Testing the proposition that parasites steer the immune system away from allergic and autoimmune diseases, the ova of helminths have been successfully utilized to treat and resolve many types of chronic inflammatory illnesses, including allergies, autoimmunity, and inflammation-associated neuropsychiatric disorders over the last 40 years.⁸¹

Viral infections have also been shown to produce beneficial health effects. Mice harboring latent herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus, or Epstein Barr virus (EBV) are protected against bacterial infection by Listeria monocytogenes and Yersinia pestis (bubonic plague).⁸² These effects alone suggest that viruses play an important role in immune system modulation.

Interesting patterns have been observed in households practicing high levels of hygiene. Allergic diseases are significantly less common in families who hand wash their dishes compared with those who use machine dishwashers, which effectively sterilize the dishware and significantly reduce microscopic contamination. Households practicing hand dishwashing demonstrate a significantly reduced risk of allergic disease (odds ratio 0.57; 95% confidence interval: 0.37–0.85) compared with those using machine dishwashers.⁸³

High levels of personal hygiene are independently associated with increased risk of wheezing and atopic dermatitis/eczema. The creation of a sterile environment through excessive cleanliness and isolation from the environment is clearly harmful to both the microbiome and the immune system.⁸⁴

“Intriguingly, allergic diseases, such as hay fever, used to be regarded as an aristocratic disorder, as they were often diagnosed among the upper classes of the society or rich educated people, whereas very rarely it occurred to working class population in rural areas.”⁸⁵

Infectious agents stimulate the production of regulatory cells, whose effects extend far beyond the responses to the acutely or chronically invading microbes, to protect against allergic, neoplastic, and autoimmune diseases.86 Infections “profoundly” boost the production and function of beneficial T-lymphocytes, the body’s first line of defense against disease. These lymphocytes strengthen the immune system against future attacks by the same pathogen, as well as against different pathogens as well.⁸⁷

Acute infectious illnesses appear to be essential training opportunities for the immune system and the microbiome. These illnesses introduce important organisms to the microbiome and stimulate the coordinated exercise of working symbiotically with the immune system to establish lifelong patterns of mutual coordinated integration. Acute infections should be considered a literal form of immune system “exercise” that ultimately teaches it how to establish immunity and resolve inflammation. Infections appear to be “keystone” events that increase microbiome diversity, immune system resiliency, and by generating and resolving acute inflammation, prevent chronic inflammation and related illnesses over a lifetime.

Even more telling, these beneficial effects fail to materialize when vaccines, antibiotics, other allopathic drugs, and isolation are used to treat these acute conditions. This data also suggests that the treatment and isolation measures mandated in the COVID-19 pandemic were fundamentally misguided and notably detrimental to long-term health. Evidence is found in the surge in the number and intensity of “unrelated” infectious diseases, including colds, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and influenza in the immediate post-covid world.⁸⁸ The rapid rise in incidence and severity of these conditions confirms the immune system harms resulting from this approach.

The importance of acute infections in immune system health and functioning reinforces two prescient adages: “without pain, there is no gain” and “experience is the best teacher.” These concepts are ripe with wisdom, but foreign to the field of allopathic medicine, which has exploited fear via the Germ Theory to ultimately worsen health. According to Maimonides, the 12th century Jewish physician, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Acute infections teach the immune system how to fish and provide lifetime benefits that are not only erased by the use of antibiotics, vaccines, and other allopathic suppressive therapies but are converted into chronic suffering and lifelong inflammation.

How does all of this apply to COVID-19?

Significant risk factors for COVID-19 include:

• Male sex
• Age (over 70 years)
• Medical “comorbidities.”
• Dysbiosis

The first two risk factors—male sex and older age—are both associated with reduced bacterial microbiome diversity and directly correlate with increased risk of COVID-19.⁸⁹

The medical comorbidities associated with unfavorable outcomes from COVID-19 include obesity, heart, kidney, liver or lung disease, diabetes, and cancer. Interestingly, and not coincidentally, each one of these comorbid conditions are chronic inflammatory conditions associated with reduced microbiome diversity, dysbiosis and immune system dysfunction. In other words, it is not a coincidence that each comorbid condition related to a poor prognosis from COVID-19 is also related to the overuse of conventional allopathic medications and are related to the damaging effects of these drugs on the microbiome and the immune system.

For example, the comorbidity obesity is associated with chronic low-grade inflammation. It is directly related to alterations and loss of species diversity in the gut microbiome, and frequently related to antibiotic exposure. It is no accident that 80% of the antibiotics consumed in the US are used in agriculture, primarily because they prematurely fatten and encourage weight gain in livestock, which can then be marketed earlier for greater profit.⁹⁰  The overuse of antibiotics in human children is linked to the same metabolic shifts leading to obesity.⁹¹

The comorbidity of cardiovascular disease is directly related to the gastrointestinal microbiome, which plays a “pivotal role” in the onset and development of atherosclerosis, hypertension, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and myocardial fibrosis.⁹² It also plays an important role in the development and pathogenesis of hypertension.⁹³

The comorbidity of kidney disease is connected to dysbiosis that produces excessive uremic toxins. These compounds, working through the “gut-kidney axis,” are implicated in the development of chronic kidney diseases (CKD), autoimmune IgA nephropathy, nephrolithiasis (kidney stones), hypertension, and acute kidney injury.⁹⁴

The comorbidity of liver disease is directly related to the level of dysbiosis within the gastrointestinal microbiome affecting the progression of alcoholic liver disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, and hepatic encephalopathy.⁹⁵

The course and progression of the comorbidities of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, cystic fibrosis, and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) are all directly linked to the state of the pulmonary microbiome, which engages in continual “cross-talk” with the gut microbiome.⁹⁶

Not only is there “clear and growing evidence” of the causal relationship between microbiome dysbiosis and the pathogenesis of the comorbidity of diabetes, since it is directly related to early life antibiotic exposure and excessive hygiene, but the presence of diabetes doubles the risk of dying from COVID-19.⁹⁷

And finally, microbiome dysbiosis plays a “key role” in the development, risk of metastasis, disease progression and prognosis of a wide range of different types of cancerous comorbidities.⁹⁸

“Of all the chronic diseases, these botchings of the human condition brought forth by the allopathic calamitous art (at its worst in recent times) are the saddest and the most incurable… it seems to be impossible to invent or devise any curative means for them.”⁹⁹

Modern allopathic medicine has played a pivotal etiologic role in generating these patterns of chronic inflammatory comorbidity that increase the likelihood of hospitalization and death from COVID-19, but even without the actual comorbidities, the state of the microbiome itself at the time of COVID-19 infection can exert a powerful effect on the outcome of infection.

Microbiome composition, loss of diversity and dysbiosis all increase individual infectibility and susceptibility to a wide range of acute infectious illnesses, including COVID-19, where it increases disease severity.¹⁰⁰

According to the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, dysbiosis is an independent risk factor that increases inflammatory cytokines and blood markers, including C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), which are both associated with increased risk of hospitalization and need for mechanical ventilation in cases of COVID-19.¹⁰¹

The severity of COVID-19 is directly correlated with reduced bacterial diversity, higher levels of bacterial pathogens, and reduced levels of beneficial bacteria—all hallmarks of dysbiosis—when compared with healthy controls.¹⁰² These alterations of microflora have been noted in both the GI tract and the lung of COVID-19 patients.¹⁰³ “The most severely affected patients (those who stay longer in hospital, who require intensive care, and who eventually die) are older people with pre-existing cardiovascular, metabolic, renal, and pulmonary diseases, the same people in which the prevalence of gut microflora dysbiosis is higher…The COVID-19 patients presenting poor outcomes are also those in which the immune system’s hyperresponsiveness and a severe inflammatory condition (collectively referred as “cytokine storm”) are particularly evident and have been associated with impaired microbiota phenotype [dysbiosis].”¹⁰⁴

Hospitalization for COVID-19 as well as antibiotic treatment appear to be independent risk factors for increased dysbiosis and severity of illness.¹⁰⁵ In one study, differences in gut bacterial populations relative to healthy controls were observed in all COVID-19 patients, but most strongly in patients who were treated with antibiotics during their hospitalization. Additionally, dysbiosis directly correlates with the risk of developing gut barrier dysfunction and bacterial translocation into the bloodstream, which raises the risk of life-threatening secondary infections.¹⁰⁶ Dysbiosis is firmly linked to the risk of developing Long-COVID,¹⁰⁷ and these dysbiotic changes persist for many months.¹⁰⁸

It is the experience of homeopathic practitioners that COVID-19 readily responds to well-chosen homeopathic medicines, often supplemented with straightforward dietary and lifestyle recommendations, and without recourse to conventional allopathic medical treatments. Homeopathic experience is consistent in every prior epidemic where this modality has been used over the last 150 years.^{109,110,111,112,113}

What Have We Learned From COVID-19?

Those who have endured the most conventional allopathic medical care and the most microbiome damage over their lifetimes (including patterns established by parents prior to conception, in pregnancy, and in infancy) have the most dysbiosis, the most dysfunctional immune systems, and the highest risk of developing chronic inflammatory illness.

Those with the most damaged microbiomes and the most severe dysbiosis have the greatest number and severity of chronic comorbidities. They subsequently have the most severe side effects, the worst outcomes, and the highest rates of “Long COVID.” ¹¹⁴

In other words, conventional allopathic medicines are directly linked to microbiome dysbiosis, and this dysbiosis directly correlates with increased all-cause mortality, including the risk of dying from COVID-19.¹¹⁵

Acute illnesses appear to be opportunities that promote increased microbiome diversity, immune system symbiosis and integration, reduced risk of dysbiosis, lower risk of chronic inflammation, and improved long-term health (unless allopathic pharmaceutical drugs are used in their treatment and management). Modern allopathic medicine (through its direct effects on the microbiome, the immune system, mitochondria, and the prevalence of infectious illness) is a major contributor to the death and disability resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and may be the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world today. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), in-patient use of conventional allopathic drugs is already considered to be the fifth leading cause of death in the US.¹¹⁶ Ten percent of all US hospital admissions are attributable to drug-induced disorders and side effects, while one million hospitalized patients are injured from pharmaceutical drugs, which cause 180,000 deaths annually,¹¹⁷ medical error is considered to be the third leading cause of death,¹¹⁸ and, according to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), costs more than $3.5 billion annually.

The epidemic of chronic inflammatory illness is largely iatrogenic. The COVID-19 Pandemic has been iatrogenically intensified. If ongoing medical management focuses solely on the continued suppression of symptoms or on the eradication of infection, rather than correcting the fundamental ecological imbalances (dysbiosis) existing in the microbiome, then what begins as an uncomplicated acute inflammation soon becomes leveraged into a complex chronic state of inflammation ultimately affecting multiple organ systems. “… Antibiotic treatment selects for resistant bacteria, increases opportunities for horizontal gene transfer, and enables intrusion of pathogenic organisms through depletion of occupied natural niches, with profound implications for the emergence of resistance. Because these pervasive alterations can be viewed as an uncoupling of mutualistic host-microbe relationships, it is valuable to reconsider antimicrobial therapies in the context of an ecological framework. Understanding the biology of competitive exclusion, interspecies protection, and gene flow of adaptive functions in the gut environment may inform the design of new strategies that treat infections while preserving the
ecology of our beneficial constituents.”¹¹⁹

If the organized disruption of the human microbiome (and the environment) is to ever stop, then the field of medicine (and society) must embrace a different vision of health to incorporate a broader understanding of a science-based (as opposed to a falsely premised fear-based) understanding of how the immune system and the environment interact and support each other. For a society steeped in a quasi-religious fear of terrorism, killer viruses, the environment, and invading alien pathogens of all types, this would involve a tremendous reeducation against centuries of accumulated bias, prejudice, and ignorance.

Homeopathy represents such an alternate view that has been tested and proven through scientific clinical evidence. A paradigm change in medicine and society is long overdue, but if the current crises in environmental and human health are insufficient to evoke this change, then it is doubtful that anything else will.¹²⁰

About the author: Ronald D. Whitmont, MD, is Clinical Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine at New York Medical College (formerly New York Homeopathic Medical College), formerpresident of the American Institute of  Homeopathy (AIH) and the Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York (HMSSNY). He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine (ABIM) and maintains a private practice of Classical Homeopathy in Rhinebeck, New York. His website is homeopathicmd.com
 

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