The Mojo of Immune Fortifying Plant Juice
The folly of their interpretation is that immune functions will rise in a linear way, creating an over‐signaling that will trigger cytokine storm. Herbs are not single molecules that behave in a linear, one-target way.
The Mojo of Immune Fortifying Plant Juice
For most of this year, the trillion-dollar global healthcare system has shown us its competence. Scientists, entrepreneurs, laboratories, diagnostic test developers, vaccine technologists and professionals of modern science around the world have put their talents together and come up with … almost nothing useful. The diagnostic tests work, but not really. The drugs work, but not really. The masks work, but not really. The vaccines work, but not really.
Meanwhile, in the forests where coronavirus has been living for many years in its forms as 45 species, as many viruses do, the plants and trees have learned to cope with its nuisance by producing anti-virals. In fact, the trees are the most talented nanotechnologists on the planet, and they are the best anti-virus medicine makers. Ayurveda whispers that we should ask the trees then use their parts for their potent anti-virals as some of our best multi-organ, multi-target, multi-level medicines.
In late March 2020, the Government of India released a series of posters for people to learn how to use natural medicines effectively. Called Ayurveda’s Immunity Boosting Measures for Self Care During Covid 19 Crisis, the posters guide the reader through general and specific measures for enhancing the body’s natural defense system. The posters recommend warm water, yoga, nasal oil, oil pulling, steam inhalation and clove powder in honey. Specific herbs such as turmeric, cumin, coriander, and garlic, as well as tea made with tulsi, cinnamon, black pepper, dry ginger, and raisins are shown. Recent reports show that people using ayurvedic medicines have shorter recovery times, better experience, less after-effects, and less costs on the system.
Over the following months, as pharmaceutical began to fail, as well as create debacles, including the current post-covid syndrome of respiratory and cardiac problems in former patients, the new entity of cytokine storm arose. The cytokine storm is an untoward hyper-reaction of the immune system in which the molecules that talk between cells, called cytokines, start signalling a cascade of molecules in the body that causes the very inflammation and damage that the immune system is called to resolve. It is akin to an army attacking its own country due to communication signals it got.
Because these reactions of the immune system are not yet understood by modern science, the fear of immune boosting has been propagated by scientists looking at herbs that claim to increase the immune system of the body. Drug developers, ethnobotanists, and pharmacologists are warning patients that using herbs could be dangerous, as there is no proof that it will not lead to cytokine storm.
The folly of their interpretation is that immune functions will rise in a linear way, creating an over-signalling that will trigger cytokine storm. Herbs are not single molecules that behave in one way. They live among a clan of related molecules which know together how to stay in balance, like a many-bodied collection of molecules that maintain equilibrium in a fluid system through entanglement dynamics known in physics.
Herbal medicines are elegantly constructed formulations that contain inherent checks and balances. Even modern science has proven that a whole herb such as black pepper has different and more complete effects than its signature component piperine. In contrast, isolated compounds such as piperine or curcumin or any of the biomarker compounds isolated from herbs cannot be considered to have the same effect as the whole plant. The phyto-pharmaceutical laws that have been developed to enhance green pharmacy only exploit the plant as a factory, without taking any of the wisdom. That is why such misunderstanding of cytokine storm from herbs used for thousands of years can be hypothesized.
The term immune boosting originates from scientific studies during the 1960s yoga movement in which regular pranayama was shown to boost immune robustness. Still today immune systems are stronger in people who do proper yoga. But with herbs that are being measured in a linear response, the term Immune Fortification is better than immune boosting. The grounding of the immune system in itself is more important than levels of a chemical rising. Fortification and strengthening and robustness are more accurate than a linear increase in one measured chemical just as a strong army is more than the measure of the number of guns it has.
In addition, the grounding effect in robust immune systems is not possible in molecules that are not derived from living beings. That is why the microbiome is such a crucial element in the development of the immune system. In addition, viruses and fungi are well known for taking different forms in different living beings than under microscopes or non-living cells. So the vaccines created against those viruses in the lab may not work in the living human body. When this principle is understood, the immunologists may choose to explore that life energy, called prana, or chi. Ayurvedic pharmaceutics principles understood this, and that is why the best medicines are fresh leaves and juices from plants.
week28. TheSouthAsianTimes
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Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya is a Fulbright Specialist 2018‐2023 in Public Health. She serves as Clinical Asst Professor of Family Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, NY. Her bestselling book Everyday Ayurveda is published by Penguin Random House. To order an autographed copy, write to bhaswati@post.harvard.edu.
www.drbhaswati.com