Do Flu Vaccines Provide Real Protection?
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Each year the respective medical authorities in the western world recommend the influenza vaccine and who should receive it. Since 1999 the age groups have been expanded to include greater numbers of people. Whilst the UK has a more conservative approach to seasonal flu in terms of age, in the USA virtually the only groups not recommended to receive the vaccine are those aged between 19 and 40 without any ongoing health problem.
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Vit D Gains New Respect as Vital Health Nutrient
Vit D Balances the Innate Immune Response
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A new study has concluded that one key part of the immune system, the ability of vitamin D to regulate anti-bactericidal proteins, is so important that it has been conserved through almost 60 million years of evolution and is shared only by primates, including humans – but no other known animal species. The genetic material – called an Alu short interspersed element – is part of what used to be thought of as “junk DNA” and makes up more than 90 percent of the human genome.
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BioMask BF-200. Mimics Mucosal Cells Then Minerals Kill the H1N1 Virus
The influenza virus is a determined and relentless foe. Infecting about 1 billion people worldwide annually and killing hundreds of thousands. If influenza evolves into a pandemic strain, as it did three times last century, it could kill tens of millions.
Stripped to its genetic skeleton the virus that has wrought havoc on populations and caused untold misery is one of the simplest organisms on the planet. It consists of merely eight genes. Humans, on the other hand, have some 20,000 genes.
According to experts, in the first eight weeks of a flu pandemic, an effective mask could reduce the number of cases from one million to just 6. [1]
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Children and Anti-Virals. Are They Worth Combining?
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Comment: A paper out in the British Medical Journal on the 10th August 2009 [1] raises some interesting questions about the benefit of treating children under the age of 12 with neuraminidase inhibitors. This paper looked at 4 RCT’s involving 1766 children of whom 1243 had confirmed seasonal influenza A. Plus three RCT’s for the potential benefits of prophylaxis in 863 children.
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The Role of Vitamin C in the Treatment of the Common Cold
Dr Harri Hemila MD PhD co author of the Cochrane Review article replies [1]:
The Cochrane review was limited to placebo-controlled trials in which at least 0.2 g of vitamin C was used per day.[2] Most of these trials examined vitamin C administration as regular supplementation and provided strong evidence that vitamin C shortens the duration of colds and alleviates its symptoms.
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Natural Born Killers — How the Body’s Frontline Immune Cells Decide Which Cells to Destroy
Comment: Natural Killer (NK) cells – a type of white blood cell – are a major component of the human body’s innate immune system. Over 1,000 NK cells are found in every drop of blood. They provide a fast frontline defence against tumours, viruses and bacterial infections, by latching onto and killing cells in the human body that are cancerous or are infected with a virus or a bacterial pathogen.
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Mechanisms of Viral Defence, Infection and Recovery
A Virus is an ultramicroscopic infectious agent.
The H1N1 A 2009 (Swine Flu) is a novel strain of the influenza virus.
Viruses cannot reproduce on their own. To reproduce, a virus must bind to a living cell inside some organism, insert its genetic material into that “host” cell, and take over the cell’s reproductive “machinery.” The virus then makes copies of itself – maybe hundreds of thousands. Sooner or later, this kills the infected cell – causing the virus to leave the cell and cause illness. Once out of the host cell new viruses start the process over, attacking other cells until the immune system, and or medication controls their activity and replication. The H1N1 Influenza A virus once inside a cell can produce approximately 100,000 new virions in about 8 hours.
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Evidence Based Nutritional Strategies For Optimal Mucosal Health
The World Health Organisation declared the first flu pandemic in 41 years on 11 June. As details of the global impact of the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus — and efforts to combat the threat — continues to unfold, Nutri-Link Clinical Education provides evidence based nutritional strategies for optimising the mucosal barrier of prevention.
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Flu Pandemic Underway
Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), has officially declared the first global influenza pandemic in 41 years, for the A(H1N1) virus. “The world is now at the start of the 2009 pandemic,” she said. That makes it the fourth flu pandemic in a century, after 1918, 1957 and 1968. “The scientific criteria for a pandemic have been met,” she said; on 11 June the WHO moved to the topmost of its pandemic threat scale, phase 6, which indicates sustained community-level outbreaks in two or more countries in one other WHO region beyond initial community spread in one WHO region. “Further spread is considered inevitable,” she said.
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