Gaussian Health is the mathematical reason so many Americans, including our children, have chronic diseases.
Those with the marketing $$$ know that people do not understand this simple math and take advantage of them (us?). How?
Who is #1 in this space? The pharmaceutical industrial complex. They actually know that disease develops slowly, following a log-linear (bell - gaussian) curve. They also know that we, as a population, are too impatient to wait for a REAL solution, so we accept an "instant gratification" treatment of symptoms. It's much easier to compile a list of drugs that don't satisfy instantaneous gratification than those that do.
Here is the list of drugs, the treatment program of which, follows the gaussian concept: Hmmm, I cannot think of one.
Here is the list of drugs that are designed to satisfy your need for instantaneous gratification. https://www.drugs.com/drug_information.html
There are certainly exceptions to these two lists. However, before making an assumption, "peel the onion" back to make sure there were not other factors in play. For example, not every "old" person exposed to Sars died and not every "old" person exposed to the nasty jab died. It's not always the "fancy treatment." Good health is your best treatment and cure.
What are the consequences of "gaussian health" even in the context of functional and integrative approaches. A deep dive into this could be good fodder for a book. However, IMHO, the #1 reason many functional doctors are unable to solve complex patient problems is THE PATIENT - AND THEIR INSTANT GRATIFICATION HARD WIRING!
I try to run a low-cost program that puts the person (patient) in charge. We assess their risks, assess their labs, and then give suggestions on how to improve their health. Another suggestion is to stay in touch with our team, retest in a few months, and then have another consult. This is optional.
From the patient perspective, I believe most people have an expectation that their issues will resolve quickly - let's say in less than one month. Ugh - If it takes 20 years for a chronic condition to materialize, is this realistic?
CERTAINLY NOT!
In most cases, people may feel better pretty quickly and their labs may show improvement. But to really get within ~90% of resolution, at least 5 months of consistent "treatment" is usually required. I tell cancer patients that they should continue any treatment that help their condition indefinitely (this does not include standard of care treatments). This time frame has as much to do with the cells involved in the disease as it does the diagnoses and treatments.
"Cancer registries track how many new cancers are diagnosed each year, but doctors are not required to report cancers that have recurred." American Cancer Society
Isn't that convenient!
Cancer is not a special case. People who have had a heart attack are much more likely to have another heart attack compared to people who have never had one.
THE POINT IS - WHEN YOU THINK YOU ARE DONE TREATING A CHRONIC PROBLEM - YOU ARE NOT.
What does this mean? Treating chronic disease creates a double whammy.
People want an instant solution - that almost never solves a root cause.
When they think their problem is solved, they stop treatment which too often leads to recurrence.
This is why the drug companies have it made. Take this drug - the cost of which is covered by insurance - that does not solve your problem but makes you "feel better." AND, TAKE IT FOR LIFE.
WHO'S AT FAULT HERE?
Here are a couple of case studies.
Case 1. RA. It important to note that at month 3 there was essential NO IMPROVEMENT in external manifestations. However, his labs were improving steadily over the course of the program. Also, he suffered from a mild herxheimer's reaction for 3 months. One month after the "herx" subsided, he joint inflammation abated.
Case 2. Psoriasis. Sandy suffered for years with this disease. Over the past 2 years, washing her hands and feet became a daily painful experience. And, her job involved using her hands. She was a seamstress. She was seen my many dermatologist who treated her topically with creams and red light therapy. These treatments had no impact on her condition.
We went aggressive with her treatment. After 4 MONTHS OF TREATMENT THERE WAS NO IMPROVEMENT IN HER VISUAL APPEARANCE - 4 MONTHS OF TREATMENT!
This is month 5.
This is month 6.
Too many people are unconvinced they will see any results if none are obvious even after 1 month, never mine 3 or 4 months. I have many people who have seen several functional doctors before coming to me. And, IMHO, too many leave, not just me, but their previous doctors, to find yet another magician, after a couple of months. I know it is hard to know if you are on the right path. But you will NEVER know unless you stay the course.
If you labs are improving - regardless of your symptoms - you are probably on the right path. Keep going!
Ok, so what does gaussian health have to do with this. Maybe these image provides appropriate context.
The green line illustrates how diseases like cancer and heart disease strike "suddenly." In the green curve, there is a long asymptomatic period, whereas the red line indicates a steady and obvious progression of disease.
Think about running a 100 meter dash. If you are out of shape, you can see improvement in your time initially. However, as you get closer and closer to a fast time, gains do not come as easily. The red line indicates you can achieve equal gains no matter where you are. Anyone trying to run a 12 second 100 meter dash knows this is COMPLETELY not true.
Here is another gaussian increase in mortality. The increase in death with age follows a "log-linear" (gaussian) relationship.
The bell curve (below) explains why your regular doctor almost always says "your labs look good." Over time, the health of our population has deteriorated and we are now being compared to a state of poor health.
Here is an example wrt cancer.
Here is the change in mortality with changes in the biomarker - white blood cell counts.
I'm including this previous blog here because the treatment in both the example cases was.
Overall health, diet, and exercise (terrain)
Stealth infections.
Dr. Gail Cassell acknowledged the truth about major contributors to chronic diseases and cancers. Too bad they are not developing drugs that address these causes. Why aren't they? Natural approaches with a focus on improving your overall health and internal terrain are the best treatment - and the best treatment is prevention.
Dr. Cassell is a recent past president of the American Society for Microbiology, a member of the National Institutes of Health Director’s Advisory Committee, and a member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of NIH. She was named to the original Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, CDC, and is the immediate past chair of the board.
She obviously new Fauci and visa versa!
So Fauci knows the truth too!
Here are the highlights of her paper.
Abstract:
Powerful diagnostic technology, plus the realization that organisms of otherwise unimpressive virulence can produce slowly progressive chronic disease with a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations and disease outcomes, has resulted in the discovery of new infectious agents and new concepts of infectious diseases.
The demonstration that the final outcome of infection is determined by the genetic background of the patient and by the genetic makeup of the infecting agent indicates that a number of chronic diseases of unknown etiology are caused by one or more infectious agents.
One well-known example is the discovery that stomach ulcers are due to Helicobacter pylori.
Mycoplasmas may cause chronic lung disease in newborns and chronic asthma in adults, and Chlamydia pneumoniae, a recently identified common cause of acute respiratory infection, has been associated with atherosclerosis.
Several infectious agents that cause or contribute to neoplastic diseases in humans have been documented in the past 6 years.
The association and causal role of infectious agents in chronic inflammatory diseases and cancer have major implications for public health, treatment, and prevention.
This paper was published in 1998 and has an impressive list of corroborating references.
A previous blog titled "Interesting Studies on Stealth Pathogens."
Since I am doing a series of videos on stealth chronic infections, I'm providing a couple of resources supporting these discussions.
This one, by Dr. McCully of Harvard, is the most comprehensive, thoughtful, and compelling of all the articles I have read. I will do a deep dive into this in future blogs.
Do not worry that the source is "not secure." It is from a very trustworthy journal source.
2. The Samaritans summarized Charles Mayo's work on focal infections. This one is an easy read.
3. Dr. Lee Cowden of the Academy of Comprehensive Integrative Medicine recommended Cryptolepsis and Artemisia to treat various stealth infections.
Here is a link to Artemisia.
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Previous blog on pathogens and atherosclerosis
Summary:
It is currently unclear what causes the chronic inflammation within atherosclerotic plaques (at least to ignorant doctors).
One emerging paradigm suggests that infection with bacteria and/or viruses can contribute to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis either via direct infection of vascular cells or via the indirect effects of cytokines or acute phase proteins induced by infection at non-vascular sites (I believe this is much less significant).
This paradigm has been supported by multiple epidemiological studies that have established positive associations between the risk of cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality and markers of infection.
It has also been supported by experimental studies showing an acceleration of the development of atherosclerosis following infection of hyperlipidaemic animal models.
There are now a large number of different infectious agents that have been linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. These include (in order of priority):
Chlamydia pneumoniae,
Porphyromonas gingivalis,
Helicobacter pylori,
influenza A virus,
hepatitis C virus,
cytomegalovirus, and
human immunodeficiency virus.
Not listed here are spirochetes from a tick bite or periodontal disease, rickettsial infections (Rocky Mountain spotted fever), and toxoplasma gondii.
However, there are significant differences in the strength of the data supporting their association with cardiovascular disease pathogenesis.
In some cases, the infectious agents are found within the plaques, and viable organisms can be isolated, suggesting a direct effect.
and
Electron and immunoelectron-microscopic studies of tissues from affected AD brain regions identified chlamydial elementary and reticulate bodies, but similar examinations of nonAD brains were negative for the bacterium.
Culture studies of a subset of affected AD brain tissues for C. pneumoniae were strongly positive, while identically performed analyses of non-AD brain tissues were negative. Reverse transcription (RT)-PCR assays using RNA from affected AD brain areas confirmed transcripts from two important C. pneumoniae genes were present in those samples but not in controls.
Immunohistochemical examination of AD brains, but not those of controls, identified C. pneumoniae within pericytes, microglia, and astroglia. Further immunolabelling studies confirmed the organisms’ intracellular presence primarily in areas of neuropathology in the AD brain.
Thus, C. pneumoniae is present, viable, and transcriptionally active in areas of neuropathology in the AD brain, possibly suggesting that infection with the organism is a risk factor for late-onset AD.
Here is a link to Dr. Balin's talk on our blog and rumble channel.
Recent observations showed that bacteria, including spirochetes, contain amyloidogenic proteins. Abeta deposition and tau phosphorylation can also be induced in or in vivo following exposure to bacteria or LPS. Bacteria or their poorly degradable debris are powerful inflammatory cytokine inducers, activate complement, affect vascular permeability, generate nitric oxide and free radicals, induce apoptosis and are amyloidogenic. All these processes are involved in the pathogenesis of AD.
Back to the main article summary....
In other cases, the association is entirely based on biomarkers. In the following review, we evaluate the strength of the data for individual or groups of pathogens with regard to atherosclerosis pathogenesis and their potential contribution by direct or indirect mechanisms and discuss whether the established associations are supportive of the infectious disease paradigm.
We also discuss the failure of antibiotic trials and the question of persistent infection.
Lewis: This is a very important concept. You cannot treat "chronic" using "acute" protocols!
Several factors must be considered critically in interpreting the failed trials that suggest infection's role should not be dismissed.
First, the difficulty in treating chronic chlamydial infections is well-documented for both C. trachomatis and C. psittaci (175, 176, 185). These difficulties are due to the developmental cycle of Chlamydia in which the infectious but metabolically inactive form (the elementary body) is not susceptible to antibiotics, and the intracellular replicating form (the reticulate body) can establish persistence. In the persistent state, the developmental cycle is arrested, and the organisms are not susceptible to antibiotics.
Moreover, various antibiotics can induce chlamydial persistence in cell culture (185). In a continuous cell culture model of C. pneumoniae infection, in which aberrant forms characteristic of persistence have been described, prolonged treatment with azithromycin, clarithromycin, or levofloxacin failed to eliminate infection (186).
Lewis comment: with azithromycin, clarithromycin, or levofloxacin - NOTE THE WORD "OR," NOT "AND." Robust studies show that antibiotic combinations, along with risk mitigations, do lower C. pneumoniae.
Unfortunately, there is no clearly defined diagnostic marker of persistent infection.
Lewis comment: Yes, there is a diagnostic marker - or markers: IgG antibody titers for the organism(s) and evaluation of the white blood cell counts with emphasis on neutrophils % and the NLR.
Another key concept within this article:
Evaluations of atherosclerotic plaques from HIV-infected individuals at autopsy revealed extensive lipid deposition and calcification (158),
Lewis: HIV is highly studied. The medical literature supports the same process with these other infectious species. What is that process?
Calcification (hardening) of the vessels occurs because the organisms use (and poop!) calcium.
Lipids are highly concentrated to repair damaged tissue. That is why I have written several blogs on phospholipids. These form the cell membrane structure. With these infections come damaged and destroyed cells that must be rebuilt - thus, the lipids in the area. And the actual cholesterol molecule is the most important repair molecule.
Subcutaneous immunization with Hp-HSP60 or antibiotic treatments significantly reduced atherosclerosis (79).
New Findings: We are seeing a reduction in some of these stealth pathogens with a combination of the Brownstein Protocol and Mega IGG 2000.
AND
I recommend everyone consider taking mega igg 2000 based on these initial results.
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