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A comment on Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big coronavirus epidemic.

Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by LinuxBender on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:00AM (#22484820)
It is interesting to me that people are so laser focused on test kits and vaccines. In my less than humble opinion, people should focus on improving their immune system. You can reduce the load on your immune system by not eating sugar and reducing carbs as much as you can. We also know from history and science that every plague that killed people from respiratory virus infections was due to a lack of vitamin D3 and over production of the ACE2 enzyme. The virus quickly binds to ACE2 and their adaptive immune systems did not have the time to start producing enough anti-bodies. I do not understand why the CDC is not suggesting that folks increase their D3 intake, cut out sugar and most importantly, take a break from smoking which is know to increase ACE2. There are alternate methods of nicotine sources available.

I mention this because a vaccine is only useful for known viral code. nCoV will have a family of hundreds of variants in no time. Boosting ones built in adaptive defenses will protect against all of the mutations.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by hprotagonist on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:18AM (#22485017)
Cite every sentence above, please, or cut out the idle speculation; it's foolish at best.

NPIs -- handwashing, avoiding close contact with people sneezing like mad, not touching your face -- are the only things that actually work right now that everyone can and should be doing.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by francisofascii on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @01:55PM (#22486662)
It has been widely reported that CORVID-19 affects the lungs, and that smoking may play a role in the severity of symptoms. Also there have been plenty of studies linking high sugar diets with reduced immune response.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by herf on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:29AM (#22485143)
Here are three negative results (all randomized controlled trials) for Vitamin D supplementation during the winter:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2019.0006...

failed to show any effect on wintertime supplementation of D (using pre-registered criteria)

http://www.vitaminedelft.org/files/art/ling2009.pdf "no benefit"

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/fo/c4fo0... "did not lower incidence of influenza"

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by belltaco on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:43AM (#22485288)
Here's a positive result.

https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583

"Vitamin D supplementation was safe and it protected against acute respiratory tract infection overall. Patients who were very vitamin D deficient and those not receiving bolus doses experienced the most benefit."

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by herf on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @12:19PM (#22485603)
Good one (odds ratio=0.88), and it's generally low-risk.
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Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by LinuxBender on Thursday March 12, 2020 @02:14PM (#22559871)
It would be no benefit to anyone that is not already deficient. [1]

[1] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6075634/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by BlargMcLarg on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:33AM (#22485195)
I'm curious how this is the conclusion you made instead of becoming more macro-organized. People are getting more and more stressed (see burn-outs rising), affecting our immune systems. Most of us are still encouraged to go into work when we have a cold. Many could work from home, but are actively or passively stigmatized when attempting to do so. For all its draconian measures, China is showing them to be effective for the time being. In the same way, we could've rid ourselves of many pests, plagues and illnesses ages ago which a simple "get your immune system up bro" couldn't deal with.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by AdmiralGinge on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:27AM (#22485113)
>most importantly, take a break from smoking which is know to increase ACE2

Not going to lie, I'm very very glad I quit smoking before this coronavirus business. I was down to just a vape by June last year and I quit that in December.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by bilekas on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:35AM (#22485219)
> people should focus on improving their immune system

Okay, but for those who cant, underlining conditions etc, what do you suggest ?

This is the world we live in, and that kind of build up you're talking about that would fight off all these strains of virus' would take generations of active measures.

In the meantime, I don't think it's a bad idea to develop vaccines and shots which will aid our immune system.

Our body uses the memory DNA (or memory cells - Not a doctor) after getting chicken-pox so that we (usually) don't get it again. But the COVID strains vary so much it's a little pie-in-the sky right now to imagine naturally fighting all of them.

Our best defense is our ability to maintain good hygiene in this generation. We know all about how these things spread, and that should be the primary focus for the every day to day person.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by LinuxBender on Thursday March 12, 2020 @02:22PM (#22559956)
Everyone will eventually get one of the mutations. [1] Maybe a vaccine will cover all of them some day. In the mean time, everyone, especially those with pre-exisiting conditions should be focusing on removing burdens from their immune system (sugar, carbs, anything that spikes insulin), getting a LOT of sleep, and ensuring they are not deficient in D3, Zinc, L-Glutamine, Magnesium, well, all the essential minerals, vitamins and enzymes. I have not had a vaccine since the 1990's and I have only noticeably had the flu twice (h1n1, h3n2) and even then it just made me gassy. I went home as a courtesy to my coworkers. I have not had a cold in 15 years.

[1] - https://nextstrain.org/ncov

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by LinuxBender on Thursday March 12, 2020 @02:13PM (#22559861)
Not sure why this is so taboo, I know there are molecular biologists on this site. Anyway, Zinc is the only thing that will slow the RNA transcoding process of the virus in your lungs, but getting enough zinc into cells is hard. You can use a prescription drug Chloroquine to improve the transport, but it has nasty side effects. Vitamin D3 isn't a vitamin at all. It is a precursor to the hormone 25 hydroxy. That is used by several hundred functions in your body, including your adaptive immune system, in conjunction with L-Glutamine to produce white blood cells and much more than I could cover on HN. The virus binds quite easily to ACE2, so you have to slow that down enough that your adaptive immune system can keep up. Smokers and obese people and eldery have the most ACE2 from lung inflammation.

Some things to watch or look at

CoV Map: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

CoV Rates: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Mutations: https://nextstrain.org/ncov

MedCram: https://www.youtube.com/user/MEDCRAMvideos/videos

The mutations are probably the most interesting. I would be curious what company is going to cover all of them in a vaccine.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by malkia on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:16AM (#22484996)
as someone on low-carb I find this interresting, but any studies behind it?
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Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by _jal on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @12:09PM (#22485511)
I'm sure if you check your spam folder or follow links from Twitter bots, you'll find some soon enough.
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Re:Get Real: no drug or vaccine will avoid a very big corona... by wbg34 on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @11:26AM (#22485105)
This was making the rounds a few days ago in my low carb FB group. I haven't looked into it too much, but it sounded intriguing.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191115190327.h...

[ Parent | on HN ]