Cheeky Monkey UPDATE!: Reader Zach Crunches Some Research For Us On Stomach Flu

--Read More In: Better Living Through Chemistry | Disease | Nutrition | Sex, Drugs, Rock n Roll | Vitamins/Supplements

Fellow mV-ers, Check this out:

Now that cold+flu season is in full swing, I thought it would be a plus to the site for one of our commenters to have his say come up in a post.

Our pal Zach had a very detailed read of one of the full studies cited in the Cheeky Monkey Stomach Flu post awhile back.

He was nice enough to cook down some of the conclusions into his comment which is cited here:

"I am fortunate enough to have full access to the study that you mentioned, and was able to read the actual data.

First of all, it turns out that the infectivity studies were done in vitro, and as far as I can tell, only measured the ability of antibodies to react to the viruses, and not the ability of the virus to reach, bind to, or infect cells along the intestinal lining; although, it is a dense read, and I'm still going through it.

Lucky for all of us, [Activated] Charcoal was not only the best at adsorbing the viruses studied (and also the lowest at desorbing), but it reduced the infectivity by almost 5 times! That's the only material studied to do so.

Oh, and I can't find the study at the moment, but proteases were actually tested for enterovirus effectiveness in gerbils I believe, and it was found that proteases significantly INCREASE symptoms and virus levels, killing most of the rodents studied. Proteases might be an effective immune boosting tool once they reach your bloodstream, but they do you no good in the digestive tract. Another study showed this to be the same case for Salmonella."

So there you go: A closer look at one of the studies on the subject shows that a substance with ~kinda-similar properties to my beloved Vervet Monkeys' Clay, in both surface-area-based absorption and ionic-charge-based adsorption, Can in-fact help us out with things like stomach flu.
(just watch out for it absorbing everything else in your GI tract like prescription meds, vitamins and minerals, too)

I'm still going to be making good on my Human Guinea Pig promise of conducting the experiment on myself next time King Montezuma pays a visit.

-But after Zach's empassioned research+comment, I'm now going to try it with Activated Charcoal instead of Clay or even Protease/Enzyme stuff.

There you go! And again: big Thanks + Hat Tip to Reader Zach!

Photos:
"Ring-Tailed Lemur 1", by Nigel Clarke, Lisburn, UK
"Dogs 2", by Tony Hathcock

Links:
Clay-Eating Cheeky Monkeys And The Elusive Stomach Flu / Viral Gastroenteritis Remedy

Enyzmedica Virastop

Terramin Clays

Scientific Journal Links:
PubMed   ScienceDirect   BioInfoBank   NCBI   Clay In Digestive Disturbances (old)

Posted by Will on 02/12/10 | Comments (0) | Email to a friend |

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