Perspectives on Portfolio Construction
By Professor Ian Brighthope
Amid COVID-19 and beyond, it would serve Australia well for the medical establishment to countenance new/old approaches to fortifying immunity and optimising health.
Editor’s introduction, by John Keeney
The following piece on vitamin therapy was written by Professor Ian Brighthope, a doctor and surgeon. For 50 years, he has been a leader of a growing number of medical doctors driven by duty of care and curiosity to examine potential cures outside mainstream medical practice. As a result, he has frequently found himself at loggerheads with health ministers and fellow doctors.
In 1982 he founded the Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine in Melbourne. This elite program was open only to certified medical doctors, and required a minimum of three years’ rigorous part-time study to achieve a fellowship upon graduation. The college has since graduated more than 700 doctors, one of whom hailed the courses for addressing “the many important things not taught at any traditional medical school in Australia and, almost certainly, anywhere in the world – particularly as regards nutritional science.” ACNEM provides course material and training subject matter which is strongly evidence-based and consistent with traditional scientific methodologies.
The college forms part of a larger progressive trend across the country, encompassing new scientific thinking about nutrition, environmental medicine and therapies such as prolotherapy and high-dose intravenous vitamin C injections, which were once considered “fringe” and are now gaining acceptance.
Dr. Ng Eng Kee, a Malaysian medical doctor famous there for his charitable missionary work in the remote Pahang jungle region, emigrated to Australia more than 45 years ago. He has been an acknowledged world-leading acupuncturist since, whilst running a full practice, and is still active today at 84. He has consistently participated in world conferences, and notes that some of the best recent advances in acupuncture have occurred not in China but in Sweden. He has taught and certified over 500 medical doctors in this ancient Chinese remedy. Along with two doctor friends, he was responsible for Australia becoming the first western nation to provide private health rebates for acupuncture during the 1980s.
These and other trends, including the recognition and regulation of organic farming and foods, are on the rise. Across the board, one can observe a progressive movement combining new and old knowledge, methods and treatments entering the mainstream of medicine, spurred on by a growing legion of medical doctors.
More than 35 years ago, Professor Brighthope founded biocentric nutrition and vitamin clinics and a high end (meaning based on molecular and clinical analysis) nutritional aids company, Nutrition Care. Recently, he partnered with a Chinese company in that venture and launched a new research company devoted to medical applications of cannabis. He is active, fit and healthy at age 75.
In the following viewpoint article, Professor Brighthope promulgates one of his life’s missions: awareness of the medically-based value of vitamins and nutrition, in particular vitamin C. He was a personal friend of Dr. Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize winner and the original vitamin C advocate, who wrote the foreword to the professor’s book The AIDS Fighters. Dr. Pauling was arguably America’s finest chemist of the 20th century, yet was attacked vehemently by many in the medical establishment for his contention that vitamin C in large doses had numerous disease-prevention effects. Although the debate continues today, many have found benefit from high-dosage vitamin C intake on a personal, empirical basis. Dr. Pauling’s basic hypothesis was science-based: the human body does not manufacture vitamin C, which is essential for proper functioning, and therefore supplementation is required in the absence of adequate dietary intake.
As Dr. Hilary Roberts wrote in a 2015 article in support of Pauling’s theories: “Irwin Stone first introduced Pauling to vitamin C, and explained that it wasn’t really a vitamin at all, but an essential substance we could no longer manufacture in our bodies. Most animals make their own vitamin C, in large amounts. In humans, the gene for this ability has mutated and no longer works properly”.
Dr. Brighthope’s views on vitamin C and nutrition are best considered against a backdrop of continuing debate. Notably, some of the world’s foremost nutrition doctors (such as Dr. Mark Hyman in the US) now focus on vitamins and nutrition on molecular chemistry level, just as Dr. Pauling did.
The world will be more resilient in the face of future pandemics only when we acknowledge that certain scientific fundamentals have not been applied in the fight against COVID-19. While the social distancing, hygiene, testing, tracking and tracing have been effective, a comprehensive approach should include keen attention to vitamins and nutrition.
Currently, the innate strength of the human immune system is substantially ignored by the mainstream, and yet it is the most powerful defence we all have against coronaviruses and every other pathogenic microbe.
The effectiveness of the immune system depends significantly on an individual’s nutritional status and genetic makeup. It is the basic building blocks of amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and trace elements that determine how powerfully the immune system responds to an infectious agent such as a virus, bacteria or fungus. Any deficiency or imbalance of a single nutrient will weaken the response and permit invasion, infection, and potentially serious symptoms – in some cases, mortality.
Doctors practising nutritional medicine understand how important diet, nutritional supplementation and the elimination of excess sugar, alcohol and saturated fats are to preventing or managing most diseases. For decades now, experts in nutritional medicine (NM) have been quietly defeating infectious diseases, often where orthodox medicine has failed. They have been preventing or successfully treating influenza, severe herpes simplex, coronavirus infections, intractable bacterial infections and pneumonia using nutrients that are essential for improving the immune response, suppressing the viral load and killing the viruses responsible.
The advent of COVID-19 saw panic, pandemonium, economic destruction and death. We have now witnessed the extent to which our health institutions were unprepared for a pandemic of this magnitude. Countering the outbreak with complementary strategies – beyond applying simple epidemiological tools – could improve outcomes.
The scientific evidence and practitioner experience that NM has accumulated over the decades has been largely ignored by much of the establishment. NM exponents have tried valiantly to make authorities aware of its beneficial attributes, but often to little avail.
January 2020 saw the start of the ‘CD-Zinc Campaign’, which consisted of public health recommendations for the entire population to take vitamins C and D and the trace element zinc, the most critical, effective, safe and readily available nutrients for optimal immunity.
The common cold is typically caused by respiratory viruses. Regular oral supplementation with Vitamin C has been found to reduce the duration and severity of common colds in adults and children. Vitamin C deficiency results in impaired immunity and greater susceptibility to all infections, thus begins a vicious cycle; infections, in turn, significantly impact on vitamin C levels due to enhanced inflammation and metabolic requirements. Supplementation with vitamin C both prevents and treats respiratory and systemic infections.
COVID-19 can cause more serious conditions such as pneumonia, acute lung injury (ALI), acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), septic shock and multiple organ failure.
Some patients develop serious co-infections of bacteria and fungi. ARDS is characterised by severe hypoxemia (low-blood oxygen), uncontrolled inflammation, oxidative damage and damage to the air sac barrier in the lung, which can be fatal.
Infections and sepsis cause the ‘cytokine storm’. This leads to fluid accumulation in the airways and increased oxidative stress, which is a key factor in pulmonary injury including ALI and ARDS.
Vitamin C can act as a COVID-19 prophylaxis or treatment through numerous pathways. It can reduce the incidence and severity of bacterial and viral infections. Vitamin C increases white blood cell activity, reduces the replication of viruses, enhances the production and activity of white blood cells, including natural killer and helper cells, and increases antibody formation. Also, it is a very powerful antioxidant that can protect cells and tissues. Its antiviral effects have been demonstrated in influenza, herpes viruses, pox viruses and coronaviruses.
Vitamin C can ameliorate hyperoxia-induced ALI and attenuate hyperoxia-induced white blood cell dysfunction. It prevents the cytokine surge that damages the lungs. It eliminates alveolar fluid by preventing the activation and accumulation of neutrophils – special white blood cells.
High-dose intravenous vitamin C (HDIVC) is instrumental in recovery from influenza and ARDS and other serious complications of serious viral infections. Patients on life support (ECMO) with a poor prognosis have been rapidly and successfully recovered using HDIVC, with no evidence of lung fibrosis.
IV Vitamin C use in septic shock has been shown to reduce mortality. It also reduces the length of stay in ICU and significantly shortens the duration of mechanical ventilation.
HDIVC does not cause kidney stones or kidney damage, excuses used by opponents to justify refusal to use the treatment. A very rare side effect is the preventable breakdown of red blood cells. This can be very serious and result in anaemia. The G6P-D deficiency test is performed to ensure that very high doses of vitamin C are not administered if the test is positive.
In March 2020, on the back of data published by what translates as the “Expert Group on Clinical Treatment of New Coronavirus Disease in Shanghai”, the Shanghai government announced its official recommendation that COVID-19 should be treated with high doses of IV Vitamin C.
According to thousands of doctors around the world who have used HDIVC, this molecule is one of the most powerful in treating virtually all human conditions, including physical and mental illnesses and trauma, and it should be used as the treatment of first choice in every epidemic.
Vitamin D is the sunlight vitamin. When ultraviolet light falls on the skin, it manufactures a precursor of vitamin D that goes to the liver and kidneys, which make active vitamin D – or, more accurately, a hormone called calcitriol.
Deficiency of vitamin D results in rickets in children, bone disease in adults, such as osteoporosis, and a greatly weakened immune system. Cod liver oil is a rich source of vitamin D. In the past, it has been used extensively during winter to protect children against colds and flus, and it is also essential for strong antimicrobial immunity.
The seasonal increase in vitamin D deficiency amplifies the risk from respiratory viruses, including the COVID-19 coronavirus.
More than 25 clinical trials of vitamin D supplementation for the prevention of acute respiratory tract infections have been conducted during the past two decades. In 2017, a systematic review and meta-analysis concluded vitamin D supplementation was safe and protected against acute respiratory tract infections, with the most severely deficient patients experiencing the greatest benefit.
People with vitamin D deficiency are much more likely to suffer serious symptoms upon contracting respiratory viruses. In particular, elderly people, especially those in aged care, are at risk of vitamin D deficiency, unless given adequate supplementation. Others who typically cannot manufacture enough include people of colour, people restricted to indoors, the obese, diabetics and others with chronic diseases.
The Nordic countries have public health policies around vitamin D supplementation and food fortification. Countries like Scandinavia also have among the lowest mortality rates attributed to the SARS – COV2 coronavirus.
By contrast, countries that do not have a public health policy of vitamin D supplementation in winter face increased risk of viral respiratory infections and deaths due to influenza-like viruses, including COVID-19.
Public health programs of vitamin D supplementation protect elderly people and healthcare workers from serious illness and death and allow for less-severe lockdown and economic destruction. In fact, overall, they lead to greater productivity and economic gains, even when severe non-COVID-19 viral infections dominate.
Supplementation with readily-available vitamin D is effective, cheap and extremely safe. In fact, no toxicity has been reported with doses of up to 4,000 iu per day.
The myriad mechanisms of action of vitamin D are well understood. In fact, it has now been reclassified as a hormone (I call it Hormone D or its proper name, calcitriol). Logically, routine testing of people at risk of insufficiency should be conducted. If the level of Hormone D is low, it should be medically corrected with supplementation, just as is done with insulin in diabetes and thyroid hormone in hypothyroidism. If vitamin D were classified as a drug named calcitriol, it would likely be prescribed extensively.
The immediate introduction of public health measures to improve vitamin D status globally is essential, particularly in settings where profound deficiency is common.
Finally, to zinc, a critical trace element in the fight against COVID-19 and future pandemics. It plays a fundamental role in protecting us against invaders. I use the metaphor of zinc as the moat, turrets, gates and locks to the fort – without it, we are unprotected. Zinc creates a powerful killer mucous that lines our airways from the nose to the airway’s final passages. It holds our airway-lining cells together. Without zinc, our white cells are limited in their production of antibodies and our genes cannot express and repair themselves amid viral onslaught. Researchers have concluded that “the enumerated evidence from the literature strongly suggests great benefits of zinc supplementation [in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19].
Given that it is readily available and cost-effective, there is a strong case for global health authorities executing a CD-Zinc supplementation program worldwide.
There is no excuse for denying the people of the world a new, cheap, available and science-based approach to assist in our war against the pandemic and its attendant pandemonium. We need not wait for all the new clinical studies to emerge because there is more than ample experience around the current science and vast evidentiary proof already in existence. We cannot wait while watching the bodies drop.
I have been inspired by the following statement made by Albert Szen–Gyorgyi, who discovered vitamin C in the 1930s: “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”
