With the onslaught by COVID and its coinciding onslaught of self-proclaimed experts with every opinion under the sun, I choose to respond with a series of research study reports so you can choose for yourself. Each edition will bring a few studies describing possible therapies for COVID under investigation or reported in past research. As my recent Facebook Live video noted, we do not know enough about this virus to be definite at this time. I am not claiming any of these are the preventive or curative answer for you or your family’s safety. I just want you to be aware of these studies and have knowledge so that you can grow in wisdom rather than stumble about in panic.
(See appendix paragraph for further thoughts on finding effective COVID therapies)
Often in research, rabbit trails present themselves and decisions must be made to either pursue them or save them for later. In this case, I want to share a quick rabbit trail since it only offers a handful of articles and it reminds me of my normal work in mold detox. Signpost statement: Curcumin may suppression cytokine storm in viral infections.
First, cytokine storm simply describes the overproduction of these immune system messengers, cytokines, which get whipped into a frenzy leading to organ failure. The excessive inflammation causes more damage than the infection does directly. Sepsis and shock and death follows.
Besides looking for therapies to kill viruses, researchers are searching for means of blocking this excessive inflammation. Several immune modulators are lined up for testing in COVID from a pharmaceutical standpoint. However, the simple natural therapy, curcumin, shows some promise for diminishing this cytokine storm. Sordillo and Helson suggest that curcumin’s ability to block the release of interleukin-1, interkeukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha might help in viral diseases associated with cytokine storm. They also suggest the possibility of IV curcumin being used in this cases.
Wen et al also considered curcumin and other natural substances ability to inhibit SARS coronavirus growth. Several including curcumin showed degrees of viral inhibition.
I could go further down the rabbit trail in listing how many different mechanisms curcumin works through in lowering inflammation, but I need to focus on other therapies. If you have some time on your hands now or later, search Pubmed for curcumin and anti-inflammatory or cytokines. This natural therapy helps many of our mold toxic patients and may be worth investigating in this or future coronavirus outbreaks. It helps many live healthier more abundant lives at our clinic.
References:
Sordillo, Peter P, and Lawrence Helson. “Curcumin suppression of cytokine release and cytokine storm. A potential therapy for patients with Ebola and other severe viral infections.” In vivo (Athens, Greece) vol. 29,1 (2015): 1-4.
Wen, Chih-Chun et al. “Specific plant terpenoids and lignoids possess potent antiviral activities against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus.” Journal of medicinal chemistry vol. 50,17 (2007): 4087-95. doi:10.1021/jm070295s
Appendix
One huge challenge in identifying effective therapies for COVID lies in the novelty of it all. Research requires time, something of which we have little in an emerging pandemic. We don’t have the luxury of studying 100 years of research or 10,000 past experiments. This battle requires a great deal of extrapolation. Extrapolation means that we take the little information we do have and attempt to use it in predicting what we don’t know. This process takes place every time an experiment proceeds in science, but the urgency in this case makes it more frustrating than usual. As we walk through a different possible therapy each post, keep this paragraph in mind.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.