By Bob Livingston
Ask just about anyone to name an organ in their body and they might say “the heart,” or maybe “the brain.” The lungs, liver, kidneys are all common answers. You might even get “the skin” as an answer from a particularly perceptive sort.
Almost no one is going to say “the endothelium.” It’s not recognized for its existence, much less the attention it needs as an essential protective organ of the body.
The current coronavirus scare is particularly revealing of this oversight by our sick-care system. As William C. Aird writes in the journal Critical Care Medicine, “…medical subspecialization [has] created a conceptual blind spot, namely, the inability to appreciate the endothelium for what it is: a cell layer that is teeming with life, every bit as active as any other organ in the body.”
He writes later, in Consultative Hemostasis and Thrombosis, “The endothelium is involved in most if not all disease states, either as a primary determinant of pathophysiology or as a victim of collateral damage. Moreover, the endothelium has remarkable yet largely untapped diagnostic and therapeutic potential.”
I don’t know about you, but this statement strikes me as something to be investigated further. So let us do that together, along with science, so that the doubters have no recourse.
Shredded barrier
Endothelial cells represent a barrier between the outside world and other organ systems. They can also produce healing molecules — for example, they release nitric oxide, which keeps blood vessels healthy, relaxed and flowing smoothly. One can, therefore, imagine that damaging these cells would do damage to cardiovascular patients. And so it does.
Most human viruses target endothelial cells. For the virus, it’s a pathway to the rest of the body. For the person who has the virus, immune response at the endothelium increases inflammation and adds to the severity of viral disease.
With viruses that originate with avian species, such as coronaviruses and avian flu, the respiratory tract seems to be the target. Coronaviruses in particular, as I mentioned to you last week, activate NF-kappa-B, which causes inflammation in the respiratory system.
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In the lower lung, the alveolar epithelial cells are exceedingly close to the underlying endothelium, and are only microns away from your capillaries (very small blood vessels). What this means is that during a viral infection the endothelium is “likely to be exposed to free virus particles produced by infected and damaged epithelial cells,” according to the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.
Also during viral infection, inflammatory molecules can literally “shred” membranes around endothelial cells. This is a problem since the endothelium contains a huge number of receptors critical to immune response. Any damage reduces the immune system’s ability to protect us from viruses.
It stands to reason that anything that reduces inflammation would, therefore, protect the endothelium and reduce a virus’ ability to damage our bodies.
Boarding group C
So, how do we protect the endothelium from viruses and the inflammation they cause?
It may interest you to know that the powers-that-shouldn’t-be want to warn you from their Ivory Towers that only a vaccine will “cure” you (even though vaccines are supposed to prevent, not cure, disease. Big Pharma loves cognitive dissonance) if you already have COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus.
It may also interest you to know that hospitals around the world are giving patients high doses of vitamin C, intravenously, in order to keep them alive during coronavirus infection.
Why? Because no patient will die of an infectious disease until his reserves of vitamin C have been exhausted. Even a mild deficiency of vitamin C means loss of resistance to infection.
Shortness of breath and rapid heart action are the specific consequences of vitamin C deficiency in the heart patient. Coronaviruses cause an increase in respiratory rate, and often shortness of breath. A coincidence?
Vitamin C’s efficacy against coronaviruses has been known for quite some time. The Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy published a letter out of the University of Helsinki’s Department of Public Health titled “Vitamin C and SARS coronavirus” that stated, “Three controlled trials with human subjects reported a significantly lower incidence of pneumonia in vitamin C-supplemented groups, suggesting that vitamin C may affect susceptibility to lower respiratory tract infections…”
The New York Post reported that Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, said his intensive-care patients with the coronavirus immediately receive 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C, repeated three or four times a day.
He told the paper, “The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C. It helps a tremendous amount, but it is not highlighted because it’s not a sexy drug.”
Indeed, it’s not a drug at all. You or any other person can take the same 6,000 mg of vitamin C every day. Linus Pauling himself took 10,000 mg a day quite safely.
Endothelial health, naturally
Vitamin C is effective in viral infection cases because it reduces inflammation, as you probably know, but it also protects the endothelium.
One meta-analysis looked at 44 clinical trials of vitamin C. Oral doses of vitamin C greater than 500 milligrams per day boosted the health of the endothelium. Regardless of the design of the study, no matter how long the studies lasted, how much vitamin C people already had beforehand, or even how the vitamin C was administered, the effect was still the same, according to the journal Atherosclerosis.
There is a significant positive association between vitamin C dose and improvement in endothelial function. Additionally, vitamin C increases the availability of nitric oxide, which as we know, assists endothelial function.
Even better, the ascorbate portion of vitamin C has been found to “tighten up” the endothelial permeability barrier, and, control access of molecules into tissues and organs.
In fact deficiency of vitamin C is a direct cause for endothelial dysfunction — meaning low vitamin C status may be a reason for viral infection.
This is more evidence that susceptibility to viruses comes from within, and not form the mere presence of a virus in the environment. But the important thing to know is that any dose above 500mg a day is beneficial to your endothelial health, and your protection status with regard to viral infection.
Of course, we can’t make vitamin C ourselves. So how much should we really be taking in?
- 3,000 mg per day according to the Vitamin C Foundation’s recommendation.
- 6,000-1,2000 mg per day according to Thomas Levy, Colorado Integrative Medical Centre.
- 6,000-18,000 mg per day was Linus Pauling’s daily recommendation
Remember that except for humans, almost all mammals make their own vitamin C in amounts equivalent to human doses of around 10,000 mg per day. Also for humans, vitamin C can only be stored in the body for around two weeks, but the ascorbic acid fraction is so small that the liver cannot store it at all, meaning it’s a good idea to get vitamin C each day.
Real, whole vitamin C is mainly found in fresh fruits (e.g., blackcurrant, strawberry, lemon, orange, lime) and vegetables (e.g., seabuckthorn, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage). If you can get acerola cherries, you will also get quite a good amount of natural vitamin C.
