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The Antioxidant System and Disease

The Human Antioxidant System

There are s tribe in Africa, known as the Baka, who range from the coastal forest of Gabon to Congo and Cameroon, who have immunity to the Ebola virus.

This the deadliest virus known to occur in the wild with up to a 90% death rate for the Zaire strain. But the Baka not only don't die of it, they don't even get sick despite being infected. There's no mistake, from the first outbreak in 1976 to the most recent survey of 1 in 10 people in Gabon looking for Ebola Zaire antibodies - and finding up to 33% of the Baka in Gabon have had the virus bit without even a stomach ache or the sniffles.

How can one group never get sick while another group in the same area loses 9 out of 10 people from the disease they're immune to?

From 1976 on researchers have looked at this and two factors had to coincide to find a viable treatment for Ebola, the fist ws the increased understanding from the HIV crisis and second the 2014 outbreak, by far the largest ever, caused a great deal of focus on what is otherwise a neglected disease.

There are two factors directly at play here, first is the optimization of the human antioxidant system and second is the ability of Selenium to act as a magic bullet against nearly all viral disease.

The antioxidant system is very poorly understood but is our first line of defense. With sufficient levels of certain substances few viruses have a chance. The only pathogens not prevented by this are ones that attack the immune system itself and viruses such as HIV and Ebola have this property. Selenium has been found to not only completely inhibit the Ebola virus but in addition all enveloped viruses at the very least although it's been shown to inhibit non-enveloped viruses and plague bacteria. In actual fact the correlation of areas of low selenium soil with increased disease is rather dramatic, as selenium distribution around the world is rather spotty.

In a nutshell the vitamins C and E plus the minerals Selenium and Magnesium work together in a set of ox/redox cycles to inhibit and repair damage to the cells in our body. When we run out, we get sick. When we have the correct amounts, we have an innate immunity to viruses from Adenovirus to the most highly pathogenic Zaire strain of Ebola - an extraordinary claim, which requires extraordinary proof, and that is the purpose of this note. Selenium and Ascorbate and other substanes play many may roles in the body and here we fosus soley on the primaty antioxidant ycle and the biochemistry of the virus initial attack on the ER ("cellular membrane") that encases every animal cell.

01 Introduction The Baka gain their immunity by their diet, they practice small amounts of farming but also gather foods and sometimes hunt. Thus the issue if fresh locally grown fruit and vegetables is easy for them to keep their bodily reserves of the most vital nutrients ar high levels. In addition it is a cultural practice to harvest nuts once a year to make a curry paste from that is eaten everyday; in fact the national dish of Gabon is a chicken nut curry. There is no food in the world with more selenium than the nuts that grow there, and it only takes the equivalence of a couple of nuts a day to gain this viral immunity. Of course any source of selenium will work, as long as the level of Selenium in the blood is high enough. 02 redox Iron rusts. Anybody with a car or a shovel is familiar with this which is oxidation of iron into iron oxide. That is iron plus oxygen makes iron oxide. That's what happens when iron oxidizes. When peaches oxidize they turn from yellow to brown. If you have ever frozen peaches that were perfect but notice they're brown when thawed then you just discovered the reason they sell ascorbate acid in the canning aisle - if you add this to the peached they will not turn brown when thawed. They do not oxidize in the presence of sufficient antioxidant. Fish at sea are dipped in ascorbate before being flash frozen. This is standard practice now as it preservers the color from oxidation which turns out to be vital for consumer acceptance. Thus oxidation is easy to understand and forms the basis of understanding of the human antioxidant system. 03 C Allan_Smith_NZ Norfolk 7500% increase in the rate of survival of septic shock in an ICU with IVC in 2018Previously, 50% - 70% death was normal. Now it's 1 in 150. L-Ascorbic acid is sometimes improperly called a "vitamin" and only acts as so in homeopathic amounts. However it is secreted by the adrendal gland. This oresents a difficulty as vitamins are not made in the body, they are chemicals we'd die without and have to eat them. However, ascorbate is secreted by the Adrenal Gland which by definition means it's a hormone and second, we were once able to make it, and in fact most animals and plants still can as it's a constant in all life. A small number of vertebrates (apes, guinea pigs, bats, one antelope) independantly underwent a mutation about twenty million years ago and one biochemical reaction was thus changed to makev fat instead of ascorbate. This has some implications to health. 04 E Buettner_1993 C and E recharge each other Niki_1987 C regenerates E, E regenerates C Smirnoff_2007 "ascorbate can directly regenerate tocopheryl radicals back to the reduced tocopherol form" This was why wheat germ was so good for you. If you're not allergic to wheat of course, which 34% of people are.

05 Se While trying to explain some very peculiar statistics with HIV selenium was pointed to and after the 2014 Ebola outbreak if was found to be the reason for the innate immunity so widespread now in Africa. 06 Mg This is easier to understand if you remember iron makes our blood red, magnesium makes plants green. We need the magnesium to make blood and after were done plants use us to make more plants. PLants and animals recycle iron and magnesium in opposition. It has so many important roles but it's role in infectious diseases is rather under recognized. 07 Together van_t'_Erve_2013 The concentration of glutathione in human erythrocytes is a heritable trait The idea you can just take what we call vitamin c, in food or as a supplement in some form and that all will be well now is patently absurd. The role of an antioxidant is to donate an electron to something that got oxidized that should not have been, thus restoring it. But now, after it does this that molecule of L-ascrobic acid, minus one electron is no longer the same, now it's a different chemical, the reduced form of L-Ascorbate, called L-ascorbate Dihydrogenase. The L-ascorbate was oxidized, it gave up an electron. We tend to think of oxidized as gaining oxygen but that was just the way it was discovered. It helps perhaps to think of another term for this: "hydrogenated". L-ascorbate Dihydrogenase the oxidized form of Ascorbate thus obtains an electron from Tocopherol (which we call "Vit E") and it's restored again as L-Ascorbic acid. Now the Tocopherol is missing an electron, but it in turn gets that back from L-ascorbate. Keep in mind, as a lipid, vitamin E exists in the cellular membrane while ascorbate exists in the intracellular fluid. Glutathione also will donate an electron to C but not E. Glutathione requires for its synthesis the minerals Selenium and Magnesium and the amino acid Cysteine. 09 Conclusion Take C, E, Se, Mg and you'll stop being and getting sick. Glutathione is made from NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine) so take the same amount of that as C.