Food or Doctor-Prescribed Antibiotic?

Why does someone need to take antibiotics?  Because of bacterial infections.  A bacterial infection is when a bacterial pathogen invades your body.  Just how dangerous are bacteria?  Wikipedia states that the vast majority of bacteria are, get this, harmless or beneficial.  "Although the vast majority of bacteria are harmless or beneficial, quite a few bacteria are pathogenic."  If that is the case, why then are people desperate to receive or request or demand the right antibiotics from their doctors?  Are doctors' diagnoses biased toward bacterial causes or do the pharmaceutical companies have excellent marketing campaigns?  The common bacterial infections that receive a lot of air time and media fear-mongering are, according to Life Extension's Protocol on bacteria, ". . . pneumonia, ear infections, diarrhea, urinary tract infections, and skin disorders."   These seem pretty manageable, to me, with a good diet.  Some would contradict, "No.  Pneumonia is deadly.  Diet can't address pneumonia."  I have had limited experience with doctor-prescribed antibiotics.  I think I tried them twice--both times for a bronchitis.  "You have a bacterial infection," the doctors would explain.  They didn't work, the antibiotics I mean.  They didn't do anything, anything positive that I could perceptibly detect.  In fact, when I reported back to my doctor that I had finished the regime of antibiotics but that they did nothing to relieve my bronchitis, he wanted to up the dose, like upping the ante in a poker hand.  He had nothing to lose.  He was in control of the drugs, their financial benefits, and I was the human guinea pig who believed that doctors had some magic in their bag of tricks.  Maybe.  But it was a crap shoot.  Since then I never took any prescribed drugs, ever.  Nor will I.  Antibiotics require a regimen of two or three weeks or longer.  Are there natural alternatives to pharmaceutical antibiotics?  I thought you'd never ask.  

Consuming a clove of garlic for three sequential days would produce better results.  And by better I don't just mean that the infection or bacterial agent would be removed and cleaned up; what I mean is that function, strength, and energy are increased while a host of other structures are toned by the beneficial side-effects of the garlic.  Pharmaceutical antibiotics are dangerously powerful; or worse, they could be an empty but costly and time-consuming placebo. Garlic is nature's best and most effective antibiotic.  

 

Need proof?  Here is Bill Sardi on the benefits of an amazing drug called GC (it stands for "Garlic Clove").  Part of the therapeutic benefits of garlic include its smell.  It's smell alone will ignite an immune-enhancing response, the way that a strong coffee brewing in the morning alerts your senses.  This is important to remember when choosing foods: smell and color are a key register of anti-oxidant potency.  For some, it is precisely the smell that turns them away from garlic; thankfully, you can obtain it in capsule form, but you'll be cutting out all of the fun of peeling, cutting, and cooking garlic.

From Mike Adams' Natural News, he had this to say about garlic.  Turns out that garlic is better than I had thought:

Garlic has been used worldwide for thousands of years for medicinal purposes. This wonder plant treats everything from a simple earache to pneumonia, MRSA, Helicobacter pylori, the flu and even the black plague. Contemporary research has confirmed that garlic possesses numerous antioxidants that kill bacteria and free radicals in the blood protecting the immune system and making it stronger (that's my emphasis: that feature of garlic impressed me). Garlic's active ingredient allicin can also attack and destroy a variety of viruses--unlike modern antibiotics--as well as fungal infections such as candida. Taking garlic supplements as a prophylactic may help to protect against various pathogens and prevent the onset of disease.

UPDATE:  I was reading tonight how garlic and onions are excellent to leech mercury out of your system as a tonic to prevent mercury poisoning.

Garlic is excellent for managing blood pressure.  But consuming it in a particular way maximizing the effects of garlic 3 to 4 times better than if you eat bulb whole.  If you're taking garlic to remedy a specific ailment, like hyper-tension or bacteria overload, the best way to take it is by smashing a raw bulb so that the bulb is broken.  Apparently, the enzymes need to broken and activated in order for the garlic to really work.  You cannot rely on your digestive tract to break it open efficiently enough.  But once a cracked clove is in your digestive system, your body absorbs the garlic nicely, relaxing your blood pressure, relaxing your muscles, and devouring bacteria.  For these two functions--blood pressure and an antibacterial medicine--you would be hard pressed to find a better, most-effective food remedy.  I place the smashed, not mashed, garlic in my mouth and take an olive oil chaser to sooth the burn.  The combination has a terrific effect.  To good health!!

If you want a powerful alternative to garlic, another good antibiotic is colloidal silver.  Colloidal silver is water ionized with silver.  Now how does silver purge harmful bacteria from your cells?  Ben Taylor explains that "it disables a certain enzyme that is responsible for the oxygen metabolism of the pathogen cells, such as viruses, fungi or bacteria. As a result of the lack of oxygen, the virus or bacteria cells die in a short while. During this procedure, the healthy cells of the body remain untouched and unaffected, since the colloidal silver activates only on the oxygen enzyme of the pathogen cells."

GARLIC: improves immune profile as prophylactic and is a potent antimicrobial with better antiparasitic results [than] Ivermectin.

#Garlic
"Studies on garlic. Garlic alleviates lymphocyte depletion in covid/vax, improves immune profile as prophylactic and is a potent antimicrobial with better antiparasitic results compared to ivermectin.

Garlic supplementation causes significant increases in CD4 + and CD8"

— Jennifer Depew, RD (@deNutrients) November 7, 2021

FYI, garlic is the #1 anti-cancer food.  Oh, there are other anti-cancer compounds, like IP6 and Beta Glucans, for example, the latter Bill Sardi describes as an "immune activator."  [After reading the literature, Sardi points out that there are better brands of beta-glucans.  Scroll down to the heading, "The New Discovery" and "Underutilized Medical Technology."  The brand that stands far ahead of the rest in producing immune cells is the unique brand, Wellmune.]  

Be sure to look for the term, Wellmune.       

But if you're not a pill-taking fan and still want anti-cancer compounds in food form, garlic is the go-to choice.  Hands down.  It even beats broccoli.  So reach for a clove or six of raw garlic.  I take both--garlic capsules and raw garlic cloves on a daily basis.  The garlic capsules help maintain a healthy gut, and the raw garlic cloves work wonders on my nerves, my legs, and my sleep.  Yeah, sleep.  Raw garlic improves my sleep.

It's not always easy to simply add garlic to any food dish because not all dishes are palatable with garlic.  This is why I eat raw garlic in the morning and in the evening before bed.  To make it an anti-cancer compound instead of just a garnish in cooked meals, you need to take this every day.  If you cook potatoes, add some chopped garlic.  If you cook broccoli, add some chopped garlic and fry it in olive oil.  If you cook pasta, definitely add some chopped garlic fried in butter.   

Oh, yeah, as to the CD4+ and CD8 cells.  CD4+ cells are immune cells, referred to as "Helper cells," because they don't attack a pathogen directly but rather trigger the immune system to launch its Army and Navy.  CD8 Cells, now, those are the bad boys that directly attack and kill pathogens, which is why the CD8 immune cells are called "Killer Cells."  Go get 'em, Killer.  

How Amazing Is Garlic?  Let Me Count the Ways

Garlic Versus the Developed World's #1 and #2 Killers

The research on Greenmedinfo.com shows garlic has value in 167 health conditions or disease symptoms, but the greatest density of research indicates garlic's role in preventing and/or treating Cardiovascular Disease and Cancers, the two primary causes of death within high-income countries.[27]   

This is an interesting finding. The drug industry has been fantasizing about a so-called 'polypill' for quite some time, an idea involving mixing various patented medicines together for a condition like heart disease (e.g. blood pressure, cholesterol, blood thinner), but to no avail. Patented chemicals have far too many side effects, so when you mix them together, you only compound their multitudinous chemical toxicities. Natural substances, on the other hand, and especially those which play a role in culinary traditions as "spices," appear to have the opposite karma. Namely, they have far more 'side benefits' than 'side effects.'

Garlic's cardioprotective effects include:

1.   Retards progression of arterial plaque[28] [29] [30]

2.   Beneficially decreases white adipose tissue, increases white adipose tissue around heart muscle.[31]

3.   Protects against clotting[32] [33]

4.   Positively modulates blood lipids[34],[35],[36]

5.   Vasodilator[37]

6.   Reduces blood pressure[38]

7.   Antioxidant[39]

8.   Endothelial Dysfunction[40] [41]

9.   Vascular Inflammation[42]

Here is a quick review of the cancers that garlic has been found to kill:

1.   Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia[43]

2.   Acute Myeloid Leukemia[44]

3.   Basal Cell Carcinoma[45]

4.   Breast Cancer[46],[47]

5.   Cervical Cancer[48]

6.   Colon Cancer[49]

7.   Endometrial Cancer[50] [51]

8.   Gastric Cancer[52] [53]

9.   Leukemia: Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)[54]

10.     Liver Cancer[55] [56] [57]  [58]

11.     Lymphoma[59] [60]

12.     Melanoma[61

13.     Osteosarcoma[62]

14.     Pancreatic Cancer[63]

Garlic, like so many other complex foods, contains a wide range of phytocompounds that articulate at least 150 distinct physiological responses in the mammalian body (see our 157 pharmacological actions list on the Garlic Research page).

How can this be so?

One explanation is that all foods contain not only physical building blocks, e.g. carbs, proteins, lipids, and are not only a source of energy (caloric content), but contain gene and epigene regulatory information. There are 'packets' of energy and information contained within the conformational state of the biomolecules found within these plant tissues. Our co-evolution with the plant kingdom for the past half a billion years has resulted in the very genetic/molecular fabric of our body depending on certain key compounds from plants in our diet, delivered in natural form, not irradiated, overly-cooked, petrochemically-farmed. Garlic's ability to fit like a key, into many different types of locks (an impossible feat for monochemical 'magic bullets'), reflects an likely infinitely complex intelligence in the relationship between plant and animal species. Which speaks to how important foods are not simply as 'medicine,' but that from which our bodily health grows organically, and without which disease is a natural consequence.

WHAT TO EAT IF YOU HAVE CANCER
A friend asked me the other day what she should take if she had cancer.  And I told her that I would start eating raw fresh fruits and vegetables.  Raw broccoli.  Raw collard greens.  Raw kale.  I would combine these foods with others to make them taste good, like wrapping a collard green leaf around a carrot and eat the two.  The carrot gives the snack or the food some sweetness to make the collard bearable if she does not like the taste of raw vegetables.

Fasting is another good approach.  Intermittent fasting works to build energy and reduces your profile to oxidation from eating 3 or 2 meals a day.

Garlic is a must.  A daily must.  Particularly if you're suffering from hypertension brought on by stress.  Garlic will reduce your blood pressure, and your hypertension will be relieved.  Wished I'd known about its ability to do this decades ago.  Just read an article by Dr. Mercola that states garlic ". . . boosts your body’s natural abilities to protect you from hypertension and osteoporosis, and research is mounting that it decreases your risk for various forms of cancer. It is a potent antimicrobial as well, working as a natural antibiotic, anti-fungal, antiviral, and anti-parasitic agent. Garlic must be fresh to give you optimal health benefits, though. The fresh clove must be crushed or chopped in order to stimulate the release of an enzyme called alliinase, which in turn catalyzes the formation of allicin."  He adds that "The active ingredient, allicin, is destroyed within one hour of smashing the garlic, so garlic pills are virtually worthless."  Plus, raw, fresh garlic is cheaper than garlic pills.  If you're worried about the smell, then just add the garlic to other foods, maybe drop a few crushed cloves into a green juice with apples.

For heart energy, I follow the recommendations laid out by Dr. Donald W. Miller to take coconut oil each day for heart energy.  I take 2 tablespoons each morning, and my heart does get pumped.  It's a good fat.  It's good energy, and it has a host of other benefits besides heart benefits.

1.  Helps reduce seizures.

2.  Reduces hunger.

3.  Lauric acid and monolaurin can kill harmful pathogens like bacteria, viruses and fungi.

4.  Help you burn fat.

5.  Great for brain function.

6.  Great for the heart.  Lowers your risk for heart disease.  And other benefits. 

For bowel health, perhaps the most important health in your system because of its size and extensive functions, I eat plain, whole milk yogurt.  I do not know how anyone can eat non-fat dairy or drink non-fat milk.  The milk is tasteless.  Kefir that is often made from non-fat milk and then sweetened tastes good because of the sweeteners, which is often done with juice.  Otherwise, I would avoid non-fat milk.  It tastes bad.  Plus, I'd read once that non-fat milk products are the refuse of milk processing.  My favorite yogurt is Nancy's Organic Whole Milk Yogurt.  I eat it with a diced Granny Smith Apple sprinkled generously with tumeric powder.

There are other foods that would help with cancer.

Man beats incurable Glioblastoma (brain cancer) w/only Raw Fresh Garlic as his main therapy

In a word, raw garlic. Okay, that's two words.

Man beats incurable Glioblastoma (brain cancer) w/only Raw Fresh Garlic as his main therapy. Given 1 year to live; still alive & well 10 years later. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/qRPSZcRdyn

— Natural Immunity FTW (@NaturallyFTW) December 23, 2022

He actually did get rid of it initially w/ONLY raw garlic. 😯 Then he switched to garlic capsules instead of raw for 3 months & the tumor came back! So that's when he went back to raw garlic + also added in those other things. 👌

— Natural Immunity FTW (@NaturallyFTW) December 23, 2022

Here is the study on garlic.   

Garlic study "COMPLETELY CURED ALL MICE OF CANCER" : https://t.co/8CbCA4Paeq

— Natural Immunity FTW (@NaturallyFTW) December 23, 2022

FUNGI

1.  Candida is the most common fungus in man. 

Common Candida symptoms

The overuse of antibiotics can also be a contributing factor as it gives the normally harmless strains of Candida that live inside the gut and on the skin the opportunity to grow out of control and invade deep into body tissues.

EXAMPLES OF WHAT FUNGUS LOOK LIKE

Common Candida symptoms are:

Scalp (dandruff)

Athlete's Foot

Nails (toenail or fingernail fungus)

Fingernail Fungus

Recurring sinus infections

 Thrush (Oral)

Recurrent urinary tract or itchy genital infections

Bloating and even serious digestive issues such as Crohns’ disease and ulcerative colitis

Arthritis (yeast invades the joints)

ANTIFUNGALS

All raw honey possesses antifungal properties. However, if you are looking for the strongest variety, try Manuka!

GARLIC

Garlic possesses very strong anti-yeast properties. But, don’t use that semi-dried-out head in the back of the spice drawer.

It is very important to use the freshest cloves possible when using garlic as an antifungal.

Once crushed and left on the counter for about 15 minutes, the powerful substance allicin is synthesized which is one of the most potent Candida killers Mother Nature has to offer.

Use orally several times a day as a natural antifungal or apply allicin-infused oil to the skin for external benefits.

ANTIFUNGAL PILLS

Alternatively, allicin-activated garlic pills are helpful for those who are otherwise sensitive to garlic in whole-food form.

Buffered garlic in supplement form also works well for preventing the digestive distress that can sometimes accompany taking large doses of garlic.

Allicin supplements can also be used to make your own anti-dandruff shampoo.

VIRGIN COCONUT OIL

Coconut oil is about 42% lauric acid, which is an extremely potent antifungal fatty acid.

Have a Cold? How to Feel Better

Mark Sisson has penned what I would deem an excellent guide for treating the common cold.

No one likes a cold, and various colds of one origin or another are going around this winter season. One of the worst parts of the common cold is that it’s unpleasant enough to make daily life annoying but mild enough to force you to still go out into the world and maintain a normal schedule.

But you don’t want to have to do that. You don’t want to get anyone else sick, and you want to feel better—fast. How do you do it? How can you speed up your clearance of a cold, whether through actually expelling the virus from your body, getting rid of the symptoms, or both?

Let’s talk about that.

How to Feel Better Quickly When You Have a Cold

These are the basic, research-backed things to do when you have a cold and want to get over it fast.

• Get enough selenium
• Get enough zinc
• Eat a bunch of garlic
• Drink raw golden milk
• Try nasal irrigation
• Try povidone-iodine gargling and nasal rinsing
• Drink bone broth
• Eat spicy food

Get Enough Selenium

Almost every upper respiratory tract infection I’ve ever studied has selenium deficiency as an enhancing variable. Most viruses, for example, sequester selenium and utilize it to replicate and to weaken the host, leaving them wide open for further, deeper infection. The common cold is likely no different.

Eat Brazil nuts (one to three per day) and oysters and wild salmon. It is possible to overdo selenium, so don’t go overboard with supplementation. Just eat selenium-rich foods while you’re experiencing symptoms.

Get Enough Zinc

Zinc is the most important mineral for immune function, especially regarding upper respiratory tract infections. Depending on the virus, zinc has been shown to inhibit replication, lower binding, and block various physiological processes many viruses use to attack and ingratiate themselves with the host (you). And this isn’t just theoretical or based on cell culture studies. The best evidence we have shows that zinc supplementation reduces the duration of common colds in adults.1

Eat Lots of Garlic

Garlic is a potent superfood lurking in plain sight. Garlic and its components can improve immune function, reduce the occurrence of common colds, and block viral entry into host cells.234 If I feel a cold coming on, I’ll crush and dice up an entire head of garlic and lightly simmer it in a big mug of bone broth. I find I am usually able to ward off whatever’s headed my way. Of course, that’s just an anecdote and the available evidence is more equivocal.5

Drink Raw Golden Milk

Ayurveda is the traditional Indian system of medicine. Although talk of chakras and levitating gurus lets rational skeptics dismiss it entirely, modern science has vindicated many Ayurvedic therapies, herbs, and concepts. Golden milk is one, and it’s really simple. Add turmeric and black pepper (plus other spices) to milk and it turns gold. In Ayurveda, golden milk is used to fight sore throats, colds, and flus. Does it work?

Well, turmeric is absolutely rife with potent pharmacological effects. It may be able to relieve cough and clear up excess mucus, at least according to animal studies.67

Milk might actually be a bigger aid. Research has shown that a combo of two milk components—whey protein and lactoferrin—is able to reduce the incidence of the common cold in people.8 That was a concentrated supplement, however. Your standard glass of milk doesn’t have nearly as much whey or lactoferrin. Raw milk may be a better option, as it contains more lactoferrin than pasteurized milk, and raw whey provides more glutathione-boosting effects than heat-treated whey. To preserve these benefits, you’ll have to drink your golden milk unheated, of course. Here’s how I’d make it:

Fill a blender bottle with turmeric, black pepper, raw milk, and extra whey protein. Add a sweetener if you prefer. Shake vigorously. Drink. Maybe chase it with a lactoferrin or colostrum (the “first milk” that’s highest in lactoferrin) supplement.

Try Nasal Irrigation

In Sanskrit, “neti” means “nasal cleansing.” The neti pot is a exactly what it sounds like. You fill a tiny kettle with warm saline water, tilt your head over a sink, and pour the water into one nostril. It flows out the other one, clearing your nasal cavity and letting you breathe again. The scientific term is “nasal irrigation,” and it really does work against the worst part of a bad cold: the stuffy nose that keeps you up at night, gives you dry mouth, and makes food taste bland.9

Also, it’s better than antibiotics in kids with rhinosinusitis.10 It even improves symptoms in infants with bronchiolitis, another kind of viral infection.11

Gargling and Nasal Irrigation with 1% Povidone-Iodine

Make a 1% solution of povidone-iodine (1.5 tablespoons 10% povidone-iodine/betadine into 250 mL nasal irrigation bottle and fill the rest up with sterile/distilled water) and gargle with that at the first hint of a sore throat and spray it into your nasal passages. Betadine is intensely virucidal when applied topically. One study even found that COVID patients who gargled with 1% betadine had quicker clearance of the virus and its associated symptoms.12 Since the common cold is often a coronavirus, it’s also probably susceptible to betadine.

Worth a try.

Bone broth/chicken soup

People call it “Jewish penicillin,” and they’re not lying: evidence has confirmed that chicken soup eases nasal congestion, improves the function of the nasal cilia protecting us from pathogen incursions, and reduces cold symptoms.

Does it have to be chicken? As most cultures include soup in their list of effective cold remedies, I suspect it’s the goodness of the broth that’s important and any true bone broth-based soup will work. Hell, in a pinch pure collagen peptides might even do the trick, though I’d opt for the real bone broth if you can.

Spicy Food

Some people, when ill, swear that spicy food helps them “sweat it out.” Maybe, but a better bet lies in its effect on our nasal cavities. Capsaicin, the chili pepper component that produces a burning sensation in mammalian tissue, reduces nasal inflammation. When your nasal blood vessels are inflamed, the walls constrict; the space gets tighter and you have trouble breathing. Studies indicate that capsaicin is effective against most symptoms of nasal congestion.13

My Cold Remedies

The foundation for my resistance and response to upper respiratory tract infections isn’t any specific food or supplement, of course. It’s everything. It’s my sleep, my stress, my training, my play. And yes, my food. As I said about my experience with COVID, I’d been training for it my entire life. But it does happen to the best of us, and it’s the worst. We shouldn’t accept being sick. I never do.

I’ve mentioned my common cold medicine: an entire head (yes, a head) of crushed garlic lightly simmered in a mug of bone broth spiked with cayenne, hot sauce, or fresh chilies. If I feel a cold coming on, I’ll drop whatever I’m doing and prepare it. This is a potent combination of three of the cold-busting ingredients with the most support in the literature (broth, garlic, and spicy food). Lately, I’ve been including black garlic, a delicious fermented variety that tastes like molasses and has increased pharmacological activity.

If I have a sore throat, heating up and drinking a blend of lemon juice (lime works too), water, and raw honey in a 4:4:1 ratio always makes me feel better. I tend to use a wild neem honey harvested in India. I’m not sure if the bees feeding on neem makes a difference, though the plant does possess antiviral and immunomodulatory effects. I’ve also heard great things about black seed honey, made from bees who feed on the black cumin seed flowers.

I also use these zinc acetate lozenges recommended by Chris Masterjohn. If you ever feel a sore throat coming on, suck on these and let them dissolve in your mouth. Each one takes about 30 minutes to dissolve, but it really does help.

How do you folks beat colds? What do you do?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

Garlic reduces (Covid) cov2 viral load by a very significant 70% post infection, in infected lung and kidney cell lines

 

Garlic reduces (Covid) cov2 viral load by a very significant 70% post infection, in infected lung and kidney cell lines. Garlic nebulized/steam inhalation is also suggested. Garlic has been in the Grouf covid protocol since 2020.  https://t.co/DSAiZNetYP pic.twitter.com/RcaDcABUZQ

— Dr. Abby, Ph.D. (@DrAbby83797237) June 27, 2022

Don't like raw garlic?  Try garlic capsules.