THE lockdowns going on in the world today are aimed at containing the spread of the previously unknown coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Since it has no cure yet, unlike other respiratory diseases, people with symptoms of an infection – such as fever, cough, or shortness of breath – are likely to panic.
As of yesterday, the World Health Organization has counted 198,753 COVID cases in 197 countries. Of that number, 82,779 have recovered and only 7,989 have died.
In other words, almost 42 percent have recovered, a measly four percent have died and the rest are likely to survive.
In a past column, I briefly cited a pass-on internet message alluding to COVID as an accidentally-leaked chemical agent produced in a laboratory at Wuhan City, China.
Whether the author was correct in his allegation that coronavirus was intended as a biological weapon intended to cripple the United States, the world leaders’ collective concern is to beat the disease.
The only known way to do it is to boost our immune system.
This week, a “natural way” to kill the virus – eating banana – has gone viral on Facebook. It’s because banana is rich in vitamin B-6, among other immune-boosting vitamins and minerals.
Didn’t the Greek father of medicine, Hippocrates (460-337 BC), taught, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”?
Doctors at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Australia are now at the forefront of a research on how the immune system responds to the coronavirus.
“The immune cell populations we have seen emerging before patients recover are the same cells that we see in influenza,” the institute’s laboratory head, Katherine Kedzierska, told ABC News.
I agree, looking back to the time when my doctor prescribed me an anti-cholesterol “statin drug”.
However, within three days of taking the drug, I agonized from muscle pain.
It shocked me to read an internet blog about other users of the drug reporting the same side effect.
I bought a book endorsing fruits and vegetables as the better alternatives to anti-cholesterol drugs in restoring cardio-vascular health. Such restoration, however, necessitates lesser consumption of red meat but more of fish.
It is no longer disputable that vegetables and fruits strengthen the body’s built-in immune system, giving it the capacity to fight disease-causing bacteria and viruses. The lowly and cheap malunggay has already been proven effective in that function.
There were no “fast foods” and preserved “junks” during Hippocrates’ time. No doubt the main foodstuffs then consisted mostly of fresh plants and fresh fish. That he lived to be an octogenarian proves that he successfully practiced what he had preached.
Hippocrates as a physician, the book said, prescribed natural remedies to prevent and treat diseases. His approach was both therapeutic and experimental, since there were no sophisticated laboratories yet to help him diagnose patients and evaluate the outcome of treatment. He would wait and see. Whenever a patient recovered, he would further observe him to validate nutritional therapy, herbal medicine and other natural remedies.
Shed of hypocrisy, conventional medicine ought to be integrated with alternative medicine because they really do not oppose each other. On the contrary, they complement each other like parallel railroad tracks.
Natural medicines are no cure-all but are not detrimental unless laced with chemicals. They offer hope to desperate patients, including those whom hospitals have given up.
The Philippine government, unfortunately, appears lukewarm in implementing the Traditional Alternative Medicine Act (TAMA) of 1998, which is supposed to encourage drug companies to use native herbs as active components of their products. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
