Lose Them Pounds

The University of Sussex conducted a survey to find out what happened when 800 people took part in “Dry January,” or abstaining from alcohol for the first month of the year. A number of benefits were reported, from losing weight to saving money, but one stood out from the crowd: 7 out of 10 people who stopped drinking alcohol for one month reported sleeping better.1
Considering that one-third of U.S. adults say they don’t get enough sleep,2 this is a significant benefit — one that could have major health implications for those who choose to imbibe regularly. In the time period spanning 2001/2002 to 2012/2013, the number of people who reported drinking alcohol in any amount shot up from 65.4% to 72.7% of Americans.3
About one-third of them engage in “high-risk drinking,” which was defined as five or more standard drinks for men or four or more drinks for women at least once a week. Among women, this type of binge drinking increased by 57.9% percent over the study period.4 Alcohol is often used as a sedative,5 enjoyed with the intent that it may help you unwind and relax at the end of the day.
General population studies suggest that up to 28% of adults have used alcohol as a sleep aid, typically for less than one week at a time, although 15% have used alcohol to promote sleep for more than four weeks.6
Behavioral studies support the notion that having two or three drinks before bed helps promote sleep, but this is short-lived. Within just a few days, the sleep-promoting effects of alcohol diminish while in the longer term, alcohol use is linked to sleep disturbances.7 More daytime sleepiness is also reported in those who used alcohol as a sleep aid.8 But what is it about alcohol that interferes with sleep?
How Your Sleep Changes When You Drink Alcohol

Alcohol can have either stimulating or sedating effects, depending on the dose and timing in relation to bedtime. In the first hour after consuming a small amount of alcohol, stimulating effects occur as your blood alcohol levels rise. If you consume a large amount of alcohol, it will lead to drowsiness as your blood alcohol levels fall.
As for moderate alcohol consumption (two to three standard drinks of 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of spirits), dose-dependent sedation may occur that lasts for several hours.
Typically, sleep latency, or the time it takes you to fall asleep, gets shorter with more drinks, up to six total. However, alcohol is a short-acting sedative and a rebound will occur, with arousal increasing about two to three hours after your blood alcohol levels decrease to zero.9
A rebound of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep may occur during this arousal phase, during which intense dreams or nightmares may occur. Ultimately, your sleep thus becomes fragmented while even the initial sedative effects will wane as your body develops tolerance, typically after three to seven days of alcohol use.
In the long term, it’s unknown how moderate alcohol consumption affects sleep, but according to a review of 107 studies published in the journal Substance Abuse, long-lasting changes may occur:10

“Late afternoon (‘happy hour’) drinking, as much as six hours before bedtime, also disrupts sleep, even though alcohol is no longer in the brain at bedtime. This phenomenon suggests a relatively long-lasting change in sleep regulation.”

Evening Drinking Reduces Daytime Alertness

Using alcohol as a tool to fall asleep can have consequences the next day, too. Even if you’re well-rested, “reduction in alertness enough to impair performance occurs in the morning after evening drinking,”11 research shows, and your reaction time can be impaired even when your blood alcohol levels are zero. Overall, those who drink alcohol in the evening are less alert during the day and more tired than those who do not.
The risks may be especially significant for those who are already sleep-deprived, as even drinking a small amount the night before could raise the risk of traffic-related and other accidents due to severe daytime sleepiness. “Most worrisome is moderate alcohol use among chronically sleep-deprived populations such as shift workers and young adults who are at high risk for falling asleep while driving,” the researchers noted.12
Older adults should also think twice before using alcohol as a sleep aid. A 30-year study of 6,117 older adults found that men who drank more than 21 units (about 168 grams or 6 ounces) of alcohol per week were more likely to wake up several times during the night than those who drank no alcohol.
Those who maintained this level of drinking, or had an unstable alcohol consumption pattern, over the three decades of observation, were also more likely to wake several times during the night and wake up feeling tired.13 “Those with disrupted sleep should consider reducing alcohol consumption and people in this age group, particularly men, should be discouraged from using alcohol as a sleep aid,” the researchers concluded.14
Despite this, in a survey of people aged 60 and over regarding why people change their alcohol consumption later in life, 6% of men and 5% of women said they started drinking more alcohol as a way to help get to sleep.15
During Sleep, Alcohol Affects Your Heart, Breathing and More
During sleep, your body engages in important physiological restoration. Your autonomic nervous system (ANS) relaxes, but if you don’t sleep well it interferes with this process while also impairing regenerative processes and triggering metabolic disturbances.16
Finnish researchers were intrigued to find out whether alcohol intake, in turn, affected the ANS during sleep, so they tracked heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of the variations in time elapsed between your heartbeats, among 4,098 people during the first three hours of sleep. HRV is a measure of your heart’s ability to respond to physiological and environmental stress stimuli, which, in this study’s case, was alcohol intake.17
A dose-dependent disturbance of cardiovascular relaxation during sleep was noted in relation to alcohol intake. Specifically, HRV-derived physiological recovery state decreased by 39.2% with high alcohol intake (defined as more than 0.75 grams per kilogram (g/kg) of body weight), 24% with moderate intake (>0.25-0.75 g/kg) and 9.3% with low intake (?0.25 g/kg). Regular physical activity or being young in age did not protect from this disturbance.
Alcohol also affects other aspects of sleep, and even one drink is linked with snoring in otherwise normal sleepers, while moderate drinking can lead to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) that leads to oxygen desaturations. The Substance Abuse researchers explained:18

“Alcohol relaxes upper airway dilator muscles (decreasing airway patency) increasing nasal and pharyngeal resistance, and it prolongs the time required to arouse or awaken after an apnea occurs. Alcohol also selectively depresses hypoglossal nerve activity and alters carotid body chemoreceptor function.”

Among people with OSA, drinking alcohol may be especially problematic, as it may make the frequency and severity of apneas worse, while increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke and sudden death. The risk of sleep-related accidents is also noteworthy:19

“Alcohol’s worsening of apneic events, increasing sleep disruption and daytime fatigue, can also impair driving and increase rates of motor vehicle accidents. Among OSA subjects who consumed 14 or more drinks per week, self-reports of sleep-related accidents are fivefold higher compared to those who drink lesser amounts.”

Other ways that alcohol consumption may impair and fragment sleep include the following:20

Increased movement disorders
Increase in periodic leg movements
Promotion of sleepwalking
An association with gastritis, esophageal reflux and polyuria (excessive urination)
Unsteadiness and falls during trips to the bathroom at night

Risks Related to ‘Impaired Sleep Homeostasis’
While alcohol may increase sleep during the first half of the night, sleep during the second half of the night is more likely to be disrupted if you’ve consumed alcohol, due to a disruption in sleep homeostasis.21 In a statement, Mahesh Thakkar, Ph.D., with the University of Missouri School of Medicine, explained:22

“The prevailing thought was that alcohol promotes sleep by changing a person’s circadian rhythm — the body’s built-in 24-hour clock,” Thakkar said. “However, we discovered that alcohol actually promotes sleep by affecting a person’s sleep homeostasis — the brain’s built-in mechanism that regulates your sleepiness and wakefulness.

… Based on our results, it’s clear that alcohol should not be used as a sleep. Alcohol disrupts sleep and the quality of sleep is diminished. Additionally, alcohol is a diuretic, which increases your need to go the bathroom and causes you to wake up earlier in the morning.”

Lack of sleep and poor quality sleep, in turn, can raise your risk of chronic and acute health conditions. For instance, too little sleep may interfere with thyroid hormones and raise C-reactive protein levels (CRP), which may promote inflammation and increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes.23
Research also shows that adults who sleep less than six hours a night have a four times higher risk of catching a cold when directly exposed to the virus than those who get at least seven hours.24 Sleep is even connected with subclinical atherosclerosis, the early stages of hardening and narrowing of the arteries.
In one study, those who slept for less than six hours a night were 27% more likely to have subclinical atherosclerosis than those who slept for seven or eight hours a night.25,26 If you have trouble falling asleep, or you wake frequently during the night, it’s time to take steps to improve your sleep.
Top Steps for a Good Night’s Sleep

I do not recommend drinking alcohol, and if you’re using it as a form of sleep aid there are many other ways to get a sound’s night sleep that will leave your body truly refreshed. Be sure you’re sleeping in complete darkness, for starters, as light (even that from a night light or alarm clock) can disrupt your internal clock and your production of melatonin and serotonin, thereby interfering with your sleep.
In the morning, bright, blue light-rich sunlight signals to your body that it’s time to wake up. At night, as the sun sets, darkness should signal to your body that it’s time to sleep. You’ll want to keep the temperature cool, between 60 and 68 degrees F, and eliminate electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Ideally, shut down the electricity to your bedroom by pulling your circuit breaker before bed and turning off your Wi-Fi at night.
Other practical solutions include going to bed earlier and considering a separate bedroom if your partner is interfering with your sleep. And, as mentioned, avoid drinking alcohol, as it will likely cause you to wake up during the second half of the night and have fragmented sleep. For more tips, my 33 healthy sleep secrets provides a comprehensive list of strategies for a better night’s rest.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/21/why-alcohol-is-bad-for-sleep.aspx

Omega-3 fats are important for many reasons. While their brain and cardiovascular benefits are well-established, a lesser known benefit has to do with autoimmune diabetes.
According to research1,2 published in December 2020, adults who test positive for glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65) antibodies — a marker for Type 1 diabetes3 — can significantly reduce their risk of adult-onset diabetes by eating omega-3 rich fatty fish.
The study looked at data from 11,247 cases of adult-onset diabetes and 14,288 diabetes-free controls that participated in the Epic-InterAct case-cohort study conducted in eight European countries. As explained by the authors:4

“Baseline plasma samples were analyzed for GAD65 antibodies and phospholipid n-3 PUFAs. Adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for incident diabetes in relation to GAD65 antibody status and tertiles of plasma phospholipid n-3 PUFA or fish intake were estimated using Prentice-weighted Cox regression …
The hazard of diabetes in antibody-positive individuals with low intake of total and fatty fish, respectively, was significantly elevated (HR 2.52 and 2.48) compared with people who were GAD65 antibody negative and had high fish intake, with evidence of additive (AP 0.44 and 0.48) and multiplicative interactions.
Individuals with high GAD65 antibody levels (?167.5 units/mL) and low total plasma phospholipid n-3 PUFAs had a more than fourfold higher hazard of diabetes …”

Results Support Previous Findings

Some of the researchers from this team first investigated the impact of fish consumption on latent autoimmune diabetes back in 2014.5 At that time, they analyzed data from a much smaller cohort that included 89 cases of latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, 462 Type 2 diabetics and 1,007 diabetes-free controls. A food frequency questionnaire was used to determine fish intake along with omega-3 supplementation and vitamin D intake.
Those who ate one or more servings of fatty fish per week had a 49% reduced risk of latent autoimmune diabetes compared to those who got less than one weekly serving.
Results showed those who ate one or more servings of fatty fish per week had a 49% reduced risk of latent autoimmune diabetes, but not Type 2 diabetes, compared to those who got less than one weekly serving. Similar associations were seen among those who took omega-3 supplements.
The Type of Fish You Choose Matters

While this is good news, it’s important to be careful about your seafood choices. Importantly, not all fish contain omega-3s. Only fatty, cold-water fish do. Examples include wild-caught Alaskan salmon, sardines, anchovies, mackerel and herring.
Farmed fish, especially farmed salmon, is best avoided altogether due to the exaggerated potential for contamination. At first glance, farmed fish may seem like a good idea to help protect wild seafood populations from overfishing, but in reality, the industry is plagued with many of the same problems surrounding land-based concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), including pollution, disease, toxicity and inferior nutritional quality.
Most farmed fish are fed genetically engineered (GE) corn and soy, which are a completely unnatural diet for marine life and are loaded with hazardous omega-6 fats. Others are fed fishmeal, which is known to accumulate industrial chemicals like PCBs and dioxins.
Remember a few important facts: The first is that the omega-6 fats that are fed to these fish are about 90% of the dangerous linoleic acid (LA) that I have recently written about. So, consuming these fish will not correct a high omega 6-to-3 ratio. Additionally, the primary action needed if your ratio is too high is to first lower your LA intake, as I review in detail in my recent article on LA.
According to toxicology researcher Jerome Ruzzin, farmed salmon is one of the most toxic foods on the market — five times more toxic than any other food product tested. Farmed fish waste also promotes algal growth that harms the water’s oxygen content, posing risks to coral reefs and other aquatic life.
From a nutritional perspective, farmed salmon have the drawbacks of containing only half the omega-3 of wild salmon6,7,8 and one-fourth the vitamin D,9 while having more than 5.5 times the amount of omega-6.10,11 Farmed salmon are also routinely exposed to antibiotics and pesticides.
Alaska does not permit aquaculture, so all Alaskan fish are wild caught. They also have some of the cleanest water and some of the best maintained and most sustainable fisheries.
To verify authenticity, look for the state of Alaska’s “Wild Alaska Pure” logo. This is one of the more reliable ones, and it’s a particularly good sign to look for if you’re buying canned Alaskan salmon, which is less expensive than salmon steaks.
In the past, sockeye salmon was another good choice as they weren’t farmed. Unfortunately, this has changed. Land-based sockeye salmon farming is now being done,12 which makes it difficult to know whether the fish is wild or not. For this reason, it may be best to avoid it unless you can verify that it’s wild-caught.
Your Omega-3 Index Is an Excellent Predictor of Mortality

Aside from affecting your risk of autoimmune diabetes, omega-3 fats also play other important roles in health. For example, research13 published in 2018 confirmed omega-3 fats can reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality.
Overall, those with an omega-3 index in the highest quintile had a total mortality that was 34% lower than those in the lowest omega-3 quintile, and a 39% lower risk for CVD. The strongest association was found for the omega-3 docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). According to the authors, “The omega-3 index can serve as a marker of overall health in older Americans.”
As detailed in “More Data Support Heart Healthy Benefits of Omega-3s,” more recent research found fish oil consumption lowered the risk of all-cause mortality by 13% and cardiovascular mortality by 16%.
DHA for Your Brain Health
DHA is also crucial for brain health. In my book, “Superfuel,” cowritten with James DiNicolantonio, Pharm.D., we explain how DHA is an essential structural component of your brain, and is found in high levels in your neurons, the cells of your central nervous system.

When your omega-3 intake is inadequate, your nerve cells become stiff and more prone to inflammation as the missing omega-3 fats are substituted with omega-6 instead.

Once your nerve cells become rigid and inflamed, proper neurotransmission from cell to cell and within cells become compromised. Low DHA levels have been linked to memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease, and some studies suggest degenerative brain diseases may potentially be reversible with sufficient DHA.14,15

DHA also stimulates the Nrf2 pathway, one of the most important transcription factors that regulates cellular oxidation and reduction, and aids in detoxification.16 Additionally, DHA increases heme oxygenase 117 (a protein produced in response to oxidative stress) and upregulates antioxidant enzymes — all of which are important for brain health.

The omega-3 eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), meanwhile, appears to be particularly beneficial in the treatment of depression,18 as it helps lower levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin 1 beta and prostaglandin E2 — three immune chemicals that tend to be elevated in those with depression.
The Many Health Benefits of Omega-3 Fats

Other health benefits of omega-3 fats include the following:

Reducing inflammation — This in turn can be helpful for those suffering with rheumatoid arthritis by reducing stiffness and pain.19 Women who suffer from menstrual pain may also experience milder pain.20,21

Optimizing muscle building and bone strength — Omega-3 fats help your body build healthy muscle mass, including people suffering from cancer who may experience cachexia.22 Omega-3 fats can also help improve your bone strength by improving the utilization of calcium in your body. This may lead to a reduction in the development of osteoporosis.23

Improving metabolic syndrome24 and insulin resistance.25

Improving mental health and behavior — Demonstrated benefits have been shown for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including reduced aggression, hyperactivity,26 impulsivity,27 oppositional behavior28 and restlessness.29 Omega-3 is associated with lowered risk for other neurological/cognitive dysfunction as well, including: memory loss, brain aging, learning disorders and ADHD,30 autism and dyslexia.31

Protecting your vision — DHA is a major structural element in your eye and brain.32 Low levels of DHA may increase your risk for age related macular degeneration.33

Reducing your risk of kidney disease34 and colon cancer.35

The Importance of Phospholipid-Bound Omega-3

While fish oil is a well-known source of omega-3 fats, it has several drawbacks, the lack of phospholipids being one of them. DHA and EPA are water insoluble and therefore cannot be transported in their free form in your blood. They must be packaged into lipoprotein vehicles such as phospholipids. This is primarily why the bioavailability of krill oil is so much higher than fish oil, because in fish oil, the DHA and EPA are bound to triglycerides.
When you take fish oil, your liver has to attach it to phosphatidylcholine in order for it to be efficiently utilized. Phospholipids are also one of the principal compounds in high-density lipoproteins (HDL), which you want more of, and by allowing your cells to maintain structural integrity, phospholipids help your cells function optimally.
Importantly, your brain cannot readily absorb DHA unless it’s bound to phosphatidylcholine, and while krill oil contains phosphatidylcholine naturally, fish oil does not. As the name implies, phosphatidylcholine is composed partly of choline, the precursor for the vital neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which sends nerve signals to your brain, and choline itself is crucial for brain development, learning and memory.
Research36 by Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D., has highlighted the value of DHA bound to phospholipids, showing this form may actually reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in those with the apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) gene, which lowers the typical age of onset of this degenerative brain disorder.
Two hallmarks of Alzheimer’s are amyloid beta plaques and tau tangles, both of which impair normal brain functioning. Alzheimer’s patients also have reduced glucose transport into their brains, and this is one of the reasons why plaque and tangles form and accumulate in the first place. According to Patrick,37 DHA encourages your brain’s uptake of glucose by regulating the structure and function of glucose transporters, proteins located at your blood-brain barrier.
While eating DHA-rich fish has been shown to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s in APOE4 carriers, taking fish oil has not demonstrated the same efficacy. According to Patrick, this variation in response appears to be related to the different ways in which the two forms of DHA are metabolized and ultimately transported into your brain.
When the triglyceride form of DHA is metabolized, most of it turns into nonesterified DHA, while the phospholipid form is metabolized primarily into DHA-lysophosphatidylcholine (DHA-lysoPC). While both of these forms can cross the blood-brain barrier to reach your brain, the phospholipid form does so far more efficiently.
According to Patrick, people with APOE4 have a faulty nonesterified DHA transport system, and this may be why they’re at increased risk for Alzheimer’s. The good news is that DHA-lysoPC can bypass the tight junctions, thereby improving DHA transport, and for those with one or two APOE4 variants, taking the phospholipid form of DHA may therefore lower their risk of Alzheimer’s more effectively.
Oxidized Linoleic Acid Drives Many Disease Processes

One of the most hazardous fats in the human diet, in my view, is omega-6 linoleic acid (LA). Processed vegetable oils are primary sources of LA, but animal foods such as chicken and farmed salmon also contain high amounts of it, thanks to the fact that the animals are fed LA-rich grains.

There’s evidence to suggest excessive amounts of LA play a role in most chronic diseases, especially top killers such as heart disease. Evidence implicating excessive consumption of LA as a direct cause of heart disease includes, but is not limited to, the following:38

The amount of LA in adipose tissue and platelets is positively associated with coronary artery disease, and studies39 measuring changes in LA concentrations in adipose tissue in Americans show concentrations increased from 9.1% in 1959 to 21.5% in 2008. This increase also paralleled increases in the prevalence of obesity, diabetes and asthma.

Conversely, the long-chained omega-3s DHA and EPA have been shown to protect against coronary artery disease, which is why maintaining a healthy balance between omega-3 and omega-6 is so important.

Patients with atherosclerosis have higher amounts of LA oxidation products in their plasma, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and atherosclerotic plaques.

Oxidation of LA begins before any clinical signs of atherosclerosis become apparent.

When the endothelium (the interior lining of your blood vessels) is exposed to LA, LDL transfer across the endothelium is increased and this is an essential step in the atherosclerotic process.

Low LA diets reduce LDL oxidation.

A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials in humans showed that when saturated fat and trans fat are replaced with omega-6 PUFAs, all-cause mortality, ischemic heart disease mortality and cardiovascular mortality increase.

Oxidation products of LA are found in infarcted tissue.

The LA metabolite 9-HODE is a strong promoter of inflammation, and may be both a marker for and inducer of atherosclerosis.

Do You Know Your Omega-3 Index?
An omega-3 deficiency leaves you vulnerable to several chronic diseases and lifelong challenges. Optimizing your levels is truly a foundational strategy to attaining and maintaining good health. The best way to determine if you’re eating enough food with omega-3 is to get an omega-3 index test.

The omega-3 index is a measure of the amount of EPA and DHA in the membranes of your red blood cells (RBCs). Your index is expressed as a percent of your total RBC fatty acids. The omega-3 index has been validated as a stable, long-term marker of your omega-3 status.

An omega-3 index over 8% is associated with the lowest risk of death from heart disease, while an index below 4% places you at the highest risk of heart disease-related mortality.

I firmly believe an omega-3 index test is one of the most important annual health screens that everyone needs. GrassrootsHealth makes testing easy through its D*Action+Omega-3 consumer-sponsored research project.40 You can find the GrassrootsHealth omega-3 index test kit both in my online store and on the GrassrootsHealth website.41
Please remember: If you find that you have a high omega 6-to-3 ratio, your primary action needed is to first lower your LA intake, as I review in detail in my recent article on LA.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/21/importance-of-omega-3-fats.aspx

Data from Japan show drinking oolong tea may help your body burn fat, independent of the effects of caffeine. Around the world, tea is one of the most popular beverages, second only to water. In popularity, 84% of tea consumed is black; 15% is green; and the remaining 1% is split between oolong, white and dark teas.1
According to the Tea Association, total sales in 1990 were $1.84 billion, which rose to $12 billion by 2016.2 The market continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate, with reported sales of $12.67 billion in 2019. The Tea Association hypothesizes several trends could be affecting their industry, including a healthier outlook of consumers and a greater number of people who practice alternative nutrition such as gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian and keto diet plans.
On any day, nearly half the people in the U.S. are drinking tea, with a greater concentration of tea drinkers found in the South and Northeast. Although black tea is the preferred drink, it may be time to consider the less bitter and flavorful oolong tea.
A Cup of Oolong in the Evening Raises Fat Burning at Night

A recently published study from a team of researchers at the University of Tsukuba in Japan found that drinking oolong tea can help your body burn fat, even while you’re sleeping.3 The study took place over 14 days and engaged 12 non-obese men who drank either oolong tea, caffeine or a placebo at breakfast and lunch each day.
On Day 14, 24-hour measurements were recorded. The researchers found that drinking caffeine or oolong tea raised fat burning by approximately 20% without any effect on energy expenditure.4
However, they also found a greater decrease was experienced by those drinking the oolong tea suggesting there was an unidentified ingredient in the tea that has a greater effect on fat oxidation.5 Additionally, it appeared that the effect on fat burning was suppressed immediately after meals and occurred during sleep.
The researchers also found drinking two cups of oolong tea per day did not interfere with the participants’ sleep habits. Past research has demonstrated caffeine at greater than 100 milligrams (mg) can increase energy expenditure, but in the present study the amount of caffeine ingested did not increase energy expenditure.
This suggested to the researchers that the participants became tolerant over the two weeks of routine caffeine ingestion. While the researchers did measure fat burning, they noted two weeks was not a long enough duration to assess the effects this intervention could have on body composition. The senior study author commented in a press release:6

“Like all teas, oolong contains caffeine, which impacts energy metabolism by increasing our heart rate. However, studies suggest that tea consumption may also increase the breakdown of fat, independent of the effects of caffeine. We therefore wanted to examine the effects of oolong consumption versus caffeine alone on energy and fat metabolism among a group of healthy volunteers.

The stimulatory effects of oolong tea on fat breakdown during sleep could have real clinical relevance for controlling body weight. However, we need to determine whether the effects we observed in the 2-week study translate into actual body fat loss over a prolonged period.

In addition, we want to trial a decaffeinated oolong tea to better distinguish the effects of caffeine from other components of tea, which will help us understand exactly how oolong helps with fat breakdown.”

Green, Black or Oolong?

Although the health benefits of green tea are well covered, black tea is the most commonly consumed tea in the U.S. As the health benefits of oolong tea are not as well publicized, one team of researchers set out to assess how well a group of dental students understood the benefits of oolong tea.7
Using a set of questionnaires, they drew data from 100 participants using an online survey. Among the students, only 19% had ever heard of oolong tea, and of those only 55% were aware of the health benefits.
Interestingly, the Tea Association says that black, green, oolong and all dark and white teas are all made from the leaves of the same tree, an evergreen named Camellia sinensis.8 The difference in the taste and color happen when the leaves are processed. But, no matter which type of tea it is, or whether it’s caffeinated or decaf, it’s only 24 hours from the time tea leaves are picked until they’re packed.9
Before processing starts, the tea leaves are graded and sorted. The most common method of processing tea leaves is the Orthodox method during which the leaves go through four stages, including withering, rolling, oxidation and drying.
It’s in the oxidation stage that the color, taste and strength of the tea is determined. The leaves are laid out and left at 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 degrees Fahrenheit) for 30 to 120 minutes. During this time, oxidation occurs, which changes the color of the leaves.
The oxidation process is left out when making green tea, which gives the tea leaves a light fresh flavor. Black tea goes through the longest oxidation and oolong is made from partially oxidized leaves. The oxidation goal for tea leaves destined to become oolong is 70% green and 30% brown, enough to give a delicate color and fruity aroma.
The shape of the leaves and flavor of oolong tea can vary depending on where it’s grown and how it’s processed.10 For instance, oolong tea from Taiwan is traditionally less oxidized and the famous Chinese teas are grown in a harsh environment, which gives the leaves a rich flavor.
Oolong Shifts Salivary and Gut Microbiota

In addition to raising fat metabolism, oolong tea also has an impact on your oral and gut microbiota. One study, published in the journal Nutrients, evaluated the oral microbiota of three healthy adults who drank 1 liter (33 ounces) of tea daily for eight weeks.11 Before the intervention, during the treatment and after the study, the participants’ salivary microbiota were sampled, sequenced and analyzed. The data showed:12

“[O]olong tea consumption reduced salivary bacterial diversity and the population of some oral disease related bacteria, such as Streptococcus sp., Prevotella nanceiensis, Fusobacterium periodonticum, Alloprevotella rava, and Prevotella elaninogenica.”

The results suggested that drinking oolong tea for an extended period of time could change your salivary microbiota and have a protective effect on dental health. Several studies have also evaluated the effect oolong tea has on modulating human intestinal microbiota in the lab and in animal models.
One study published in Food Research International demonstrated the compounds commonly found in oolong tea, including epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), (-)-gallocatechin gallate (GCG) and epigallocatechin?3?(3”?O?methyl) gallate (EGCg3”Me),13 modulated bacterial growth in the intestines.14 They inhibited the growth of harmful bacteria and helped beneficial bacteria to proliferate.
A second study evaluated the effect tea had on gut microbiota in light of the known anti-obesity properties.15 The results of this animal model suggested drinking tea substantially increases the diversity and structure of gut microbiota, which may have an impact on fat burning.
Researchers also demonstrated the polyphenols extracted from green tea, oolong tea and black tea could modulate intestinal flora and produce a greater number of short-chain fatty acids, contributing to a healthy gut microbiome.16
More Health Benefits Associated With Oolong Tea

Oolong tea is also rich in antioxidants — beneficial compounds that help reduce the effects of free radicals and reactive oxygen species.17 This plays a role in the development of various diseases, including diabetes, stroke, cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.
One study evaluated the effect of oolong tea on bone mineral density in 476 postmenopausal women.18 They were questioned about their lifestyle, types of tea they drink, demographic features and health status.
When researchers compared the tea drinkers against the non-tea drinkers, they found those drinking oolong tea had higher bone mineral density. It was significantly higher in those who drank one to five cups of tea per day but did not go up for those drinking more than five cups per day.
The antioxidants, caffeine and theanine found in oolong tea may also contribute to a lower risk of cognitive impairment and decline that researchers have found in community-living Chinese adults 55 years and older who consistently drank oolong or black tea.19
In a review of the literature, researchers identified an increase in insulin activity.20 This occurred with black, green and oolong teas with an increase in insulin activity of at least 15-fold in laboratory fat cell assays. Oolong tea also reduced plasma glucose and is believed to be an effective adjunctive treatment of Type 2 diabetes.
Oolong tea has been associated with a reduction in heart disease. In one study with 76,979 Japanese adults, those who drank 8 ounces or more of oolong tea each day significantly reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease mortality.21 In a separate study, those drinking one to two cups of green tea or oolong tea each day significantly reduced their risk of stroke.22
EGCG Helps Improve Zinc Absorption

During flu season and the COVID-19 pandemic, it bears remembering that the EGCG found in green, black and oolong tea can help improve absorption of zinc. Zinc is an essential mineral and a cofactor for nearly 3,000 proteins in the body.23
In addition to this, it is crucial for healthy immune functioning. Zinc deficiency has been shown to impair your immune function24 as it modulates cell mediated immunity and acts as an anti-inflammatory agent and antioxidant.25
Although there’s no cure for viral infections, your body uses a process to fight viruses that includes zinc. It has also demonstrated the ability to reduce the length of a cold by an average of 33%.26
One effective treatment for the early symptoms of COVID-19 has been a combination of hydroxychloroquine and zinc. Hydroxychloroquine is routinely used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and other autoimmune diseases.27
The hydroxychloroquine acts as an ionophore, driving zinc into the cells where it can impair the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 RNA virus.28 Beyond immune health, zinc has an impact on wound healing, age-related macular degeneration, sense of smell and taste29 and blood sugar balance.30
EGCG is a major polyphenol component found in tea and has demonstrated the ability to act as a zinc ionophore, transporting zinc across the cell membrane.31 A study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry used a lab model to demonstrate EGCG and quercetin could rapidly increase levels of zinc in cells in the laboratory.32
They hypothesized that the ionophore activity of the dietary polyphenols tested may play a significant role in raising the levels of intracellular zinc and thus may be responsible for many of the biological actions attributed to the polyphenols.
Get the Most From Your Tea

While drinking oolong tea is healthy, using tea bags adds a level of toxins you don’t want. Tea bags may be more convenient, but many are made with heat resistant polypropylene that prevents the bag from breaking apart in hot water and releases minute pieces of plastic in each drink.33
Paper tea bags are treated with epichlorohydrin, which is a chemical that prevents tears and has been found to be a probable human carcinogen.34 Instead, seek out loose tea leaves and store them in an airtight container kept in a dry, dark cabinet away from direct sunlight and heat.
Since the processing techniques used affect the ideal brewing temperature, look for the directions on the package of tea you buy. However, here are some general tips to consider:35

Use fresh, pure filtered water. Do not use distilled water as it will give your tea a flat flavor.
In general, the tea should be steeped between 180 degrees and 200 degrees Fahrenheit for one to three minutes.
Oolong teas can be used multiple times. With each cup the leaves open a little more, which releases more flavor. You may be able to get up to five uses out of a high-quality tea.
Oolong tea tastes best after steeping for a short time, so it’s a good idea to taste it after the recommended time before deciding to steep it longer.
Cover the tea while it steeps to keep all the heat in the vessel and try drinking it without any additives, such as milk or sugar, to improve the health benefits and appreciate the handcrafted flavor of the tea.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/22/oolong-tea-may-help-shed-pounds-while-you-sleep.aspx

In recent days and weeks, we’ve seen an unprecedented wave of censorship sweep across the internet. As noted by Coindesk.com,1 that we need a decentralized web is more evident than ever, and now’s the time to advance such plans:

“Just as bitcoin redistributed power from the legacy financial system in favor of peer-to-peer electronic cash, the next-generation internet aims to redistribute power from corporate giants like Google and Facebook to sovereign individuals who own and control their own data.

To achieve this monumental goal, changes must be made to the internet’s underlying architecture. Thankfully, the pace of progress is dramatically accelerating in three foundational components: storage, naming and database …

Obviously 2020 will be remembered for the immense amount of pain and suffering endured by millions around the globe. However, throughout history, moments like these are often accompanied by great periods of innovation and creativity.

It is through this hopeful lens that we see a world where the decentralized web eventually becomes ‘the’ web with fairness, freedom and individual sovereignty at its core. And, as the past year has shown, many brilliant people are laboring tirelessly to make this dream a reality.”

Major Decentralization Advances Are in the Works
The Coindesk article points out that movement toward decentralized storage and databases has been fast and furious, and includes an extensive list of developments. Even changes to how the Domain Name System (DNS) functions are in the works. Why decentralize the DNS? As noted in the article:2

“Within the current system, the bottom line is you can be erased from the Internet at any moment, for any reason, by anyone with enough power. Decentralized DNS makes it virtually impossible for authorities to shut down access to the web and gives individuals real ownership over their digital identities, communication channels and means of commerce.”

One decentralized DNS service is UnstoppableDomains.com, which uses blockchain technology. I recognized this early last year, which is why we purchased the mercola.crypto domain that we hope to launch later this year.
Additionally, I am currently in the process of connecting with the founder of Signal, Moxie Marlinspike, probably the best encrypted private communications platform out there, to strategize about how to decentralize a social platform like Parler.
Affirming the validity of this approach, one of my favorite crypto analysts that I subscribe to is Anthony Pompliano. In a January 11, 2021, blog post,3 he points out that literally everything for the decentralized web must be rebuilt.

“You can’t simply rely on Amazon’s AWS. You have to leverage Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and self-hosting in combination with each other to drastically improve the resiliency of what you’re building,” he says.
“Private companies can do whatever they want. And they are reminding us of that. But in doing so, they are also reminding millions of people that there can be a better world. A world where no single person or organization gets to dictate what information we receive.

No single person or organization gets to choose who gets amplified and who gets silenced. The power of choice was stripped from the user and is now being monopolized by the platform creators … The beloved tech giants are becoming villains. This will lead to a rise in new challengers.

This is the circle of life in technology. If you can’t influence the status quo, just disrupt it. And I think that is exactly what we need at this point. We can leverage technology to take the power back from these monopolies and allow the user to choose who and what to consume.”
Parler Takedown Proves Necessity of Decentralization

Clearly, many others are in agreement that a decentralized web — one in which monopolies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube cannot rule with impunity — has become an urgent necessity.4 Alternatives cannot be created fast enough.
While tech giants have brushed off accusations of monopolizing services saying that they welcome competition, they have in recent days proven they will accept no such thing.
Case in point: In what appears to be a coordinated attack, Google, Apple and Amazon destroyed Parler, a main competitor to Twitter and Facebook, literally overnight by yanking it from their app stores and web hosting service.5,6,7,8
January 10, 2021, Parler CEO John Matze announced the company had been “dropped by virtually all of its business alliances after Amazon, Apple and Google ended their agreements … Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day.”9 As reported by the St. Louis Discussing the recent social media purge and the destruction of Parler, Glenn Greenwald writes:10

“So much of this liberal support for the attempted destruction of Parler is based in utter ignorance about that platform, and about basic principles of free speech … The platform’s design is intended to foster privacy and free speech, not a particular ideology.

They minimize the amount of data they collect on users to prevent advertiser monetization or algorithmic targeting. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, they do not assess a user’s preferences in order to decide what they should see …

Of course large numbers of Trump supporters ended up on Parler. That’s not because Parler is a pro-Trump outlet, but because those are among the people who were censored by the tech monopolies or who were angered enough by that censorship to seek refuge elsewhere.

It is true that one can find postings on Parler that explicitly advocate violence or are otherwise grotesque. But that is even more true of Facebook, Google-owned YouTube, and Twitter.”

Greenwald is one of my absolute favorite journalists. His brilliant and deep insights into the progressive tyrannical destruction that is occurring is an important perspective that will open your eyes to what is happening to our world.
Glenn actually quit the publishing company he founded, The Intercept, because they censored him.11 This is a man of integrity, committed to the highest ethical principles. He started a substack newsletter to help fund his efforts and you can subscribe to it for $5/month.
Standards Not Applied to Big Tech Apply to Competition

The justification given by Google, Apple and Amazon for their takedown was that Parler had “the potential of spreading violent content” and had refused to censor its users over and above taking down posts that violate its stated terms of service.
However, can anyone with a straight face claim that violent content cannot and has not been disseminated via any other social media platforms or telecommunications services?
All communications services have the ability to carry this kind of information. It’s inevitable, seeing how bad actors will use one service or another to communicate ill intent with others. They’re hardly using carrier pigeons or paper bulletin boards anymore.
As reported by Vision Times,12 Apple told Parler it is “responsible for all the user generated content present on your service and for ensuring that this content meets ?App Store? requirements for the safety and protection of our users.” In response, Matze stated:13
“Apparently they believe Parler is responsible for ALL user generated content on Parler. Therefor [sic] by the same logic, Apple must be responsible for ALL actions taken by their phones.

Every car bomb, every illegal cell phone conversation, every illegal crime committed on an iPhone, Apple must also be responsible for,” adding that “Standards not applied to Twitter, Facebook or even Apple themselves, apply to Parler.”

Indeed, crimes occur on big tech platforms every day. The April 5, 2018, ABC News article14 “Mayhem and Murder: 10 Most Shocking Facebook Live Moments Ever” detailed some of the most stunning ones.

In 2012, The Guardian reported15 that social media-related crime reports had risen 780% in four years. Data from the British police showed 4,908 crimes in 2012 had been committed in which Facebook or Twitter was a factor. According to a June 4, 2012, article16 in Mail Online, 12,300 crime cases had been linked to Facebook, with a crime happening on the platform every 40 minutes.

News reports from 201417 and 201518 noted the number of crime cases linked to Facebook and Twitter was continuing to climb precipitously, including sexual offenses, harassment and outright death threats.

Of course, when we start talking about intelligence agencies’ use of big tech services the stakes get even higher. The CIA, for example, which has a history of mind control abuses and secret assassination programs,19 uses Amazon web services, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and IBM.20

Are these companies taking responsibility for atrocities committed by the CIA, such as its “deadly double tap” drone strikes in Pakistan that caused outrage in 2012?21 Is Amazon taking responsibility for the actions of DARPA, since it’s hosting DARPA and provides them with cloud services?22
Parler Refuses to Censor Constitutional Rights
Matze also pointed out that the allegation that Parler can or should be held responsible for the January 6, 2021, violence in Washington, D.C., is false for a number of reasons. First of all, Parler does not have a group feature that will allow people to organize. In fact, Facebook groups were used to plan that and other protests that turned violent.
Secondly, peaceful protests are protected under the U.S. Constitution, and therefore blocking the planning of such events would be unconstitutional. “Bad actors” turned what was a peaceful protest into a riot. Incidentally, the same happened during many protests held during 2020.
In response to the Parler ban, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is calling for a racketeering investigation into Big Tech, saying Amazon, Apple and Google’s suspension of the Twitter competitor is “clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.”23
Indeed, according to an October 2020 report24 by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google all have monopoly power and are using that power to rid themselves of competition.
The Great Social Media Purge

Then there’s the great social media purge, which began in earnest January 7 and 8, 2021, with the permanent ban of President Trump and a long list of other conservatives from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. According to some reports, Twitter suspended more than 70,000 accounts during its weekend purge.
Again, the primary excuse given was that these individuals may incite violence. Other justifications include posting “misleading information about the election outcome” or statements suggesting there was election fraud.25 Even signed witness affidavits and live testimony have been censored since election day.26 As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:27
“In the Trump tweets cited by Twitter, Trump stated that he will not be attending the inauguration and referred to his supporters as ‘American Patriots,’ saying they will have ‘a GIANT VOICE long into the future.’

Twitter said these statements ‘are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so’ …

In a lengthy monologue,28 Zuckerberg claims: ‘[Trump’s] decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the U.S. and around the world.

However, Zuckerberg’s statement seems to deviate from reality. In an increasingly hard-to-find video29 by Trump on the day of the Electoral College count, the outgoing president asked both his supporters and the rioters to be peaceful:

‘We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order and we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt.'”

Contrast this scenario with all the violence and property destruction that was done by the Black Lives Matter movement this past summer and was clearly orchestrated over the Google, Apple and Twitter platforms. The violence and damage was exponentially worse, yet not a word of censoring these platforms was ever mentioned.
Gab Strikes Back Against ‘Mockingbird Media Complex’

The Gab social network also claims to be under coordinated attack. According to Gab CEO Andrew Torba, there’s been a suspicious rise in violent content on the site that doesn’t appear to be generated by real users. In a January 8, 2021, statement, Torba said:30

“Over the past several weeks I have been openly warning the Gab community to be on the lookout for fedposters and threats or encouragement of violence on Gab.

This PSYOP campaign started back in early December with newly created accounts popping up out of nowhere and making threats of violence. We have zero tolerance for this behavior and it is absolutely not free speech.

This has always been our policy. We have thousands of volunteers, customers, and longtime community members who helped us stomp out this PSYOP campaign over the past several weeks and expose it. After this week, it’s clear why this PSYOP was started: to take down alt-tech platforms and frame them for the January 6th protests that ended with the police killing an unarmed woman.

Almost instantly after police allowed protestors into the Capitol the New York Times started a baseless narrative that this protest was organized on alt-tech sites, and in particular on Gab, without offering any proof, screenshots, usernames, or evidence to back these baseless claims.

I’ve recorded a video highlighting how this all played out. I hope you’ll take some time to watch it to learn how the CIA Mockingbird Media complex operates. The way we fight back is with truth and by speaking truth to their power, which is quickly fading.”

Antiwar Conservative Banned
While “incitement of violence” is being used as the justification for banning social media accounts, Facebook’s suspension of Dr. Ron Paul, a former Republican congressman for Texas and presidential candidate in 2011, punctures that narrative. He’s one of the most peaceful antiwar personalities out there.
Make no mistake. Eventually, all will be targeted. Acceptable speech will continue to narrow until everyone has something to lose by opening their mouth and expressing an opinion.
However, he’s also an outspoken defender of civil liberties and health freedom. In September 2020, he interviewed me for his Liberty Report, discussing strategies to boost your immune system.31 Paul also promotes sound money and exposes political and financial corruption, so perhaps this is where the problem lies. In a January 11, 2021, Twitter post, Paul noted:32

“With no explanation other than ‘repeatedly going against our community standards,’ Facebook has blocked me from managing my page. Never have we received notice of violating community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post identified. The only thing we posted to Facebook today was my weekly ‘Texas Straight Talk’ column, which I have published every week since 1976.”

The article in question apparently discussed “shocking increase in censorship on social media,” though,33 which may have tripped Facebook’s blocking apparatus. Discussing the incident in an article on RonPaulInstitute.org, Jonathan Turley writes:34
“Paul, a libertarian leader and former presidential candidate, has been an outspoken critic of foreign wars and an advocate for civil liberties for decades … His son, United States Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tweeted, ‘Facebook now considers advocating for liberty to be sedition. Where will it end?’

Even before the riot, Democrats were calling for blacklists and retaliation against anyone deemed to be ‘complicit’ with the Trump Administration.

We have been discussing the rising threats against Trump supporters, lawyers, and officials in recent weeks from Democratic members are calling for blacklists to the Lincoln Project leading a national effort to harass and abuse any lawyers representing the Republican Party or President Trump.

Others are calling for banning those ‘complicit’ from college campuses while still others are demanding a ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ to ‘hold Trump and his enablers accountable for the crimes they have committed.’

Daily Beast editor-at-large Rick Wilson has added his own call for ‘humiliation,’ ‘incarceration’ and even ritualistic suicides for Trump supporters in an unhinged, vulgar column … Also, a top Forbes editor Randall Lane warned any company that they will be investigated if they hire any former Trump officials.

The riots are being used as a license to roll back on free speech and retaliate against conservatives. In the meantime, the silence of academics and many in the media is deafening …

The move against Paul, a long champion of free speech, shows how raw and comprehensive this crackdown has become … It is like having a state media without state control … As we have seen in Europe, such censorship becomes an insatiable appetite for greater and greater speech control.”

In the video35 featured at the top of this article, Paul discusses the dangers of big tech censorship. Unfortunately, he falls short on solutions in that video. In my view, one key strategy that we must focus on is to uphold the Constitution. If you want to live in a free society, you must first understand what a free society is, so educate yourself about your Constitutional rights. As noted by Greenwald:36

“On Facebook and Twitter, one finds official accounts from the most repressive and violent regimes on earth, including Saudi Arabia, and pages devoted to propaganda on behalf of the Egyptian regime. Does anyone think these tech giants have a genuine concern about violence and extremism?”

What’s Behind the Push for Censorship?

According to Big Tech, free speech is “dangerous.” I guess a follow-up question to such a statement would be: “To whom?” As mentioned earlier, agencies such as DARPA are using the online services of private companies, and according to independent journalist Whitney Webb,37 the COVID-19 pandemic has given “a dangerous boost to DARPA’s darkest agenda.”

“Given this foreknowledge and the numerous simulations conducted in the United States last year regarding global viral pandemic outbreaks, at least six of varying scope and size, it has often been asked — Why did the government not act or prepare if an imminent global pandemic and the shortcomings of any response to such an event were known?” Webb writes.38
“Though the answer to this question has frequently been written off as mere ‘incompetence’ in mainstream media circles, it is worth entertaining the possibility that a crisis was allowed to unfold. Why would the intelligence community or another faction of the U.S. government knowingly allow a crisis such as this to occur?

The answer is clear if one looks at history, as times of crisis have often been used by the U.S. government to implement policies that would normally be rejected by the American public, ranging from censorship of the press to mass surveillance networks.”

She goes on to review some of these historical events, and some of the DARPA-developed technologies that are now likely to come into play, from DNA and RNA vaccines to implantable biosensors and nanoplatforms said to detect disease.

If history is our guide, could the clamp-down on free speech be part of a bigger control and manipulation agenda — one that is directed not toward foreign enemies but the local population?

Might it be part of the Great Reset agenda, with its transhumanist bend? As explained by Webb in her article, DARPA has a transhumanist vision for the military, so why not for the general population? Especially seeing how its “health based” biotechnologies end up meshing so seamlessly with new surveillance technologies.

I believe there may be some truth in that. Most certainly, big tech and social media monopolies are playing a central role in the social engineering currently taking place to pave the way for the technocratic “reset” of the global economy and way of life. That plan simply cannot occur without a sufficient number of the population being onboard with authoritarian conduct.

Greenwald has been a longstanding progressive and no fan of the Republican party, yet he notes that Silicon Valley giants may also be catering to the Democratic party in the hopes they won’t be regulated.

“The Democrats are about to control the Executive Branch and both houses of Congress, leaving Silicon Valley giants eager to please them by silencing their adversaries,” Greenwald writes.39

“This corrupt motive was made expressly clear by long-time Clinton operative Jennifer Palmieri: ‘It has not escaped my attention that the day social media companies decided there actually IS more they could do to police Trump’s destructive behavior was the same day they learned Democrats would chair all the congressional committees that oversee them.'”
Just Wait — You’re Next
While many appear to be caught up in the schadenfreude of the moment, basking in the perceived power of cancel culture, make no mistake — the censorship will not be limited to conservatives. Years ago, I warned that online censorship would not end at alternative health sites like mine, and guess what? It didn’t. Then I warned it would not stop at questioning vaccine safety, and of course, it didn’t.

In 2020, discussions about certain medical treatments for COVID-19, the sensibility of mask wearing and the origin of the virus all became targets for massive censoring and deplatforming. Next came bans on criticism against protests that frequently turned violent. Now one political party is being silenced en masse.

Make no mistake. Eventually, all will be targeted. Acceptable speech will continue to narrow until everyone has something to lose by opening their mouth and expressing an opinion. It’s inevitable, which is why supporting censorship is so ill advised.
As noted by Greenwald:40

“The liberal New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg pronounced herself ‘disturbed by just how awesome [tech giants’] power is’ and added that ‘it’s dangerous to have a handful of callow young tech titans in charge of who has a megaphone and who does not.’

She nonetheless praised these ‘young tech titans’ for using their ‘dangerous’ power to ban Trump and destroy Parler. In other words, liberals like Goldberg are concerned only that Silicon Valley censorship powers might one day be used against people like them, but are perfectly happy as long as it is their adversaries being deplatformed and silenced …

That is because the dominant strain of American liberalism is not economic socialism but political authoritarianism. Liberals now want to use the force of corporate power to silence those with different ideologies.

They are eager for tech monopolies not just to ban accounts they dislike but to remove entire platforms from the internet. They want to imprison people they believe helped their party lose elections, such as Julian Assange, even if it means creating precedents to criminalize journalism.

World leaders have vocally condemned the power Silicon Valley has amassed to police political discourse, and were particularly indignant over the banning of the U.S. President … Even the ACLU — which has rapidly transformed from a civil liberties organization into a liberal activist group … found the assertion of Silicon Valley’s power to destroy Parler deeply alarming …

Yet American liberals swoon for this authoritarianism. And they are now calling for the use of the most repressive War on Terror measures against their domestic opponents. On Tuesday, House Homeland Security Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) urged that GOP Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley ‘be put on the no-fly list’ …

No authoritarians believe they are authoritarians. No matter how repressive are the measures they support — censorship, monopoly power, no-fly lists for American citizens without due process — they tell themselves that those they are silencing and attacking are so evil … that anything done against them is noble and benevolent, not despotic and repressive.

That is how American liberals currently think, as they fortify the control of Silicon Valley monopolies over our political lives, exemplified by the overnight destruction of a new and popular competitor.”
Take Control of Your Online Presence
Censorship is never directed to specific groups, eventually it is applied to anything deemed threatening to the ruling class.  So, while you wait for a decentralized, censorship-free internet, what can you do to protect your online privacy and your right to free speech? Here are a few suggestions:

Switch from Facebook and Twitter to free-speech alternatives41 such as Gab, MeWe, Minds (and Parler if they manage to come back).

Switch from YouTube to uncensored alternatives42 such as Bitchute, Brighteon, Banned.video and Thinkspot.

Download the Signal or Telegram app to encrypt your text messages. Telegram also allows you to subscribe to channels (read-only messages are sent to your phone from any channel you subscribe. This feature is starting to be increasingly used by individuals who have been banned on other social media platforms).

Use a VPN on your desktop, laptop and mobile devices to preserve your privacy.

For content creators and alternative news sources that no longer have a social media presence due to censoring, subscribe to their newsletter if available, and/or mark their website in your favorites and check back on a regular basis.

Boycott Google by avoiding any and all Google products:

Stop using Google search engines. Alternatives include DuckDuckGo43 and SwissCows.
Uninstall Google Chrome and use Brave instead, available for all computers and mobile devices.44 From a security perspective, Brave is far superior to Chrome and offers a free VPN service (virtual private network) to further preserve your privacy.
Switch to a non-Google email service such as ProtonMail,45 an encrypted email service based in Switzerland.
Stop using Google docs. Digital Trends has published an article suggesting a number of alternatives.46
Don’t use Google Home devices. These devices record everything that occurs in your home, both speech and sounds such as brushing your teeth and boiling water, even when they appear to be inactive, and send that information back to Google. Android phones are also always listening and recording, as are Google’s home thermostat Nest, and Amazon’s Alexa.
Ditch Fitbit, as it was recently purchased by Google and will provide them with all your physiological information and activity levels, in addition to everything else that Google already has on you.
If you’re a high school student, do not convert the Google accounts you created as a student into personal accounts.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/22/big-tech-censorship.aspx

Questions about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 continue to swirl as Chinese officials delete some 300 coronavirus studies, including all of the papers published by Shi Zhengli, the bat coronavirus researcher at the center of this drama. As reported by the Daily Mail, January 9, 2021:1

“The Chinese government is facing fresh accusations of a cover-up after officials deleted crucial online data about the laboratory suspected of being the source of COVID-19 … Hundreds of pages of information relating to studies carried out by the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology have been wiped.
Details of more than 300 studies, including many investigating diseases that pass from animals to humans, published online by the state-run National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) are no longer available. The deletion of key evidence has reignited fears that China is trying to whitewash the investigation into the origins of the virus.”

The data deletion came on the heels of President Xi Jinping’s decision to block World Health Organization investigators from entering China. State media have also reportedly published “hundreds of stories” claiming SARS-CoV-2 did not originate in Wuhan.
Mounting Evidence Points to Lab Leak

Meanwhile, evidence that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a lab in China continues to mount — this according to U.S. deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger.2 According to a January 2, 2021, Mail Online article:3

“Pottinger said that the latest intelligence points to the virus leaking from the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology … ‘There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus.’
He claimed the pathogen may have escaped through a ‘leak or an accident,’ adding: ‘Even establishment figures in Beijing have openly dismissed the wet market story.’ The comments … were made during a Zoom conference with MPs on China …
‘MPs around the world have a moral role to play in exposing the WHO investigation as a Potemkin exercise,’ Mr. Pottinger told the parliamentarians, in reference to the fake villages created in the Crimea in the 18th Century, intended to convince the visiting Russian Empress Catherine the Great that the region was in good health.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory Party leader who attended the meeting, said Mr. Pottinger’s comments represented a ‘stiffening’ of the U.S. position on the theory that the virus came from a leak at the laboratory …”

According to the Daily Mail, the WHO — already accused of being too accommodating to China — has raised additional controversy with its decision to not include the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in its investigation, despite the fact that the WIV is the lab with the highest biosecurity in China and the most likely source.4
Conflicts of Interest Taint Investigations Into Origin

The WHO is also under critique for its decision to include Peter Daszak, Ph.D., in its investigative committee.5 Daszak is the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on pandemic prevention that has worked closely with the WIV. When SARS-CoV-2 first emerged in Wuhan, the EcoHealth Alliance was actually providing funding to the WIV to collect and study novel bat coronaviruses.
Daszak is also heading up a second commission to investigate the origin of the virus, The Lancet COVID-19 commission,6 despite having openly and repeatedly dismissed the possibility of the pandemic being the result of a lab leak.7
Emails released through freedom of information requests have shown Daszak recruited some of the world’s top scientists to counter claims of a possible lab leak. ~ Daily Mail
Importantly, correspondence obtained by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) show Daszak played a central role in the plot to obscure the lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 from the very beginning by crafting a scientific statement condemning such inquiries as “conspiracy theory.”8,9 This manufactured “consensus” was then relied on by the media to counter anyone presenting theories and evidence to the contrary.
Critics Call on Daszak to Step Down

Daszak’s blatant conflicts of interest were highlighted in a second January 9, 2021, Daily Mail article.10 “How can Peter Daszak, a British scientist who helped fund controversial experiments on coronaviruses by China’s Batwoman, be part of WHO’s team investigating the original source of the outbreak?” the Daily Mail asked. According to the article, Daszak is now “facing calls to step down” from both investigative committees. As reported by the Daily Mail:11

“‘Peter Daszak has conflicts of interest that unequivocally disqualify him from being part of an investigation of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,’ said Richard Ebright, bio-security expert and professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
‘He was the contractor responsible for funding of high-risk research on SARS-related bat coronaviruses at Wuhan Institute of Virology and a collaborator on this research.’
The pugnacious scientist … spent much of the past year trying to counter claims of a possible laboratory leak while defending his friend Shi Zhengli, the Wuhan scientist known as Batwoman for her virus-hunting trips in caves. ‘Ignore the conspiracy theories: scientists know COVID-19 wasn’t created in a lab,’ ran the headline to one typical article he wrote in The Guardian.
But other scientists say there is no firm evidence at this stage to back Daszak’s insistence that COVID-19 crossed from animals to humans via natural transmission …
Emails released through freedom of information requests have shown Daszak recruited some of the world’s top scientists to counter claims of a possible lab leak with publication of a landmark collective letter to The Lancet early last year.
He drafted their statement attacking ‘conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin’ and then persuaded 26 other prominent scientists to back it.
He suggested the letter should not be identifiable as ‘coming from any one organization or person.’ The signatories include six of the 12-strong Lancet team investigating the cause of the outbreak.”

Daszak Has Previously Warned About Lab Escape Dangers
Strangely enough, according to the Daily Mail,12 in an October 2015 article in the journal Nature, Daszak actually warned a global pandemic might occur from a laboratory incident and that “the risks were greater with the sort of virus manipulation research being carried out in Wuhan.”
Earlier that year, he was also a key speaker at a National Academies of Science seminar on reducing risk from emerging infectious diseases. Among the material Daszak presented at that meeting was a paper titled, “Assessing Coronavirus Threats,” which included an examination of the “spillover potential” from “genetic and experimental studies” on viruses.
In particular, he highlighted the danger of experimenting on “humanized mice,” meaning lab mice that have been genetically altered to carry human genes, cells or tissues.
Such concerns were apparently swept under the rug, because January 2, 2020, Daszak sent out a tweet announcing he’d successfully isolated SARS coronaviruses “that bind to human cells in the lab,” and that the work of other scientists show some of these viruses have pandemic potential as they can infect humanized mice.13

“Another tweet two months earlier talked about ‘great progress’ with SARS-related coronaviruses from bats through identifying new strains, finding ones that bind to human cells and ‘using recombinant viruses/humanized mice to see SARS-like signs and showing some don’t respond to vaccines,’” the Daily Mail writes, adding:14
“Daszak also told a podcast that bat coronaviruses could be manipulated in a lab ‘pretty easily,’ explaining how their spike proteins — which bind to human receptors in cells — drive the risk of transmission from animals to humans. ‘You can get the [genetic] sequence, build the protein, insert it into the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab,’ he said succinctly.”

Is SARS-CoV-2 the Result of Passage Through Transgenic Mice?
Might SARS-CoV-2 be the result of close ancestor viruses being passed through transgenic mice equipped with human ACE2 receptors? This is one of the latest hypotheses raised in recent weeks.15
As reported by The Jackson Laboratory,16 structural differences between the mouse ACE2 and the human ACE2 proteins make regular lab mice unsuitable for research relating to SARS-CoV-2, as the virus cannot readily infect them. However, there are transgenic mice that express human ACE2.
The first of these transgenic mice, known as K18-hACE2, was developed in 2007. Other transgenic mice with human ACE2 have been created since then. At least two recent studies have shown that transgenic mice with human ACE2 are easily infected and killed by SARS-CoV-2:

• The first, published in the July 8, 2020, issue of Cell Host & Microbe found transgenic mice with human ACE2 of all ages had far higher viral loads in the lungs, trachea and brain than wild-type mice.

While none died, older transgenic mice infected with SARS-CoV-2 came down with pneumonia and had elevated cytokines. The virus was found to produce “productive infection” both via intranasal and intragastric infection.17

• The second, published in the July 9, 2020, issue of the journal Cell found SARS-CoV-2 infected HFH4-hACE2 transgenic mice, causing death. The infection was primarily localized to the lungs, causing interstitial pneumonia similar to that seen in COVID-19 patients. Low levels of viral RNA were also found in the eyes, heart and brain in a small number of animals.18

Zhengli Experimented on Humanized Mice
In response19 to questions for a July 31, 2020 Science article, WIV researcher Zhengli stated that:20,21

“We performed in vivo experiments in transgenic (human ACE2 expressing) mice and civets in 2018 and 2019 in the Institute’s biosafety laboratory. The viruses we used were bat SARSr-CoV close to SARS-CoV … The results suggested that bat SARSr-CoV can directly infect civets and can also infect mice with human ACE2 receptors. Yet it showed low pathogenicity in mice and no pathogenicity in civets.”

So, Zhengli admits experiments were done on transgenic mice using a bat-derived SARS-related coronavirus — which closely resembles SARS-CoV — as recently as 2018 and 2019. (SARS-CoV is the virus responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), that broke out in 2003.)

Could this be the missing intermediate species that explains why SARS-CoV-2 is so well-adapted to infecting humans via the ACE2 receptor? As reported by Taipei News, January 11, 2021:22

“The director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at WIV, Shi Zhengli … since 2007 has been researching how spike proteins in natural and chimeric SARS-like coronaviruses bind to the ACE2 receptors in the cells of humans, bats, and other animals.
That year, she created a number of chimeras by inserting different segments of the SARS-CoV S spike protein into that of a bat virus (SL-CoV S) which was used as a backbone. The conclusion of Shi’s team was that a minimal insert region (amino acids 310 to 518) was enough to ‘convert the SL-CoV S from non-ACE2 binding to human ACE2 binding.’
In other words, as far back as 2007, the lab had discovered how to convert a virus that only infected bats into one that could infect humans … In 2019, just before the known start of the pandemic, [assistant researcher] Hu [Ben] began his work on a project titled ‘Pathogenicity of 2 new bat SARS-related covs to transgenic mice expressing human ACE2.’
According to [researcher Billy] Bostickson [a pseudonym], ‘This research involved ‘novel’ bat coronaviruses inoculated into immuno-suppressed mice with humanized features, such as hACE2, and possibly humanized lungs, bone marrow, etc…’
He added that ‘Such experiments were a recipe for disaster, as we know.’ No information about this research has been released to the public since the start of the pandemic, including data on the eight chimeric viruses the WIV had been infecting the mice with.
In fact, all of the institute’s databases have been offline since the start of the pandemic for alleged ‘cybersecurity issues,’ including 100 unpublished sequences of bat betacoronaviruses, which need to be sequenced by international scientists, according to Bostickson.”

Bostickson is a researcher with the Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19 (DRASTIC). DRASTIC has created a petition23 to the WHO COVID-19 International Investigation Team, asking for answers to 50 key questions about the outbreak. They’re also requesting access to the currently missing WIV database and lab records spanning two decades.
The Qingdao Outbreak
In the featured video above, Dr. John Campbell reviews the latest updates on the investigation into the origin of the pandemic. This includes findings from an investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak in Qingdao that occurred in October 2020.24

According to Wu Zunyou, a researcher with the Chinese equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the outbreak was traced back to imported frozen cod.

According to Wu, the virus can infect people after extended periods of deep freeze, which Campbell agrees is logical from a virological perspective. However, while being a weak argument, to say the least, the Chinese are using this finding as evidence that the virus did not originate in Wuhan but, rather, was imported from overseas.

Campbell goes on to review some of the background of the WIV, which is located 11 miles from the open market initially identified as “ground zero” for the COVID-19 outbreak. It’s an interesting coincidence, and since even the Chinese authorities have now dismissed the market as being the source, the possibility of the virus originating in WIV seems all the more plausible.

Importantly, the WIV specializes in the study of bat-borne viruses. WIV has also collaborated with U.S. researchers, and has received study grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (some of it being funneled through the EcoHealth Alliance).

What’s more, in 2018, U.S. state department officials who had inspected the lab warned there were safety weaknesses that might facilitate the emergence of a SARS-like pandemic,25 which is precisely what we’ve been dealing with for the past year.
Can We Get to the Truth?
Whether either of the two investigative commissions will actually unearth the truth about SARS-CoV-2’s origin or simply bury it deeper remains to be seen, but based on key members’ clear conflicts of interests, it doesn’t look promising.
Daszak — who is part of both of these investigations — has every reason to make sure that a) SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t get traced back to the WIV, seeing how he’s been working with them, and b) the virus is declared a natural occurrence, since his own livelihood as a scientist would otherwise be threatened.
Still, as noted by Campbell, we must try to get to the bottom of where SARS-CoV-2 came from, even if efforts to obfuscate the truth are at work. It’s really crucial if we are to prevent a similar pandemic to erupt in the future. As noted by the National Review:26

“If it originated from a person eating bat or pangolin at a wet market, then we need to take steps to ensure that bat and pangolin consumption and trade stops everywhere in the world …
Bat guano is used as fertilizer in many countries, and that guano can be full of viruses … If this is the source of the virus, we need to get people to stop going into caves and using the guano as fertilizer …
In a strange way, the ‘lab accident’ scenario is one of the most reassuring explanations. It means that if we want to ensure we never experience this again, we simply need to get every lab in the world working on contagious viruses to ensure 100% compliance with safety protocols, all the time.” 

Historical facts tell us accidental exposures and releases have already happened, and we only have our lucky stars to thank that none have turned into pandemics taking the lives of millions.

From my perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic is a clarion call to the research community and the public alike. Over the past year, we’ve seen a relatively nonlethal virus sweep the globe causing unprecedented damage in myriad ways.

By continuing gain-of-function research on lethal pathogens, we may be sealing our own fate. Considering safety breaches at these labs number in the hundreds,27,28,29,30 it’s only a matter of time before something really nasty gets out. The question is, will we make the right choice and ban this kind of research before it’s too late?
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/23/peter-daszak-coronavirus-origin.aspx

Carrots (Daucus carota) are root vegetables and one of the most popular food ingredients used worldwide. Researchers have found this popular vegetable may hold one key in the fight against COVID-19.1
Historians believe the history of the carrot is somewhat obscured since, initially, carrots and parsnips were used interchangeably and it has been difficult to identify when wild carrots were first cultivated.2
It is believed they originated in Iran and Afghanistan and were popular in ancient Egypt, where the most-used carrot was believed to be purple. English settlers brought the modern-day carrot to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1609, where they spread to South America and then made the jump to Australia.
Wild carrots are still indigenous to Europe, North Africa and Western Asia and appear in temperate regions around the world.3 The modern carrot appeared in the 17th century after selective breeding reduced the wooden core and increased the sweetness.4 But it was only after World War I that carrots became popular in the U.S.
China leads the market for turnips and carrots combined, producing 48.2% of world sales for the two veggies.5 Global production in 2019 was 44.7 million metric tons and the market is expected to continue to grow at 3.4% through 2025. The major challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the impact on the supply chain, which has increased direct farm-to-consumer sales and delayed shipping.
Some Components of Carrots Influence SARS-CoV-2 Proteins

Many scientists have begun studying the relationship between nutrition, your immune system and COVID-19 infection. Since carrots are consumed around the world, scientists at a private institution in Mexico developed a study in which they analyzed the effect retinol RTN from carrots has on amino acids that make up SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.6
Preformed vitamin A, called retinol, comes only from animal products such as buttercream, cod liver oil, eggs and liver.7 However, carrots contain beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in a range of 3-to-1 or 28-to-1, depending on factors such as thyroid function and zinc levels.
Researchers used the HyperChem molecular modeling software to evaluate electron transfer coefficients of the nutritional compounds found in carrots and the SARS-CoV-2 amino acids. What they found was the interaction between carrot RTN and the virus amino acids was the most stable, concluding that the results of their analysis “may indicate a recommendation to increase carrot consumption to mitigate the effects of COVID-19.”8
They point out that carrots are a rich source of vitamins C and A, as well as energy, fiber, calcium and beta-carotene. In the past researchers have demonstrated carrots have anti-inflammatory properties, anticancer activity and antioxidant activity by scavenging free radicals, which is essential for your immune system.
Their present work looked at the interaction between the amino acids in the COVID-19 coronavirus and multiple components found in carrots. Using chemical quantum analysis, they found RTN was the most stable substance and functioned as an antioxidant agent.
The data showed RTN, with other chemical compounds found in carrots, worked together to fight SARS-CoV-2. Interestingly, when they compared the power of RTN against commonly used allopathic medicines used for COVID-19, including remdesivir, ivermectin, aspirin and favipiravir, the natural substances in carrots appeared to be more powerful.9
Retinoids and Carotenoids Support Your Immune Health

While beta-carotene-rich vegetables, such as carrots, are helpful, you absorb more vitamin A from animal-based products. However, John Stolarczyk, from the World Carrot Museum, points out it’s easier to get people to eat carrots than it is to eat liver or cod liver oil:10

“Almost everyone, especially kids, likes carrots, whereas liver is an acquired taste. Carrots are very cheap, (easily stored) and attractively displayed in most stores. Liver looks dreadful.”

For nearly 100 years, scientists have understood that vitamin A is an essential component in your body’s ability to resist infectious disease.11 However, it is only recently that researchers have begun to understand the mechanism vitamin A uses to regulate cell- and humoral-mediated immunity.
This includes the discovery that retinoic acid plays an important role in cell regulation on immunity.12 Retinoic acid helps balance TH17 and T cell regulatory responses, as well as having a therapeutic role in autoimmune diseases. Researchers have found that retinoic deficiency plays an important role in the development of a broad range of autoimmune diseases.13
Your skin is an important part of your immune health, functioning as the front line of defense against bacteria and viruses and other pathogens. Scientists have known that vitamin A plays a unique and vital role in the formation and maturation of epithelial cells.14,15 But this doesn’t happen on just the outside of your body.
Vitamin A also plays an integral role in the production of the mucus layer that lines your respiratory and intestinal tracts and plays a primary role in promoting the secretion of mucin. This is a glycoprotein that plays a central role in limiting infectious disease and in adaptive immunity.16
Researchers have also identified the role it plays in the defense of your oral mucosa and improving the integrity of your intestinal mucosa. In addition to being important to protect your immune system, researchers, using animal models, have found a vitamin A deficiency (VitAD) can result in a:17

“… defect in both T cell-mediated and antibody-dependent immune responses. VitAD can also inhibit the normal apoptosis process of bone marrow cells, which leads to an increased number of myeloid cells in the bone marrow, spleen, and peripheral blood, indicating that VitA is involved in the regulation of homeostasis of bone marrow.”

Beta-Carotene May Help Promote Cholesterol Homeostasis

Cholesterol and beta-carotene have considerable overlapping properties, including transportation facilitated by lipoproteins and the body’s use as precursors for hormones.18 While cholesterol and beta-carotene are present in atherosclerotic plaque lesions, elevated concentrations of beta-carotene are associated with a lower incidence of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
In a study published in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers believe they have shed new light on the interaction between beta-carotene and cholesterol metabolism that has been called a “potential game-changer.”19
After a preclinical study in which they compare the effects of a 10-day diet high in beta-carotene on the plasma cholesterol of beta-carotene oxygenase 1 (BCO1) deficient mice, the research team aimed at determining whether the same BCO1 locus could affect serum cholesterol concentrations in humans.
They evaluated a cohort of college applicants of Mexican ethnicity in the Multidisciplinary Investigation on Genetics, Obesity, And Social Environment. BCO1 is the enzyme that converts beta-carotene into vitamin A.20
Analysis of the animal study showed that the mice without BCO1 had elevated plasma level concentrations of beta-carotene as they could not convert it to vitamin A.21 The higher concentrations were associated with an increase in cholesterol as compared to the wild type mice control, which converted beta-carotene to vitamin A and had lower levels of cholesterol.
Cholesterol changes occurred almost exclusively in non-HDL cholesterol.22 One commentator points out many are deficient in beta-carotene and speculates:23

“… it might be predictable that the observed effect increases with age and that the cholesterol-lowering effect of ?-carotene is enhanced on diets rich in carotenoids.

Notably, previous studies linked low vitamin A blood concentrations to coronary events such as myocardial infarction. ?-Carotene is a major source of vitamin A, but as recently noted by a conference elucidating the current status of the ?-carotene research field, dietary intake is below recommended concentrations of <3 mg/d in many populations.” More Health Benefits of Carrots and Seed Extract The flavonoids, vitamins, minerals and carotenoids in carrots all contribute to numerous other health benefits. Data have demonstrated the compounds found in carrots have properties that lower the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and cancer.24 They also are known for hepatoprotective, renal protective and anti-inflammatory properties. When you develop a habit of including carrots in your daily routine, you enjoy some important health benefits. • Cancer — Data show smokers who eat carrots more than once weekly have a lower risk of lung cancer,25 and a beta-carotene rich diet may help protect against prostate cancer26 and colon cancer,27 and to reduce the risk of gastric cancer.28 Carrots also contain falcarinol, a natural toxin they use against fungal disease, which may stimulate cancer-fighting mechanisms in your body and has demonstrated the ability to reduce the risk of tumors in rats.29 • Vision — Carrots have long been associated with good eyesight. Vitamin A deficiency can speed the deterioration of your eyes’ photoreceptors leading to vision problems and night blindness.30 Carrots can also reduce your risk of age-related macular degeneration31 and cataracts.32 Both are eye diseases that get worse over time and may lead to blindness. Additionally, data have shown that women can reduce their risk of glaucoma by 64% when they eat more than two servings of carrots per week.33 • Metabolic syndrome — Carrots contain beta-carotene and lycopene, both of which have been associated with lower incidence of metabolic syndrome in middle-aged and elderly men.34 Metabolic syndrome is associated with Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. • Brain health — Data show middle-aged men and women who eat a high number of root vegetables, such as carrots, show a reduction in cognitive decline.35 Carrot extract has also demonstrated a positive effect on the management of cognitive dysfunction.36 • Antiaging effect — Carrots are replete with antioxidants that help reduce the damage caused by free radicals.37 Carrot seeds also have anti-inflammatory properties, which are significant even when compared against drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen and Naproxen.38 Vegetables that are rich in beta-carotene also help prevent premature skin aging. Data also show people with scleroderma, a disorder of connective tissue, had low levels of beta-carotene.39 Choose Your Carrots Carefully Demand for baby carrots in the U.S. continues to rise as more people are choosing them for snacks over junk foods.40 Baby carrots are made from full-length carrots that are peeled and shaped. Bolthouse Farms and Grimmway Farms are the two leading producers that have focused on advertising campaigns and packaging to improve snack food sales. However, part of the process of making baby carrots includes a chlorine bath. Grimmway Farms reports they use chlorine on all their baby carrots to prevent food poisoning.41 Chlorine can also be used to extend the shelf life of baby carrots. Buffing and processing increase the rate at which the carrots begin to deteriorate and develop a white blush on the exterior as the vegetable begins drying out.42 Although the amount of chlorine in each individual baby carrot is minute, it has an additive value to your overall toxic burden. Additionally, it isn't the chlorine that causes most problems but, rather, the disinfection byproducts produced when the chlorine interacts with organic matter.43 In this case, the term organic means a carbon-based compound. Disinfection byproducts are far more toxic than chlorine and are produced in all baby carrots, whether toxic pesticides were used in the growing process or not. Long-term exposure includes excessive free radical formation, which accelerates aging and vulnerability to genetic mutation and cancer. Scientists are only beginning to understand the long and short-term impact of chlorine base chemicals. Your healthiest option is to grow your own or buy whole, unprocessed, ideally organic carrots and then wash, peel and cut them yourself. Carrots can stay fresh in the coolest part of your refrigerator for about two weeks when they are wrapped in a paper towel or placed in a sealed bag. Avoid storing them near apples, pears or potatoes since the ethylene gas released from these vegetables and fruit can create a bitter flavor to your carrots.44 If your carrots still have green tops, remove those before storing in the refrigerator since the carrots will wilt faster. However, carrot tops are nutritious and can easily be added to fresh vegetable juice or your salad.Warning!This recommendation on carrots is general and I don't want you to believe that carrots should be used to treat COVID. It is important to understand that many are unable to effectively convert the carotenoids to the active form retinol that improves immune function. So if you or anyone you know has an active infection it is FAR better to use retinol. A good form would be emulsified vitamin A. Don't eat a pound of carrots and think that it will help you fight COVID as it likely won't. You need the real vitamin A.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/23/can-carrots-help-combat-covid.aspx

In this interview, Rodney Dietert, Professor Emeritus of immunotoxicology at Cornell University, reviews the interrelationship between your immune system and your gut microbiome.
He’s spent several decades researching and teaching students about the immune system. As noted by Dietert, your gut microbiome is crucial not just for immune function, but also for your health status in general, as it affects nearly all other physiological systems.
He first became aware of the importance of the gut when given the opportunity to write a research paper about which biomarker would be the best to predict the future health of a baby.

“I thought that was a really intriguing question to develop a paper around,” he says. “And, I was pretty sure decades of work on the immune system in the young, prenatal and neonatal, meant that I had an answer.
I became very frustrated because I wrote a couple of paragraphs and it was unpersuasive, and went to bed extremely frustrated. I woke up in the middle of the night from a dream with what to me was an answer.
The answer was that it was the extent to which the newborn became complete or completed itself, and that that self-completion is really the installation of the microbiome, largely from the mother, but both parents contributing; vaginal delivery when possible, skin-skin contact, and then of course, followed up with prolonged breastfeeding when possible.”

Ancestral Microbiomes
He points out that “more than 99% of your genes are from microbes, not from your chromosomes.” You have approximately 3.3 million microbial genes, mainly bacterial. Across the entire population of humans, there are just under 10 million different microbial genes, so you won’t necessarily have all of them.

You also have 22,000 to 25,000 chromosomal genes (these genes are what were analyzed through the Human Genome Project), which means you only have about 2,000 more chromosomal genes than an earthworm. As noted by Dietert, since we have about 3.3 million microbial genes, that means we’re more than 99% microbial, genetically.
This is why he concluded that the gut microbiome at birth would be the best predictor of future health. Granted, your microbiome can be altered through diet and environmental exposures, and that will impact and influence your health throughout your life. But initially, the infant microbiome is the best overall predictor of future health.

“That led to a whole host of other lectures, books, scientific journal articles and an appearance in the documentary movie, ‘MicroBirth,’ which is a wonderful film. It won the life science award in 2014 for documentary films. That launched a second career, really, as a result of a dream, and paying attention to that versus the linear progression of 30-plus years of research.”

According to Dietert, there’s really no single measure of any particular bacterial species that will give you a definitive answer to what your health will be like. Rather, the most important predictive aspect is the seeding process. If the baby goes through an ideal seeding process at birth, he or she stands a greater chance of experiencing good health.
Healthy microbiomes are more connected to what your ancestors had that has been lost through short-sighted practices and technology installations. Trying to head toward that is much more constructive than trying to completely overhaul something to a group of microbes your ancestors never saw. ~ Rodney Dietert
For example, elective cesarean and antibiotic regimens — both in the mother and the baby — are known to degrade the baby’s microbiome. Since 2012, when he had that dream, he’s been able to map out more specifics, but there’s no single ideal microbiome per se. There are many different healthy microbiomes.

“These [microbiomes] arose in our ancestors depending on their geography, diet and a whole host of factors that were honed over thousands of years,” he explains.
“For example, I have in my 60s tried to modify my health constructively by modifying my microbiome, and in my case, it would’ve been a long reach to get an ideal Asian microbiome because that’s not really my ancestry. It’s not where I grew up, or the soil I lived on and the food I ate.
So, healthy microbiomes are more connected to what your ancestors had that has been lost through short-sighted practices and technology installations. Trying to head toward that is much more constructive than trying to completely overhaul something to a group of microbes your ancestors never saw.”

Compensatory Practices

Past dogma stated that the infant’s immune system was complete at birth with little to no maturation or adjustment required in the infant. Now we realize that this is not true. The baby’s immune development in utero is not uniform. It is skewed to protect maintenance of the pregnancy. This skewing then needs to be adjusted in the newborn/infant and the immune system must be expanded, redistributed, and rebalanced.

The best way to do this is by ensuring that rebalancing the baby’s microbiome is complete and that a healthy infant microbiome can drive necessary post-natal immune maturation. If microbially-driven, infant immune maturation does not happen, then immune dysfunction-driven disease is an increased likelihood for that child.

Remember that 60% to 70% of your immune cells are located in your gut and these immune cells are in close proximity to your gut microbiome. So, gut microbiome status and immune status are intimately intertwined.

As mentioned, having a C-section puts your newborn at serious risk for developing a less than optimal microbial population. However, in some cases, a C-section is necessary, and the good news is you can compensate for the loss of microbial seeding that would have occurred during vaginal birth.

Gloria Dominguez Bello, Ph.D., at Rutgers University, who has pioneered much of this work, uses a vaginal swab technique where the microbes from the mother’s vagina are manually transferred to the baby immediately after birth. You can learn more about this technique in “The Importance of Reducing Your Toxic Burden When Planning to Start a Family.” “While it’s not 100% equivalent, it is very good,” Dietert says.

“Those types of strategies are the direction we need to head in to really aid parents in being able to deliver the majority of the baby’s genetics. Those microbial genes are making proteins and enzymes, they’re modifying what we see from the external environment, they’re modifying our diet [via microbial metabolism] before our mammalian human cells ever see anything.
In effect, if you look at interference with seeding the [baby’s complete] microbiome, to me, that is like a birth defect. If you were missing an organ or a limb, that would be a birth defect. Here, you’re missing the majority of your genetics [the microbiome as a virtual organ containing most of the baby’s genes].
Yet, that is a correctable birth defect and we need to keep that in mind. That would really be the push and the goal — to ensure the baby is able to have, as soon after birth as possible, the robust microbiome that would normally be there …
We know from experience that status of the microbiome dramatically impacts things like risk of asthma at age 7, and then subsequent health risks as well. Even picking up atherosclerosis markers, which you now can measure in children even though the disease onset will probably be decades off …
If you’re growing up on a farm and having raw milk, and are exposed to animals and the microbes that go with that environment, it turns out that’s rather protective against asthma and allergy later in childhood, as long as you’re not directly encountering pesticides. That [encountering pesticides] will eliminate the benefit [of the early life microbial exposures].
Those microbial exposures early in life are really what our ancestors had to develop an appropriately balanced immune system, a well-regulated immune system. If we don’t do that, then you’re shifted toward a proinflammatory state and your regulation of immunity is off [producing an increased risk of later-life diseases].
Nature tells us that the microbiome has to have some compatibility with the immune system as they co-mature. When you get microbiomes that are really foreign to an immune system, the immune system [rather than developing self-tolerance] responds with a massive inflammatory response, so there’s a self-attack …”

Aside from the vaginal tract, the baby also receives valuable microbes via skin-to-skin contact, including oral contact with breast tissue, as well as from the breast milk itself, which is why breastfeeding is so important and can impact your child’s health well into the future. As mentioned above, environmental exposures from soil, food and animals also play a role.
Epigenetic Interactions
Your microbiome (in additional to directly metabolizing your food, drugs and chemicals) also influences the epigenetic expression of your (chromosomal) genes. For example, Dietert cites the work of Curtis Klaassen, former president of the Society of Toxicology and an expert on liver metabolism, who years ago shifted focus to microbiome metabolism because, epigenetically, microbes influence liver metabolism.

“The microbes [encounter and respond to] our food first. They see our environmental chemicals first. They see drugs through most routes of administration first, and what they do with those determine what your body sees. So, they’re our gatekeeper, they’re our filter for our whole environmental existence.
As a result, it’s important to know what happens there. An example is cancer therapeutics. Most of those have to be metabolized by the microbiome. If we manage the microbiome more effectively in patients, we very likely could increase the efficacy of those drugs across a population of patients.
I think the U.K. said they’re about 50% effective. That could be increased because we’ve ignored the microbiome and its role, even though these drugs don’t work unless they’re metabolized by the microbiome. [We now have more capability to manage microbial metabolism and should be doing that as part of sustainable health care.]”

How Your Gut Microbiome Impacts Immunosenescence

Historically, the thymus gland has been known to be really important for the development of the immune system, and in older individuals, the deterioration of the immune system is frequently related to thymic deterioration. The good news is this can to some extent be compensated for by improving your gut microbiome. Dietert explains:

“Aging of the immune system is really dependent upon your lifetime diet in large part. So, you don’t have to buy into the fact that there is only one end for an 80-year-old’s immune system — senescence, lower responses to certain infectious disease agents and greater risk of auto-reactivity. You really don’t have to buy that, because it is largely influenced by diet and microbial metabolism.”

One factor that plays a significant role in the destruction of your gut microbiome is the use of medications. According to Dietert, 25% to 50% of all drugs, including over-the-counter medications, damage your microbiome in predictable ways. Other drugs interact with the microbiome modifying drug treatment outcomes. We ignore these drug-microbiome interactions at our own peril.

“For example, here’s just one case that’s historic: Digoxin, a long-standing heart medication, can be metabolized by one specific bacterial species [Eggerthella lenta]. Now, depending on the level of that [specific bacterial] species that you have in your gut, the drug will either be ineffective because of the metabolic level, it will be effective, or it will be toxic and kill the patient.
It’s a bit of a problem in terms of prescribing [a safe and effective personalized dose of Digoxin], even though it can be an effective drug.Knowing that [the drug-microbiome relationship], and knowing it’s one specific [gut] bacterium [controlling internal drug dose], which could be measured, [the bacterium] could be supplemented and the level [of bacterial metabolism of Digoxin] could be changed or the[administered] drug level could be changed [to ensure that drug metabolization by the gut microbome results in a safe and effective internal dose for each individual].
Why wouldn’t you do that if you were going to administer this type of drug? [The microbiome and therapeutic drug dose can and should be aligned in each patient].”

So, the more microbe-damaging drugs you use, the greater the degradation of your microbiome will be over time. When combined with a poor diet, you end up with immunosenescence — the gradual deterioration of your immune system — but it’s not a given just because you get old if you protect and support your microbiome and immune system across the life span.

“As always when you’re dealing with the immune system and inflammation, it’s a matter of tissue integrity and the question of whether you’ve so damaged an organ that it’s going to be tough to come back from,” Dietert says.

“You want to make these [inflammation-controlling] corrections [in your microbiome and immune system] before [a point of no return when] you’ve completely lost good [tissue] function due to massive inflammatory damage over decades.”

Avoid Unnecessary Antibiotic Exposure
One simple strategy that will protect your microbiome is to avoid antibiotics. While they may be necessary to combat an active infection, the vast majority of antibiotics you’re exposed to come from food. Animals raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are routinely fed antibiotics that you then ingest when you eat that animal.
That’s one of the reasons why I strongly support and recommend eating organic, as organically raised animals are not allowed to be given antibiotics unless the animal is actually ill. CAFO animals are also more prone to carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also increased the use of antibacterial products. People think they’re killing harmful germs but, in reality, they’re just killing their immune system. As explained by Dietert:

“You have to support your entire body and you have to support your immune system as well. I’d point out that, for example, glyphosate is an antimicrobial. First, it destroys soil microbes, then plant microbes, and then it gets into animals and into us. We’re exposed directly and we’re exposed through food.
Again, it’s widespread and it’s just one example. You can take the plasticizers, bisphenol-A and others, where these things were never screened properly and the attention to the microbiome was never given. That’s a huge mistake and we need to reverse that immediately.
I’m a big proponent of regenerative agriculture … I look at ecological management of microbes and robust diversity of plants, animals and our food production as critical. I’d like to point out that COVID-19 is in fact a cytokine storm.
It is an improper host immune response that leads to lung pathology and increased risk of death. Yet there’s been almost no attention paid to the multiple factors that influence the immune system, inflammation and what’s called ‘colonization resistance.'”

Colonization Resistance
As explained by Dietert, you carry coronaviruses in your airways. Most have some coronavirus in the airway, but it won’t cause illness as long as you have a healthy airway microbiome. A healthy airway microbiome is supported and promoted by things like physical exercise and spending time outdoors where sun exposure will optimize your vitamin D level.

“To grow our own food, get outside, visit animal farms and have microbial exposures in a healthy way, increase our vitamin D and tend to our immune system and our overall health is absolutely critical,” he says.
“The more robust the microbiome [along with production of anti-pathogen metabolites], the better the colonization resistance we have against these pathogens. [This includes protection against] the secondary bacterial infections that will [frequently] arise during the mix of changing a [healthy] lung environment [to one engulfed in a] pro-inflammatory state.
We should’ve been doing that from the word go but, unfortunately, we have some scientists and bureaucrats that focused in one place and didn’t really focus, in my opinion, on human health.”

As just one example of how healthy bacteria can prevent infection, Lactobacillus acidophilus has been shown to block salmonella infection and spread in chickens. In the early 1990s, this type of intervention actually ended up saving the poultry industry that was having a massive salmonella problem, yet you never hear about that.

“I think this shows we need to manage how we produce our food. We need to recognize the benefits of a variety of supplements. I think that is what’s going to help get us out of the polypharmacy rut that we’ve been in, quite frankly.”

It’s really a classic example of competitive inhibition, and it works the same way in the human body. According to Dietert, as few as 15 beneficial bacteria are able to create a metabolic environment in the gut that keeps the salmonella bacterium in check, thereby preventing it from multiplying out of control and causing disease.
So, with a robust diversity of beneficial bacteria in your gut, you’re effectively able to block infection from occurring even though you may be exposed to dangerous pathogens. Keep in mind that the composition of your microbiome will also play a significant role in how well you can handle dietary “cheating” or the occasional junk food indulgence. As noted by Dietert:

“If you have a particularly robust microbiome, you’re probably more resilient to a junk food weekend. If you are already dysbiotic or you’re weakened in your microbiome because of chronic conditions, polypharmacy or glyphosate exposures, then you probably are pretty vulnerable to further shifts.
Again, it’s how well are you seeded with a robust diversity? It’s like forest management in ecology or coral reef management. If you’ve got a coral reef that’s already damaged and sick, then it isn’t going to take much to really put it over the top in terms of serious changes. This would be the same for us in terms of immune inflammation, pathology and/or an infectious agent getting a foothold, whereas it wouldn’t otherwise.”

From Gut to Brain
One way by which beneficial bacteria protect your health is through the production of butyrate and mucin, the mucous layer that protects the intestine. Gut microbes also make neuroactive peptides and neurotransmitters. There’s a whole field that’s been developed called psychobiotics that focus on using bacteria for neurological and mental health.
Certain bacterial species and strains will produce serotonin, for example. Others produce dopamine. Some produce GABA or acetylcholine. While most of the neurotransmitters produced in the gut cannot penetrate the blood-brain barrier, and therefore will not increase levels in the brain directly, they still have an indirect and measurable effect, Dietert says. The vagus nerve is one path through which the gut microbes influence brain chemistry and physiology.
How to Address Leaky Gut

Leaky gut is now recognized by most conventional physicians as a condition that contributes to other pathologies and chronic diseases. One important strategy to address leaky gut is to optimize your vitamin D, as it helps regulate your innate immune system and increases your body’s ability to repair epithelial cell damage and gaps in the intestinal barrier.
Dietert also recommends supplementing with keystone species bacteria such as the genus Akkermansia, which is involved with mucin regulation. There are only a couple of bacteria that do that. He stresses that while vitamin D is important for gut repair, you also need bacteria to help maintain the mucin layer, as this is what keeps inflammatory bacteria and particles from seeping through the intestinal barrier.
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) or potassium bicarbonate can also be very helpful. I prefer potassium bicarb because most of us have excess sodium and not enough potassium. I personally take about a half a teaspoon of potassium bicarb three times a day. I use a urinary pH to monitor and adjust my dosage. Your urine pH should be about 7, which is neutral. This will also help prevent the leaching of minerals from your bone.
Your Health Begins in Your Gut

In closing, Dietert reminds and encourages us to “do things that support your whole body, do things that support your immune system, even as you’re focused on a specific disease or a specific pathogen.” The reason for doing this is because everything is connected.

“We’re now realizing that the boundary between infectious or communicable diseases and noncommunicable diseases may not be as rigid as we used to think,” Dietert says.
“People have been able to show that if you install the wrong microbe into your gut microbiome — one that’s dysfunctional and not very robust — you can wind up with a predictably-increased risk of very specific noncommunicable or chronic diseases.
We never thought that was the case, but there’s evidence emerging, really within the last couple of years, that [chronic diseases] are all about microbial management. So, understanding your body, understanding your genetics and taking advantage of that, [can allow you] to be naturally healthy.”

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/24/how-does-the-microbiome-affect-your-immune-system.aspx

Dr. Mercola Interviews the Experts
This article is part of a weekly series in which Dr. Mercola interviews various experts on a variety of health issues. To see more expert interviews, click here.

In this interview, Dr. Peter Martone, a Boston-based chiropractor and physiologist, shares some incredibly important techniques that can help you achieve proper cervical posture while sleeping, as well as other strategies to help prevent degenerative disc disease.

About 10 years ago, when we first met at an event, Martone pointed out I had problems in my cervical spine. I ended up going to see him for a proper diagnosis. Digital X-rays revealed degeneration in the fifth and sixth vertebrae. Martone prescribed a set of home treatments that I’ve been doing ever since. He describes what motivated him to, in part, reinvent how he looks at chiropractic:

“I was … invited to Harvard Medical School to give continuing education credits for their M.D.s. I was young in practice … I knew a lot about chiropractic at that time. I knew about the structure. I just didn’t know how to communicate it well. So … I got tore apart. It was a great learning experience for me.
From that point on, I said, ‘You know what? I need to dive in … I need to find anchors where you can’t argue. It’s almost like gravity. If you drop something, it’s going to fall, that’s a law. So, I started thinking about laws. How does the body work?
The righting reflex: Your body follows where your eyes go. Wolff’s law: If you don’t use it, you lose it. Davis’s law: If you don’t stress the tissue, you lose the tissue. Thinking in these ways, I started seeing contradiction in all my studies.
So, exercise physiology would contradict the law of saying that muscles are the problem. Then it would contradict a chiropractic [law] saying you just need to mobilize. I started to put this philosophy, this understanding, together … and I started seeing patterns.
The more I started opening up my eyes to new patterns, the more I started understanding them, and I’ve been in practice now for 20 years and done over 750,000 adjustments, and I really believe in the [strategies] I share.”

What Causes Degeneration?

“Use it or lose it” is one of the adages that apply to your physical body, both muscles and bones. If you don’t use a joint for a long time, degeneration sets in. As noted by Martone, “your body adapts to the consistent stresses placed on it over a long period of time.”
How then do you regenerate that degeneration? It stands to reason that if lack of motion has caused degeneration of a joint, restoring motion causes regeneration. By looking at a person’s X-rays, Martone is able to pinpoint how long the damage has been accruing, which will then give him an idea of how to “backtrack” and undo the damage based on the various laws governing physiology.

“The way I explain it is, the more scar tissue you have in your spine, your spine becomes like hardened clay. What chiropractic adjustment does, it basically takes your clay and it dumps it in water.
Now that clay can become more moldable, but if you expose your clay to the same molds or the same lifestyle patterns, you’re just going to reinforce the same old patterns.
That is why you need to couple chiropractic care with some [other] therapy … and then you need to change the pattern that caused the problem to begin with. I believe most patterns can be changed at night while you sleep. You can actually improve your posture while you sleep,” Martone says.
How Cervical Curvature Is Damaged

Martone has developed a hybrid approach involving exercise and chiropractic adjustments to regain ideal cervical curvature, improve disc height and help resolve degeneration over time. Martone struggled with chronic back pain for about 15 years, then herniated L5 about five years ago in a mountain biking injury. His own recovery led him to understand how your sleeping position can influence your recovery and regeneration.
After reviewing 2,000 X-rays, he discovered a pattern previously unmentioned in the literature. He concluded that his own longstanding back problems were not due to extreme sports; rather, the problem originated in his neck.

“My back problem didn’t come from my lower back. My back problem came from my neck, and then because of forward head posture, I picked up a curve in my lower back due to … the psoas major muscle. 
It basically happens like this: If you lose the curve in your cervical spine … [you get] scoliosis in the lower back. [It’s] compensatory, with the psoas major muscle [going into] spasm … The only muscle in the human body that attaches directly to a disc is the psoas major muscle.
So, the body innervates that psoas major muscle, curving that spine to take pressure off the atlas because of forward head posture. The atlas is the first cervical vertebra.
I was sleeping on my back, but I wasn’t using the pillow in the right way. I had forward head posture, and I had that lower back rotation due to that psoas compensation, that psoas major muscle spasm.”

In summary, when your head comes forward, your body compensates. Your psoas major muscle goes into spasm, which rotates your pelvis. The psoas major is made up of a series of overlapping fascicles or bundles of fibers that connect bilaterally to your lumbar intervertebral discs.
The spasms weaken the particular disc the psoas major is attached to, thereby allowing it to herniate. Also, because your head is in a forward position, your body loses proprioception — balance and awareness in space — which causes your spine to curve.
Your head weighs about 15 pounds, and when your head is forward, with your chin jutting out, it places enormous stress on your neck, which then contributes to arthritic changes. It also decreases cerebrospinal fluid flow.
What’s the Solution?

Part of Martone’s solution was to figure out how to properly support his cervical spine while sleeping. Initially, he came up with a novel way to do that using a down pillow to support his neck, not his head. Chiropractic adjustments are also important, as this will encourage your body to replenish the water in the degenerated disc, thereby increasing the space between the vertebra. Martone explains:

“When you start adjusting, the body says, ‘Holy mackerel. You’re going to start using this joint again?’ So, it pulls water back into the joint. What ends up happening is like taking a raisin and dropping it in water. The raisin is going to swell. It’s not going to come back to a grape, but you still can get space back.
So, through regular chiropractic adjustments you … create an unstable environment and then the body responds by creating stability. It will rebuild the joint space over a period of time. In about six months you can see a visible change on the X-ray.”
A third strategy that is really important is working on restoring your balance. As mentioned, when your head is in forward position, you lose proprioception, which in turn ends up atrophying a portion of your brain called the vermis.

“One of the functions of your vermis is to build the prefrontal cortex, which is all your thoughts, your focus, your executive functioning,” Martone explains. “I’ve worked with many kids with ADD and ADHD. I have it myself. One of the things I worked on to be able to focus was to improve my balance.
By improving balance, you are actually able to focus, you will forget less, and your brain will have more acuity. You’ll have a sharper brain. When your head starts to come forward and you restrict that proprioceptive sense into the brain, you start to degenerate your vermis and you start to lose focus.
So, we find with our patients, when we start to restore that curve and put them on what’s called a wobble board, we can improve their balance. It’s critically important to being able to restore cognitive functioning and restore functionality in the spine by improving your balance. One of the single most important exercises I believe somebody can do is work on their balance.”
Weight Distribution

Your bilateral weight distribution also plays a role in your spinal curvature and health. Martone uses two scales during his initial evaluation to ascertain whether the patient is distributing their weight more onto the right or left foot.
Your body follows where your eyes go. So, if you lean your head to one side, you’re going to put more weight on that side. If you have damage in your neck, cervical spine or any part of the atlas, scar tissue may be holding your head to one side or the other, causing you to lean and have uneven weight distribution. This too will cause your spine to curve in order to keep your head straight.

“Let’s say you weigh 100 pounds. When you put one foot on one scale and one foot on the other, you should have 50 pounds of weight on one side, 50 pounds of weight on the other side.
I see people 20 pounds off, 30 pounds off, 40 pounds off to one side. It makes a huge difference in knee pain, in ankle pain, in plantar fasciitis. It’s mind-blowing when I see that imbalance. I can just look at people now and see that imbalance.”
The Rationale for Sleeping on Your Back

Martone believes it is critically important to sleep on your back in a neutral sleeping position. However, there are a large number of people whose airway will close during the night. This can easily be prevented by applying paper tape over your lips before you go to sleep. I have been doing this for a few years now and is part of my night time ritual. He explains:

“If you have pain, you’re going to toss and turn all night long … because your body weight needs to be distributed over the greatest surface area. So, what I tell my patients is ‘You have to fall asleep with the end in mind.’ If you want better sleep, more restful sleep, wake up well rested and in no pain, you have to begin with the end in mind.
You give me a side sleep, I’m going to give you a shoulder problem … a hip problem, because you’re starting twisted, and I don’t care how much support you have, I don’t care how much your hips fall into the bed. We are creating these beds to put us in these horrible positions and it’s making our spines so much worse.
We want to be able to reverse the damaging effect of our modern-day lifestyle. If we’re going to be on a computer all day with forward head posture, and then we’re going to be texting all day, we have to do that at some point in time. So, to compensate for that, I suggest falling asleep … on your back.
When you fall asleep on your back, you’re naturally going to have an arch in your lower back, so you do not have to support that. But your neck — you want to put a support under your neck so you can arch your neck back …
The only way to bring the head back is to stretch it back, and you do that at night using … a soft support … not hard, not firm, because you’re only supporting 3 inches from your bed to the base of your neck. So, you put something under your neck, you arch your neck back, you keep your arms down by your side, and then you lie in that flat position.”
The Neck Nest

You know you’re in the correct position when your eyes are looking straight up toward the ceiling and your chin is pointed up to the ceiling as well. Martone eventually developed Neck Nest1 — a special pillow designed to provide ideal support for the cervical spine. When used in conjunction with other treatment strategies, it’s been shown to restore the natural 45-degree angle in the neck.

“The lifestyle habit is this: You put a pillow underneath your neck, and you fall asleep like that, whether it’s 45 minutes, an hour, two hours, just start with whatever you can do.
Do that every single night because one night it might be an hour, the second night might be an hour and 10 minutes, but eventually you get to three hours, and that’s three hours of your neck in traction. You’re going to get a little stiff, but your neck is stretching back. You have to understand that when the structure of your spine is changing, it’s not always comfortable.
So, when you start to adopt the back-sleeping position, don’t get frustrated saying, ‘I only did it for 15 minutes last night. I couldn’t fall asleep like that.’ We have so many different techniques to be able to help you fall asleep on your back and stay on your back for at least an hour or two a night at the beginning …
Many [support pillows] are hard substances and they support your head too much. Your head is 15 pounds. You want to use that as a weight and use the pillow as a fulcrum to be able to get that neck support and that actual change in the cervical curve … The spinal biomechanics in maintaining a healthy spine is critically important in maintaining overall health and well-being …
The Neck Nest has been out for over a year. I took a bunch of X-rays on patients when they first started [using the pillow] and then I have six-month follow-up X-rays, a year follow-up X-rays. We’re getting so much improvement in the cervical spine by using a Neck Nest. They’re sleeping better, they’re sleeping deeper.
I have people that are monitoring their sleep. Their sleep scores are getting better, and their sleep scores are getting better because they’re getting more restful sleep. The reason we toss and turn in the middle of the night is because our body typically is uncomfortable, or in a way shut down.
To get a more restful sleep, you start with the end in mind and you put your body in a neutral sleeping position. You support the cervical curve in the neck, you lie flat.”
Cervical Traction Units and Weighted Headbands

Martone also likes to integrate the use of cervical traction units that you can put over your door. I’ve been using such a device for a few years now, and it seems to have a powerful synergy with the nighttime passive traction. Martone explains the purpose for active cervical traction:

“It’s like a jelly doughnut analogy. If you take a doughnut and squeeze it, the jelly comes out. If you pull it apart, it will pull the jelly back inside by creating a negative pressure in the disc …
If you have degeneration and your major focus is to rehydrate the disc, your body will only rehydrate the disc based on a certain tension threshold, and when you pull the cervical spine apart … you can cross that barrier and get more hydration to the disc.”

Another device that is widely recommended is the use of a weighted headband that you wear. As you lean your head to one side, you stimulate and strengthen the muscles on the opposite side. I’ve been doing this for a few years as well, and my X-rays show a fairly significant improvement.
It’s important to note that I was never symptomatic. I had no neuropathies, no nerve tingling or pain, but it’s key to address any abnormality as early as possible. The earlier you address it, ideally before you have symptoms, the more likely you are to resolve it at a deep fundamental level.
Again, ideally, you’d want to hit it from several angles, getting regular chiropractic adjustments, sleeping on your back with proper cervical support, and using a cervical traction device. As explained by Martone:

“All of it together is good. What the adjustment can do, and what’s critical, is it can take your spine, your hardened clay, and it can dump it in water. Now it becomes more moldable. You’re going to get the most amount of distraction and you’re going to get the most amount of improvement when you get the adjustment.
You can do it without the adjustment. You just won’t get as much improvement and you won’t get improvement in the disc space. You’ll get improvement in the curve, but you won’t open up the space. You need to restore the motion intrasegmentally.”
More Information
In our interview, we also review a number of ways you can improve your sleep more generally, aside from sleeping on your back, so for more details, be sure to listen to it in its entirety.
If you’re committed to improving your sleep and cervical spine, consider getting Martone’s Neck Nest pillow. For a special deal, see necknest.com/Mercola. For the price of the Neck Nest pillow, you also get a custom pillow cover and Martone’s 30 Day Sleep Quest program for free. I don’t earn any affiliate commissions on this product, I just use it myself personally and believe that it would help many achieve a good night sleep and improve spinal health.
On his site, you’ll also find X-ray images of patients before and after using the Neck Nest pillow, showing visible improvement in their cervical spine curvature. Again, early diagnosis is important, since it gives you much more time to counteract the damage taking place. Had Martone not diagnosed my problem, which I had no idea I had, it would have continued to degenerate, causing problems in my later years.
As noted by Martone, you cannot degenerate and regenerate at the same time. You’re going one way or the other. Had I not taken action to regenerate my cervical spine, it eventually would have fused, Martone says. Fusion, in turn, results in lack of motion, nerve compression and atrophy of the central nervous system.
And, since each nerve goes somewhere, a range of effects can take place. Perhaps it affects your thyroid gland or throat. Tingling in the fingers can occur, or weakness in your arm. Once you have bone-on-bone fusion, there’s very little you can do to restore your function. So, truly, prevention is the name of the game here. It’s so key, which is why I’m excited to share Martone’s knowledge with you.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/24/correct-sleeping-posture.aspx

Journalism has long been a risky profession, but the COVID-19 pandemic has provided many governments with an excuse to increase its crackdown on journalists who counter government narratives about the virus and their handling of the pandemic.1,2
Globally, at least 14 journalists have been arrested for “unfair and imprecise coverage” of the pandemic.3 Courtney Radsch, advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told U.S. News4 that “COVID is a very convenient excuse to target journalists that regimes did not like before.”
Information War 2020
According to two media rights groups — the CPJ5 and Reporters Without Borders6 — China tops the list of countries where suppression of journalism is taking place. Worldwide, 387 journalists were detained during 2020, just two fewer than were detained in 2019. Of those, 54 are being held hostage and four are missing in action.7 More than half — 61% — are held in China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Syria.8
Attacks on female journalists has seen a particularly strong increase, with 35% more women journalists being imprisoned in 2020 compared to 2019.9 There’s also been a fourfold increase in “arbitrary arrests” of journalists this year, a majority of which appear to have been related to their coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Reporters Without Borders:10

“While most arrested journalists were held for just a few hours or, in some cases, a few days or weeks), 14 journalists who were arrested in connection with their coverage of the pandemic are still being held at the end of the year.”

Murders of Journalists Doubled in 2020
CPJ also reports11 that murders of journalists more than doubled in 2020, compared to 2019. The murders are labeled as “retaliatory killings” by gangs and militants in “violent but democratic nations,” and the murdered journalists were most often covering political issues.
Corona laws are often being used as a façade for the decline of democratic institutions … ~ Uladzislau Belavusau, Asser Institute’s Centre for International and European Law
In all, 30 journalists were killed, worldwide, in 2020 in relation to their work. Of those, 21 were murdered, a significant jump from the 10 murdered in 2019. An additional 15 deaths are also still under investigation by the CPJ to ascertain whether journalism was the motive, so the end tally could be higher still.12
The countries with the highest numbers of retaliatory murders in 2020 were Mexico, Afghanistan and the Philippines.13 Adding insult to injury, in the vast majority of these murders, the killers go free.

China Sentences Citizen Journalist to Four Years in Prison
As mentioned, China detained the greatest number of journalists in 2020. As of December 1, 2020, 117 Chinese journalists had been placed behind bars.14 One of them is Zhang Zhan, a former Shanghai lawyer who was detained May 15, 2020.
She’d been posting daily video reports about the Wuhan outbreak on YouTube and Twitter since early February. While these social media platforms are blocked in mainland China, Zhang was using a virtual private network (VPN) to access the sites. According to Vice:15

“Her videos stood in stark contrast to state media’s reports on the outbreak, which initially glossed over the severity of the virus and sought to highlight the heroic efforts of medical workers in treating patients.”

December 28, 2020, the Shanghai Pudong People’s Court sentenced Zhang to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” According to Vice,16 this “vaguely-defined charge” is one “that the Chinese government often uses to silence critics.”
Zhang reportedly went on a hunger strike in June and has been force-fed through a nasal tube since then. One of Zhang’s defense attorneys told Vice17 she began the hunger strike because “she couldn’t accept the fact that she was punished for exercising her freedom of speech, a right laid out in the Chinese constitution,” adding that “she views compliance as an insult to herself.”
Chinese Citizen Journalists Still Missing
In addition to Zhang, at least three other citizen journalists who had been covering the pandemic in Wuhan — Chen Quishi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua — are also either detained or missing. Chen, who disappeared in February 2020,18 is now believed to be in the custody of Chinese authorities, although his precise location is still unclear.19
A similar fate appears to have befallen Li, who in his last YouTube video, posted in April, said he had been detained by police but not charged. No additional videos have been posted to his account since, so it’s unclear whether he’s been released or remains in custody. The whereabouts of Fang are also unknown.
Many Countries Weaponized the News in 2020
According to a June 5, 2020, article20 by Courthouse News, at least 16 countries had by then passed laws “targeting misinformation about the coronavirus.” According to Uladzislau Belavusau, senior researcher at the Asser Institute’s Centre for International and European Law, “Corona laws are often being used as a façade for the decline of democratic institutions …”21
Countries that now have laws on the books that restrict reporting of news about COVID-19 and call for fines and/or the arrest of journalists accused of spreading misinformation about the virus are shown in the graphic22 below, created by the International Press Institute (IPI).

IPI, which has been monitoring press freedom restrictions during the pandemic, also released the following image,23 showing the number of press freedom violations recorded across the world.

According to Barbara Trionfi, executive director of the IPI, “In all cases, the laws have been used to limit critical, legitimate reporting” about the pandemic.24 Marko Milanovic, professor of public international law at the University of Nottingham School of Law, agreed, telling Courthouse News the approach “is not effective,” as the laws are “broadly used to limit criticism of the government rather than stop bad actors from spreading misinformation.” Courthouse News added:25

“Yordanka Ivanova, a researcher in international law at Sofia University in Bulgaria, argues that privacy regulations could curtail the spread of fake news. Limiting the amount of targeting social media companies could do, she said, could keep information from spreading widely and minimizes so-called filter bubbles, where people only see news information that aligns with their existing beliefs.”

China’s Extensive COVID Cover-Up
Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, has been outspoken about China’s apparent efforts to hide information about the source of SARS-CoV-2. In a December 28, 2020, Twitter post, Chan listed a number of suspicious approaches taken by Chinese authorities since the initial outbreak in Wuhan:26

“Imprisoning journalists looking into what happened in Wuhan, obstructing inquiries into mysterious pneumonia cases in Yunnan miners in 2012, failure to describe what should have been a stunning discovery of a novel FCS [furin cleavage site] in a SARS virus, removal of an extensive pathogen database …”

As detailed in “Top Medical Journal Caught in Massive Cover-Up,” Nature, one of the most prestigious medical journals, allowed authors to secretly alter SARS-CoV-2 data sets in their papers without publishing notices of correction. Chan was the one who discovered that scientists had renamed samples, failed to attribute them properly, and produced a genomic profile that didn’t match the samples in their paper.
According to Chan,27 the database on bat and mouse viral pathogens, which had been managed by Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has also been taken offline, further restricting scientists and researchers’ ability to analyze the potential origins of SARS-CoV-2.
We’re in an Information War
All in all, China does appear intent on maintaining tight control over the pandemic narrative. Clearly, the Chinese government does not want to release anything that might implicate it in the release of a lab-created virus, whether accidental or intentional.
But China is far from alone in this quest. Many countries around the world are clearly hell-bent on controlling the narrative as well, and are increasing attacks on journalists who dig deeper and question the logic of it all. 
As reported in “Spy Agencies Threaten to ‘Take Out’ Mercola” and “Mercola Defamed by Digital ‘Anti-Hate’ Group,” this includes yours truly. According to recent media reports,28,29,30 intelligence agencies in both the U.K. and U.S. are now working to eliminate “anti-vaccine propaganda” from public discussion using sophisticated cyberwarfare tools.
That we are in an information war could not be any clearer. And, in a war where information is the key weapon, journalists are akin to soldiers. There will be casualties. Yet we cannot, we must not, stop. The freedom of every person in the world is at stake.

In a shocking reversal that’s akin to redefining reality, the World Health Organization has changed their definition of herd immunity. Herd immunity occurs when enough people acquire immunity to an infectious disease such that it can no longer spread widely in the community.
When the number susceptible is low enough to prevent epidemic growth, herd immunity is said to have been reached. Prior to the introduction of vaccines, all herd immunity was achieved via exposure to and recovery from an infectious disease.
Eventually, as vaccination became widespread, the concept of herd immunity evolved to include not only the naturally acquired immunity that comes from prior illness, but also the temporary vaccine-acquired immunity that can occur after vaccination. WHO, however, quietly revised this concept in an Orwellian move that totally removes natural infection from the equation.
Violating Science, WHO Changes the Meaning of Herd Immunity

In June 2020, WHO’s definition of herd immunity, posted on one of their COVID-19 Q&A pages, was in line with the widely accepted concept that has been the standard for infectious diseases for decades. Here’s what it originally said, courtesy of the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine:1

“Herd immunity is the indirect protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.”

It should be noted that “immunity developed through previous infection” is the way it has worked since humans have been alive. Your immune system isn’t designed to get vaccines. It’s designed to work in response to exposure to an infectious agent. Apparently, according to WHO, that’s no longer the case. In October 2020, here’s their updated definition of herd immunity, which is now “a concept used for vaccination”:2

“‘Herd immunity’, also known as ‘population immunity’, is a concept used for vaccination, in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccination is reached. Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it.

Vaccines train our immune systems to create proteins that fight disease, known as ‘antibodies’, just as would happen when we are exposed to a disease but – crucially – vaccines work without making us sick. Vaccinated people are protected from getting the disease in question and passing it on, breaking any chains of transmission.”

This perversion of science implies that the only way to achieve herd immunity is via vaccination, which is blatantly untrue. The startling implications for society, however, are that by putting out this false information, they’re attempting to change our perception of what’s true and not true, leaving people believing that they must artificially manipulate their immune systems as the only way to stay safe from infectious disease.
CDC, Others Retain Natural Infection as Part of Herd Immunity

As of this writing, other high-profile medical organizations have not signed on to WHO’s skewed definition of herd immunity. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, in their Vaccine Glossary of Terms, defines community immunity, also known as herd immunity, as follows:3

“A situation in which a sufficient proportion of a population is immune to an infectious disease (through vaccination and/or prior illness) to make its spread from person to person unlikely. Even individuals not vaccinated (such as newborns and those with chronic illnesses) are offered some protection because the disease has little opportunity to spread within the community.”

The Mayo Clinic, as of January 6, 2020, also stated, “There are two paths to herd immunity for COVID-19 — vaccines and infection,” noting:4

“Herd immunity can also be reached when a sufficient number of people in the population have recovered from a disease and have developed antibodies against future infection. For example, those who survived the 1918 flu (influenza) pandemic were later immune to infection with the H1N1 flu, a subtype of influenza A.”

In a 2020 JAMA Patient Page on herd immunity, Dr. Angel Desai, associated editor of JAMA Network Open, and Dr. Maimuna Majumder with Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, also explain that herd immunity may be achieved via natural infection and recovery:5

“Herd immunity may be achieved either through infection and recovery or by vaccination … Achieving herd immunity through infection relies on enough people being infected with the disease and recovering from it, during which they develop antibodies against future infection.”

Naturally Acquired Immunity Is Longer Lasting
Public health officials often state that vaccination offers you a chance to acquire immunity to an illness without having to get sick from it. What they don’t typically mention, aside from the risks inherent in all vaccines, is that the resulting immunity from vaccination is not the same as that achieved via natural infection.
Many vaccines do not provide long-lasting or lifelong immunity. Vaccines only confer temporary artificial immunity and sometimes they fail to do that. This is why booster shots are needed. Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), explains why this is so problematic using the example of measles:

“What the medical literature shows is that baby boomers and the generation before us acquired natural immunity, which is qualitatively superior. It’s longer lasting than vaccine-acquired immunity.

We have been helping what looks like vaccine-acquired herd immunity. We never were vaccinated, but we are contributing to the concept of what looks like vaccine-acquired herd immunity. When we die, you won’t have that barrier anymore. They know that.6,7

Vaccine-acquired immunity is not the same as naturally acquired immunity. That has been the problem from the very beginning with the creation of these vaccines. They have never understood how to make vaccines mimic naturally acquired immunity exactly.8

I think the most shocking part, whenever I go into the medical literature, is understanding how much they do not know about the functioning of the immune system, about how infections confer immunity and how vaccines stimulate artificial immunity.”9

WHO Also Changed the Definition of ‘Pandemic’
If it wasn’t already clear that WHO seeks to alter reality to fit its own agendas, you may be interested to know that had it not been for WHO changing the definition of “pandemic,” COVID-19 may no longer be an issue. WHO’s original definition of a pandemic from May 1, 2009, specified simultaneous epidemics worldwide “with enormous numbers of deaths and illnesses:”10,11

“An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several, simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.”

This definition was changed in the month leading up to the 2009 swine flu pandemic, removing the severity and high mortality criteria and leaving the definition of a pandemic as “a worldwide epidemic of a disease.”12
This switch in definition allowed WHO to declare swine flu a pandemic after a mere 144 people had died from the infection, worldwide, and it’s why COVID-19 is still promoted as a pandemic even though plenty of data suggest the lethality of COVID-19 is on par with the seasonal flu.13
Another example of WHO conveniently changing former truths occurred in June 2020. During a press briefing, Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for the COVID-19 pandemic, made it very clear that people who have COVID-19 without any symptoms “rarely” transmit the disease to others. In a dramatic about-face, WHO then backtracked on the statement just one day later.
June 9, 2020, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s emergencies program, quickly backpedaled Van Kerkhove’s statement, saying the remarks were “misinterpreted or maybe we didn’t use the most elegant words to explain that.”14
It’s All Part of the Great Reset

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for those who aren’t aware, is the biggest funder of WHO, and Bill Gates, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID),15 are among those who have stated that life cannot return to normal until there is a vaccine against COVID-19.
“Humankind has never had a more urgent task than creating broad immunity for coronavirus,” Gates wrote on his blog in April 2020. “Realistically, if we’re going to return to normal, we need to develop a safe, effective vaccine. We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible.”16
Gates has even stated he “suspect[s] the COVID-19 vaccine will become part of the routine newborn immunization schedule”17 and has gone on record saying the U.S. needs disease surveillance and a national tracking system18 that could involve vaccine records embedded on our bodies (such as invisible ink quantum dot tattoos described in a Science Translational Medicine paper).19,20
Vaccine passports, which will be attached to cellphone apps that track and trace your COVID-19 test results and vaccination status, are already here and expected to become “widely available” during the first half of 2021. This is all in line with the Great Reset, which at its core is technocracy, in which we the people know nothing about the ruling elite while every aspect of our lives is surveilled, tracked and manipulated for their gain.
The rollout of widespread COVID-19 vaccination coupled with tracking and tracing of COVID-19 test results and vaccination status are setting the stage for biometric surveillance and additional tracking and tracing, which will eventually be tied in with all your other medical records, digital ID, digital banking and a social credit system.
Have Some Areas Achieved Herd Immunity to COVID-19 Naturally?

What if COVID-19, which causes only minor symptoms in the majority of people — and causes no symptoms in others — has already spread throughout communities such that natural herd immunity exists? WHO quickly dismisses this possibility, stating:21

“Attempts to reach ‘herd immunity’ through exposing people to a virus are scientifically problematic and unethical. Letting COVID-19 spread through populations, of any age or health status will lead to unnecessary infections, suffering and death. The vast majority of people in most countries remain susceptible to this virus. Seroprevalence surveys suggest that in most countries, less than 10% of the population have been infected with COVID-19.”

This contradicts data suggesting that some areas may already have reached the herd immunity threshold (HIT). According to The New York Times, more than a dozen scientists said in interviews that the HIT for COVID-19 is likely 50% or lower. “If that’s true, then it may be possible to turn back the coronavirus more quickly than once thought,” the Times reported,22 and perhaps without the need for a vaccine.
Herd immunity is calculated using reproductive number, or R-naught (R0), which is the estimated number of new infections that may occur from one infected person.23 R0 of below 1 (with R1 meaning that one person who’s infected is expected to infect one other person) indicates that cases are declining while R0 above 1 suggests cases are on the rise.
It’s far from an exact science, however, as a person’s susceptibility to infection varies depending on many factors, including their health, age and contacts within a community. The initial R0 calculations for COVID-19’s HIT were based on assumptions that everyone has the same susceptibility and would be mixing randomly with others in the community.
“That doesn’t happen in real life,” Dr. Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, told The Times. “Herd immunity could vary from group to group, and subpopulation to subpopulation,” or even zip code.24
When real-world scenarios are factored into the equation, the HIT drops significantly, with some experts saying it could be as low as 10% to 20%. In fact, as the Times suggested, it’s possible that herd immunity for the pandemic is “ahead of schedule.”25
Researchers from Oxford, Virginia Tech and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine26 are among those that found when individual variations in susceptibility and exposure are taken into account, the HIT declines to less than 10%.27 By that number, and using WHO’s estimate that less than 10% of the population has already been infected, the HIT could already be met or quickly approaching — all via naturally acquired immunity.