Research & Technical Articles Self-Defense in the Coming Plague by Dr. James B. Hall, MPH, Ph.D., DD Reports published this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveal there are 58 percent more cases of infectious disease this year than in 1990. The trend is dramatically upward, and the best scientific brains in the world tell us that it is going to get worse before it gets better. Until very recent times, our medical authorities were utterly confident that infectious diseases no longer represented a major health threat. Years, however, have shown this belief to be dramatically incorrect. Epidemics of infectious disease are increasing in severity and frequency. Some of the factors that have brought about this tragic reversal of health trends have been clearly identified for us. It should come as no surprise that the abuse of antibiotics is a major factor in the return of infectious disease as a major health threat. It is, however, a big surprise to most people that the very popular over-the-counter antacid drugs may be making a major contribution to the general decline in human immunity to infection. Knowing these facts can strongly suggest certain steps that can be taken to improve body defenses and the chances of avoiding or surviving the threat. In 1969, the Surgeon General of the United States declared that the nation was "ready to close the book on infectious disease." It appeared that vaccinations, public sanitation measures and the development and use of powerful antibiotic drugs had brought infectious disease under control. It seamed as if dreaded diseases that had plagued mankind throughout history no longer posed a threat. Such diseases as yellow fever, cholera, pneumonia and tuberculosis were considered ancient history or thought to be a problem only in some undeveloped regions of the world. Beginning with the latter years of the 1970s, however, an amazingly rapid reversal of this view of infectious disease began to take place. There were two main features to this renewed concern. Number one — the emergence of previously unknown diseases, and Number two — of even greater concern — evidence of the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria such as the infective agents of pneumonia and tuberculosis. What was being realized now was that previously totally-controlled diseases were now reemerging in a form that did not respond to the antibiotics. The first high-profile warning that infectious disease has not disappeared as a health threat came in 1976 with a sudden outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease, which is an often fatal infection caused by a heretofore unknown bacterium. Then followed a period of about 15 years, during which health authorities became increasingly more concerned about infections. But their attention still focused on newly emerging diseases. As the decade of the '80s drew to a close, the even more ominous realization began to grow that antibiotics, mankind's most powerful weapon against infection, were swiftly becoming ineffective against the disease strains that were in evidence. The statistics tell the alarming story. In 1988, infectious disease was not even on the list of the top ten causes of death in the United States; whereas in 1995 infectious disease was the third leading cause of death, and these diseases were rising rapidly. By 1995, the threat was so apparent that the U.S. government was compelled to sponsor an international conference to find answers to the problem. As a result, a report with a letter of introduction from Vice President Al Gore was produced. Unfortunately, the recommendations of this report only dealt with political and regulatory solutions. The report didn't offer any help to the individual, nor did it provide any direction for the health care professional who wanted to help patients increase the level of personal protection against infectious disease. The severity of this problem has also triggered major mass media coverage. In 1994, Time magazine published a cover feature article called "The Killers All Around." In March of 1994, Newsweek published a feature article called "The End of Antibiotics." In 1995, U.S. News & World Report published a feature article called "The Disease Busters;" It was about the Governments fight against infectious disease. In his book, The Antibiotic Paradox, Dr. Stewart Levey, who is a world-renowned authority on antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance and who is a professor at Tufts University Medical School, explained the mechanism of the development of antibiotic resistance. And it is really fairly simple. Within a colony of bacteria there are individual characteristics, just as there are differences in a population of human beings. Some people are tall, some people are short, some people are strong, some people are weak. These differences in bacteria can cause individuals within a colony to be relatively weak or strong with respect to the action of an antibiotic. Whenever that antibiotic is given, the weaker bacteria will be killed but the strongest members of the colony might survive. Then, the surviving bacteria which are now provided with an abundant living space and food supply within the body, will repopulate the colonized area with organisms that have a greater resistance to the antibiotic which was given than the previous colony. So you see, antibiotics can actually cause their own resistance. The abuse of antibiotics has also produced another nasty side effect, which is the destruction of beneficial flora in the human intestinal tract. The normal human intestinal tract contains approximately 100,000 trillion bacterial cells, which is about 10 times the number of human body cells in the average adult human. These bacteria which normally populate the human intestinal tract don't cause infection. Instead they perform many useful functions in the body, including, and especially that of forming a competitive barrier to the implantation and colonization by infective organisms. These intestinal bacteria are referred to as "friendly" bacteria and they are largely responsible for the maintenance of a healthy lower intestinal tract. Put another way, there is a limited amount of living space and food supply in our intestine for bacteria. The friendly bacteria which are organisms like L. acidophilus, or B. bifidum, or S. thermophilus and several others perform the very important immune function of occupying all the available space in the intestine. Thereby, they prevent infective organisms from gaining a foothold and they cause them to be eliminated in body waste. In other words, if there is no room for the infective organism in the intestine, it has to go straight on through and be eliminated in our waste. Now, the intestinal bacteria play an extremely important role in the total ability of the body to ward off infection. And the depleted state of the intestinal bacteria in many individuals leaves the body much more vulnerable at a time when the worldwide threat of infection is mounting. In addition to the creation of antibiotic resistant super-germs, and the destruction of protective friendly bacteria through the overuse of antibiotics, pharmaceutical science appears to have committed another serious blunder that wipes out yet another natural defense against infectious disease. And this is the big nasty surprise.... Home | Product Line | Endorsements | FAQs | Research | Order Products VITAL PRODUX™ 44 Mine Rd. 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