The Science Behind Immune-Boosting Folk Medicine – Part 2 of 2
This article is continued from part one, which covered the first four of these eight methods for building a resilient immune system that can fight off viral, fungal, and bacterial pathogens.
Elderberries
Pesticide-less food and clean mineral water
Echinacea, garlic, ginger, oregano, wormwood, and peppermint
Fresh raw milk, kefir, and yogurt
Herbal detoxification
Household pest deterrence
Hemp cannabis
GcMAF: vitamin D binding protein
5. Herbal Detoxification
While working as an engineering manager, I experienced a workplace chemical exposure to the plastic recycling byproducts known as dioxins and furans, which belong to the Stockholm Convention’s Dirty Dozen pollutant list because of their persistence in the environment and human tissues as well as their notable toxicity. These toxins loosely resemble synthetic pesticides in the American food supply, so my coworkers and I weren’t the only ones being exposed to contaminants.
Since I could hardly swallow anything except fried chicken tenders, I met several digestive doctors in Georgia who seemed upset that I was a skinny person complaining about my digestion. To them, I could only be ill if I was fat. I will let you in on a secret: for most skinny people, it’s not a life choice to be underweight. The biggest mistake I made was eating unhealthy foods with the hope that it would allow me to gain some weight. Don’t do that! And if you’re fat, eating minimal amounts of calories and over-exercising are not the solution. Everything fits together in the human body. You can’t clear up skin problems without improving digestion, and you can’t control your metabolism sustainably if you don’t strengthen your immune system.
When I got to Stanford, I was bounced around like a pinball between several doctors. I started at the student health clinic, met with a general practitioner or two, traveled all the way to San Francisco to meet a couple of occupational health doctors, went to the cancer clinic for countless diagnostics, and never made much progress in the giant web of organized healthcare confusion.
There were many mornings where I struggled to get to class on time at Stanford. I was panting and out of breath by the time I got to the business school, which was less than half a mile away. At the time it felt like a marathon. For several years, meals were painful and hard to keep down. It took me hours to do the dishes because of the pain of bending over the sink. I had the health of a 90-year-old grandpa at age 24.
After many nights of my arms going limp and losing circulation, I got a wake-up call one night when the Grim Reaper came to give me a big hug. It was a tight hug I didn’t want, and I could hardly breathe. All of a sudden, I woke up from my dream in the night and sat up to catch my breath. The next morning, I knew I needed to slow down on the doctor’s appointments and start seeking answers by studying the root causes of my physiological problems.
The last straw with the doctors was when they referred me to the pain management clinic. In case you haven’t heard, that’s where unsuspecting patients are given potent opiates until they eventually get killed by the drugs. I decided it was time to opt out of the conventional healthcare system. Too many people, young and old, have died from institutional complacency and perverse incentive systems.
In my years of trials, I’ve tested a large number of herbal supplements and protocols for full-body detoxification. I’ve tried lemon juice with water for several weeks and drank melted butter and ghee for several days, ultimately working my way up to a whole stick of butter in one sitting. The ghee butter cleanse is done for a week, followed by resting and repeating. It isn’t intended to be part of a long-term keto diet, which has serious shortfalls of its own. The Ayurvedic oleation cleanse has been scientifically tested to be effective at pulling a significant amount of fat-soluble PCB toxins and pesticide residues out of the bloodstream when done for short spurts [4].
Food-grade activated carbon and saltwater cleansing seem interesting, but I never tried them. Have you? Let me know what you think about them.
My best low-effort detoxification seems to come from burdock root for lymphatic cleansing, milk thistle and dandelion root for liver detox, triphala to clean out the gut walls, cilantro to purge heavy metals, and sarsaparilla to purify blood for about a week at a time all together [5]. Vitamin D from sunlight and nutritional sources is also important for immune strength. For someone with major inflammation, which is common at the beginning of a major healthstyle shift, the digestive system can be healed gradually with the help of moderate amounts of ingested aloe vera, licorice root, marshmallow root, and mushrooms – specifically reishi mushrooms and others, not the psychedelic kind.
6. Household pest deterrence
Pests are not a fun topic, but trust me that you’ll want to read to the end to get to GcMAF and the endocannabinoid system. Skip to #7 if you don’t have pest concerns.
Pestilent insects can be a real problem at home, especially with a pet dog. Fleas can carry disease, they suck away precious blood, they cause serious itching and sleep deprivation, and they’re generally just terrible. But pesticides are still worse in my book.
When I lived in the desert, ants were the only insects I had to worry about for a while, then a friendly dog showed up, and I moved back to the humid climate of the Southeast, where the region seems to have become a breeding ground for fleas during the wet months, which now last for about the whole year.
Conventional oral medications and topical ointments for dogs are an option, but they’re losing effectiveness as fleas gain resistance. Bravecto only worked for a week or two, and the others have toxicity issues as evidenced by bans throughout Europe, so I considered several flea-defying widgets and methods as viable alternatives.
Ultrasonic plug-in repellers might stop indoor reproduction but they don’t kill adults.
Sticky light traps collect a large number of fleas but never seem to get them all.
Herbal spray is good for temporary relief but requires frequent re-application. I’ve tried many types of repellents with my dog, including cedar and rosemary.
Herbal internal powder with alfalfa, garlic, spirulina, kelp, papaya, neem, nettles and hawthorne makes a pet’s blood meal less attractive to biting insects.
Diatomaceous earth powder dries out a dog’s fur coat to create conditions the fleas don’t like, but this also requires regular re-application.
Dehumidifiers can lower the humidity to a point where flea eggs won’t hatch, but dehumidifiers are energy-intensive and usually only work for one room each, and they don’t do anything about the fleas breeding outside.
Flea shampoos work for a few hours after the bath. Combs only catch the adult fleas that happen to be where you’re combing.
Flea-parasitizing nematodes don’t seem practical over the long term.
Fleabane plants growing in a living space require sunlight or grow lights.
I just discovered the “thieves oil” blend that can be used in an essential oil diffuser for an aroma-based deterrence approach or as a spray. It could have potential. One recipe contains essential oils from clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus, and rosemary at a ratio of 40:35:20:15:10 drops [6]. Apparently dust pits and ponds are used by animals in the wild to deal with fleas, but there has got to be something better in the 21st century.
7. Hemp cannabis
Edible cannabis healed a viral skin condition on my hand that was there since middle school, and that’s just what I could see on the outside. Medical studies, written history, and first-hand accounts of cannabis benefits are overwhelmingly convincing, especially with respect to treating autoimmune issues, inflammation, and cancer, which is typically the result of a weakened immune system.
Unfortunately, many of the CBD supplements sold by large national suppliers are refined to the point where many beneficial cannabinoids are removed. It is well known in the industry that these diverse cannabinoids work together to create synergistic healing effects by acting on the body’s natural endocannabinoid system.
Researchers from Italy and the U.S. made quite a splash a few years ago when they successfully treated autistic patients with GcMAF, a protein that activates macrophages in the immune system. Once activated, macrophages clean up rogue cancer cells, pathogens, and other inflamed cells in the body. The scientists described that “the endocannabinoid system is a key regulator of the immune system via the cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2R) which is highly expressed on macrophages and microglial cells” [7]. Dr. Jeffrey Bradstreet was murdered in North Carolina after his team’s work was publicized in 2015. Like GcMAF, CBD also binds to CB2 receptors to play a role in activating and stabilizing the immune system.
Earlier in 2005, Japanese researchers noted that “the presence of cannabinoid receptors on cells of the immune system and anecdotal and historical evidence suggesting that cannabis use has potent immuno-modulatory effects, has led to research directed at understanding the function and role of these receptors within the context of immunological cellular function. Studies from chronic cannabis smokers have provided much of the evidence for immunomodulatory effects of cannabis in humans.” These authors found positive effects of cannabis on multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and allergic asthma [8].
Going back to 2002, Italian researchers reviewed “the role of the endogenous cannabinoid system in the modulation of immune response and control of cancer cell proliferation” with significant insights into how endocannabinoid receptors such as CB2 could interact with cannabis to improve cancer outcomes [9].
8. GcMAF: Vitamin D Binding Protein
The mode of action of GcMAF and cannabis are closely related, and they’re both world champion heavy hitters when it comes to immune support.
Immuno Biotech partnered with researchers at the University of Firenze in Italy in 2015 to study the impact of GcMAF on myeloma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancers. It was important that the GcMAF, or vitamin D binding protein, was glycosylated with N-Acetylgalactosamine (forming GalNac-DBP) and loosely bound to oleic acid to ensure full activity. Without glycosylation, the protein could be deactivated by nagalase, an inhibitory enzyme found at elevated levels in many patients who have cancer or other immune deficiencies.
The researchers found that “GalNAc-DBP complexed with oleic acid has a double effect on myeloma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer cells: a direct inhibition of their proliferation and viability and, at the same time, an efficient macrophage activation leading to a significant depletion of cancer cell population” [10]. British regulators subsequently shut down Immuno Biotech and arrested its executives.
A company in Japan has been using GcMAF successfully in a clinical setting since 2012 and earlier, when they released a paper in Nature describing their success with HIV and cancer patients [11]. I really hope that other companies will be able to follow suit without fear of regulatory overreach.
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Source Citations
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Herron RE, Fagan JB. 2002. Lipophil-Mediated Reduction of Toxicants in Humans: An Evaluation of An Ayurvedic Detoxification Procedure. Alternative Therapies. https://yourayurvedaconsultant.com/2017/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/herrons-pk-detox.pdf
Link R. 2019. 12 Cilantro Benefits, Nutrition and Recipes. Dr. Axe. https://draxe.com/nutrition/cilantro-benefits/
Jonasson A. 2015. How to Make Thieves Oil and Why You Should Be Using it Daily. Healthy Holistic Living. https://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/how-to-make-thieves-oil/?t=MAM&fbclid=IwAR2dWjr3iap8zZZXqFxIUo941Dmb2MX6ml7XRCDy8rx1SLEzRqqkwlBADrk
Siniscalco D, Bradstreet J, Cirillo A, Antonucci N. 2014. The in vitro GcMAF effects on endocannabinoid system transcriptionomics, receptor formation, and cell activity of autism-derived macrophages. Journal of neuroinflammation. https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-2094-11-78
Croxford JL, Yamamura T. 2005. Cannabinoids and the immune system: potential for the treatment of inflammatory diseases? Journal of neuroimmunology. https://greenwaytherapeutix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2005-Croxford-Journal-of-Neuroimmunology-Cannabinoids-and-the-immune-system-Potential-for-the-treatment-of-inflammatory-diseases.pdf
Parolaro D, Massi P, Rubino T, Monti E. 2002. Endocannabinoids in the immune system and cancer. Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids (PLEFA). https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f808/cb0e3b8deafae076130e78cb251752345573.pdf
Branca JJ, Smith RJ, Ward E, Ruggiero M. 2015. Effect of glycosylated vitamin D binding protein complexed with oleic acid on human myeloma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma cultures. Integrative Cancer Science and Therapeutics. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8a3a/2ef2beabf1c9285205622f91555e9055396f.pdf
Uto Y, Hori H, Kubo K, Ichihashi M, Sakamoto N, Mette M, Inui T, Center T. 2012. GcMAF: our next-generation immunotherapy. Nature. https://saisei-pharma.co.jp/nhp/imgs/Nature-Outlook-Article.pdf