The Playground

Quote from Fm1

Ok I'm going with stupid!

After Myocarditis

After treatment, many patients live long, full lives free from the effects of myocarditis. For others, however, ongoing cardiovascular medication or even a heart transplant may be needed. Overall, myocarditis which can cause dilated cardiomyopathy, are thought to account for up to 45 percent of heart transplants in the U.S. today.

But not the cases caused by the vaccines. Those are mild, without damage or after-effects. At least, that is what the doctors say, and the medical journals report. Perhaps you know better than the doctors do. Perhaps you have some secret inside information, and you know that the doctors and medical journal are colluding in a conspiracy to hide the facts. I doubt it. Anyway, what I know is what the doctors say. I do not know where you are getting your information, but it is not from doctors or hospitals treating COVID vaccine induced cases.

Quote from Alan Smith

There is a logical inconsistency here perhaps? Which is worst, fructose or sucrose? It's hard to tell from this.

Table sugar (sucrose) is a disaccharide of fructose and glucose.
So, presuming argumento that glucose is good for you and fructose is bad, sucrose is 50% better than pure fructose.

Quote from Alan Fletcher

fructose is bad

It depends. You can absorb fructose already in your mouth (20%) but not Glucose. So bad/good, it is also a matter of kinetics. The liver can store quite a lot and if you do endurance sport you bunk long living sugar in the form of stark.

So everything depends on how full your storage is and how good your insulin works.

An average fat American already has an insulin resistance. That is the point where you still produce enough insulin but the body no longer reacts upon it...

https://www.management-kranken…nsulin-resistenz-entdeckt (german)

Since I recently learned that the smell of burning sulphur often accompanies ball lightening, I wonder if the use of sulphur has been explored much in the LENR world.

From wiki,

Susceptible alloys, especially steels, react with hydrogen sulfide (H2S), forming metal sulfides (MeS) and atomic hydrogen (H•) as corrosion byproducts. Atomic hydrogen either combines to form H2 at the metal surface or diffuses into the metal matrix. Since sulfur is a hydrogen recombination poison, the amount of atomic hydrogen which recombines to form H2 on the surface is greatly reduced, thereby increasing the amount of diffusion of atomic hydrogen into the metal matrix. This aspect is what makes wet H2S environments so severe.[1]

Anyway, a couple of videos of something different : burning sulphur.

O16 + O16 --> S32.

We think this is a reaction that may take place in electrified/plasmafied environments. How and how much exactly is another question, but this reaction is often the only explanation for the Sulfur... At this stage it comes down to believing fusion is possible or not..

Quote from Edo

O16 + O16 --> S32.

We think this is a reaction that may take place in electrified/plasmafied environments. How and how much exactly is another question, but this reaction is often the only explanation for the Sulfur... At this stage it comes down to believing fusion is possible or not..

Belief aside, mechanisms that contravene conservatuon of mass/energy are not likely.

For a smell of sulfur to come from fusion in this way you would have a very large exothermic energy release - I'd bet much larger than observed with ball lightning.

So if proposing such and explanation it would be good to estimate the amount of sulfur (which I guess has been done if it is known there is no other explanation) and therefore the amount of energy necessarily released.

One other thing - it may be that in some circumstances the smell of ozone could be confused with sulfur.

I smelled both in my life multiple times and they are not really alike.

Belief is accepting someone else's explanation or one of own creation as the truth. And by that definition, most here are very staunch believers
Point being is that we really think that transmutation are very much more common than thought in earth's environment, for example during a discharge of lightning or plasma ball, which is what is discussed on this platform a lot..

Quote from Wyttenbach

This is all proven science but for clowns of FM/R/F/B mafia/big pharma of course its conspiracy.

E.g. Cholesterol is a no issue since the beginning as big pharma already cheated the first study...

Almost nobody should take any Cholesterol reducing drugs. Only for people with vascular deposits it could make sense for e.g. a year at most...

Doctors prescribing Cholesterol reducing drugs without deep testing simply are criminals.

Evaluating the Association Between Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Reduction and Relative and Absolute Effects of Statin Treatment

A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Association Between Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Reduction and Relative and Absolute Effects of Statin Treatment

This systematic review and meta-analysis examines the association between absolute reductions in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels with treatment with…

jamanetwork.com

Abstract

Importance The association between statin-induced reduction in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels and the absolute risk reduction of individual, rather than composite, outcomes, such as all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, or stroke, is unclear.

Objective To assess the association between absolute reductions in LDL-C levels with treatment with statin therapy and all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, and stroke to facilitate shared decision-making between clinicians and patients and inform clinical guidelines and policy.

Data Sources PubMed and Embase were searched to identify eligible trials from January 1987 to June 2021.

Study Selection Large randomized clinical trials that examined the effectiveness of statins in reducing total mortality and cardiovascular outcomes with a planned duration of 2 or more years and that reported absolute changes in LDL-C levels. Interventions were treatment with statins (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors) vs placebo or usual care. Participants were men and women older than 18 years.

Data Extraction and Synthesis Three independent reviewers extracted data and/or assessed the methodological quality and certainty of the evidence using the risk of bias 2 tool and Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation. Any differences in opinion were resolved by consensus. Meta-analyses and a meta-regression were undertaken.

Main Outcomes and Measures Primary outcome: all-cause mortality. Secondary outcomes: myocardial infarction, stroke.

Findings Twenty-one trials were included in the analysis. Meta-analyses showed reductions in the absolute risk of 0.8% (95% CI, 0.4%-1.2%) for all-cause mortality, 1.3% (95% CI, 0.9%-1.7%) for myocardial infarction, and 0.4% (95% CI, 0.2%-0.6%) for stroke in those randomized to treatment with statins, with associated relative risk reductions of 9% (95% CI, 5%-14%), 29% (95% CI, 22%-34%), and 14% (95% CI, 5%-22%) respectively. A meta-regression exploring the potential mediating association of the magnitude of statin-induced LDL-C reduction with outcomes was inconclusive.

Conclusions and Relevance The results of this meta-analysis suggest that the absolute risk reductions of treatment with statins in terms of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, and stroke are modest compared with the relative risk reductions, and the presence of significant heterogeneity reduces the certainty of the evidence. A conclusive association between absolute reductions in LDL-C levels and individual clinical outcomes was not established, and these findings underscore the importance of discussing absolute risk reductions when making informed clinical decisions with individual patients.

Combinatorial influence of environmental temperature, obesity and cholesterol on SARS-CoV-2 infectivity

Combinatorial influence of environmental temperature, obesity and cholesterol on SARS-CoV-2 infectivity - Scientific Reports

www.nature.com

Abstract

The continuing evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants not only causes a long-term global health concerns but also encounters the vaccine/drug effectiveness. The degree of virus infectivity and its clinical outcomes often depend on various biological parameters (e.g., age, genetic factors, diabetes, obesity and other ailments) of an individual along with multiple environmental factors (e.g., air temperature, humidity, seasons). Thus, despite the extensive search for and use of several vaccine/drug candidates, the combinative influence of these various extrinsic and intrinsic risk factors involved in the SARS-CoV-2 virus infectivity has yet to be explored. Previous studies have reported that environment temperature is negatively associated with virus infectivity for SARS-CoV-2. This study elaborates on our previous findings, investigating the link between environmental temperature and other metabolic parameters, such as average total cholesterol and obesity, with the increase in COVID-19 cases. Statistical analysis conducted on a per country basis not only supports the existence of a significant negative correlation between environmental temperature and SARS-CoV-2 infections but also found a strong positive correlation between COVID-19 cases and these metabolic parameters. In addition, a multiphase growth curve model (GCM) was built to predict the contribution of these covariates in SARS-CoV-2 infectivity. These findings, for first time, support the idea that there might be a combinatorial impact of environmental temperature, average total cholesterol, and obesity in the inflation of the SARS-CoV-2 infectivity.

Discussion

The novel coronavirus has spread to pandemic proportions, posing a major threat to the human population with an infection rate that has been found to increase exponentially. This outbreak of COVID-19 has led to millions of deaths worldwide. With the lockdown lifted in many parts of the world, infection rates have been found to increase rapidly. In fact, virus infectivity has rapidly peaked as recently as December 2021. There are multiple environmental and biological factors that could contribute to the rapid spread of disease, such as environmental temperature and metabolic parameters. Studies have reported an association between the infection and transmission of viruses with air temperature and humidity. This has been shown, for example, for the influenza virus 15. Reports in the literature suggest that temperature might be an important factor accounting for the transmission of other coronaviruses, like SARS-CoV16 and MERS-CoV17 because of (i) increased virus half-life at lower temperatures, (ii) greater stability in nasal passages when the epithelial surface is cold, and (iii) greater stability in lower humidity as compared to intermediate humidity15,16,17. Considering these facts, we conducted a study to establish a link between environmental temperature and COVID-19 cases. We observed that countries with more COVID-19 cases were mostly located north of the latitude of Wuhan, China where the pandemic started in December, 2019. Thus, we performed a detailed country-wise statistical analysis which established a significant negative correlation between COVID-19 cases and MAET of a country5. However, this initial finding was limited to the COVID-19 data from March and April, 2020. While there are a few studies whose findings are broadly congruous with our own regarding temperature and SARS-CoV-2 caseload18, others have found no correlation between temperature and infection rate13. In this study, we have validated the relationship between MAET and COVID -19 cases per million from March, 2020 to July, 2021 of a country. Univariate analysis by both Pearson and Spearman’s methods indicated a negative correlation between temperature and COVID-19 cases (Table 1). The statistical analysis also identified a stronger negative correlation for the winter months (November to March) signifying that the warmer months faced fewer SARS-CoV-2 infections compared to the colder months. The box plot (Fig. 2) and the simple trajectory curves (Fig. 3) also demonstrated a high prevalence of COVID-19 infection in the later months of the year as compared to the initial months. To further reconfirm that lower temperatures influence infection rate, we inspected the geographical locations of the countries with moa greater number of infections and observed that most of these countries were located above 23.5oN latitude and/or towards the poles, further suggesting that cold temperatures may affect the SARS-CoV-2 transmission (Fig. 1A).

Nevertheless, we did not limit our study exclusively to environmental temperature since there may be multiple reasons for this increase in the novel coronavirus infections. More severe viral infection is observed in those patients who are already suffering from the other pre-existing health complications19. Therefore, we refined our research by considering additional metabolic parameters like high-cholesterol, BMI, and obesity, in conjunction with the environmental temperature of a country, in influencing the SARS-CoV-2 caseload. The role of cholesterol in virulence of other respiratory viruses, like influenza, has been well established in several studies. For instance, cholesterol, which maintains membrane structure, is critical for viral stability and virulence20. Studies have documented that patients with prior high cholesterol levels are more prone to viral infectivity, eventually leading to severe disease outcomes21. Cholesterol-enriched lipid rafts might accommodate the aggregation of ACE2 receptors on the cell membrane, thus enhancing the binding of the S-protein of SARS-CoV-2 to the host cell surface22. Another study has shown that individuals with an apolipoprotein (apo) E4 genotype have an increased risk of severe COVID‐19 infection. Though increased cholesterol levels promote ACE2 and furin trafficking inside host cells21, cholesterol plasma levels are found to be decreased in patients post-infection. In brief, high cholesterol present in host cell membrane, virus particles, and human blood may augment the virus entry processing in the host cells21,23. Our data depicted that geographic locations above 23.5oN latitude and towards the poles had a higher prevalence of high average total cholesterol levels, often overlapping the areas with the highest COVID-19 cases (Fig. 1B). Furthermore, the univariate analysis also showed a significant positive correlation between average total cholesterol and COVID-19 total cases per million (Table 1), thereby suggesting that higher cholesterol levels may enhance the infection rate of SARS-CoV-2.

Obesity is a critical health condition which is a consequence of modern sedentary lifestyle. In addition to its other health implications, there is an association between obesity and critical viral infections24. Reports have shown that obesity can contribute to the progression of viral infections such as in the case of Hepatitis C infection25. Several studies have reported that overweight patients need respiratory support and have increased admission to intensive care units (ICUs) compared to patients with normal weight, even at a younger age26. A cohort study showed that obesity is an important factor in disease severity of SARS‐CoV‐2, having the highest impact on patients with a BMI ≥ 3527. Moreover, in vitro experiments have shown that ACE2 and TMPRSS2, two essential entry components for SARS-CoV-2 infection, are highly upregulated in the lung epithelial cells of obese patients28. Therefore, we explored the relationship between BMI and obesity and COVID-19 caseload. Upon identifying the geographical locations of countries with a higher prevalence of BMI and obesity, significant overlap was observed with those with high numbers of COVID-19 cases (Fig. 1C,D), just as with cholesterol levels. Additionally, statistical analysis identified a positive correlation between the BMI with the total COVID-19 cases per million (Table 1).

Based on these preliminary findings from the univariate analysis data, we conclude that these metabolic parameters i.e., average total cholesterol and BMI, influence the infectivity of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. To authenticate these findings, different statistical approaches were used, and we attempted to model the COVID-19 cases/million trajectory using a latent growth curve model in the presence of time-variant and invariant factors. Multiphase GCM was used to investigate the role of metabolic parameters on the escalation of COVID-19 cases. We evaluated different covariates such as temperature, average total cholesterol, and BMI and tried to fit it in the multiphase models individually with the COVID-19 cases per million and examined the AIC, BIC and TLI values (Table 2). The model having the lowest AIC and BIC values and greater TLC values was considered to be the best fit model fulfilling all the statistical criteria, and based on this, the models were ranked accordingly. Moreover, when these metabolic parameters were evaluated with environmental temperature, it was found to have a greater impact on the infection rate. In order to determine the combinatorial effect of all these factors i.e., environmental temperature, average total cholesterol, and BMI with the COVID-19 cases per million, we incorporated these parameters all together in the multiphase model and determined the AIC, BIC, and TLI values; it was observed that the AIC and BIC values are lowest and TLI is highest for this model in comparison to the other competing models. Therefore, it could be concluded that Model-8 outperformed the other models. The estimates used were obtained from this model. The structure plot for the data including all countries is shown in Fig. 4. Altogether, these findings indicate that patients with higher cholesterol, BMI, and obesity may be more prone to infection, particularly in the winter months. Thus, obese individuals with high average total cholesterol may be at additional risk for getting SARS-CoV-2 infection if they are further exposed to cold environment. This is the first attempt to model COVID-19 cases/million trajectory using the latent growth curve model in presence of time-variant and invariant factors. In fact, such a growth curve modeling approach could be utilized to track and predict the spread SARS-COV-2 infection over the time in presence of the considered factors. This can be helpful to design the policies against the COVID-19.

Although our study indicates a negative correlation between temperature and the number of COVID-19 cases, the ability of this virus to infect might also depend on age, sex, and ethnicity, the prevalence of different diseases in the population, different social distancing practices, and uses of various preventive medicines. Also, our findings are based on the effect of atmospheric temperature on COVID-19 cases; how indoor temperature might affect infection rate is yet to be considered. Our study has considered a rather holistic approach to understanding the role of temperature in infection rates of the virus and takes into account the fluctuations observed in a single country. Moreover, with the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 mutant strains, it is somewhat difficult at this stage to speculate the role of temperature, obesity, and cholesterol on the infection rates of these mutant strains. Although prior SARS-CoV-2 infection protects most individuals from reinfection for at least five months29, the first case of COVID-19 reinfection after recovery has been identified in a female from Japan30, after which reinfection became a true threat. A recent study has shown that people above 65 years of age have relatively low protection against reinfection by COVID-1931. Moreover, recent studies documented that obesity and hyperlipidaemia are associated with lower antibody titre32,33. All these findings suggest that various metabolic factors not only enhance the infectivity rate, but also provoke reinfection. However, how metabolic parameters like obesity and cholesterol levels affect the incidence of reinfection still remains unclear. Having said so, the pattern of infection by the virus may differ in the near future due to our growing knowledge of treatment and a much-improved understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus infectivity and its associated complications.

Furthermore, this study suggests that individuals with metabolic disorders such as high-cholesterol and obesity could be more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection in the winter months, especially while living in a colder environment. ACE-2 expression in host cells and average total cholesterol levels may be increased in response to exposure to a cold environment and in the winter months9,34,35. Elevated ACE-2 levels were observed in multiple metabolic disease conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and higher LDL cholesterol36. Additionally, obesity may not only increase ACE-2 and TRMPSS2, but also cellular cholesterol levels by increasing SREBP137,38. Interestingly, a role for low temperature has been suggested in stabilizing the RBD-ACE2 interface and triggering “open” conformations of the COVID-19 spike protein, thus enhancing viral infectivity at cold temperatures39. Several studies have also reported multiple roles for cholesterol in enhancing the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Cholesterol-rich microdomains can provide an effective platform for interaction between ACE2 and Spike S-protein7. Tang et. al reported the role of cholesterol in increasing the density of ACE2 receptors on host cell membranes23. Reports using super-resolution imaging have also observed increased SARS-CoV-2 entry in cells with high blood serum cholesterol levels40. Furthermore, studies have shown that obesity is a critical factor in COVID-19 severity. Increased ACE-2 expression in lung tissue is seen in patients that are obese, implicating excess adipose tissue in enhancing the spread of the virus41. Thus, a colder environment and obesity both increase ACE-2 and host membrane cholesterol, which favour viral entry processing resulting in increase of virus infectivity.

However, other intrinsic factors like hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, renal diseases, and cancer, as well as extrinsic factors like relative humidity and indoor temperature, have not been included in these analyses. Specifically, indoor temperature may contribute to virus infectivity. Actually, cold temperatures and low relative humidity (RH) adversely increase the half-lives of the virus15. Aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 has the potential to stay infectious for about 16 h at optimum indoor meteorological conditions42. Indoor locations have a relative humidity < 40% which indicates higher chances of airborne SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 infection occurs in cool, dry, air-conditioned indoor environments43,44 and during cold weather, people mostly stay indoors, which further potentiates transmission45. Presently, the USA is setting up policies which suggest maintaining indoor temperatures between 20 and 24 °C and RH around 20–60%46. Thus, dry weather generated to maintain indoor temperature (20 °C) in winter months may further potentiate virus infectivity since the virus may persist for longer times in a relatively lower humid atmosphere47.

In brief as a conclusive remark, such multiphase growth curve models may be used to depict the contribution of various covariates with COVID-19 cases. Moreover, the individuals with metabolic disorders such as high cholesterol and obesity may have additional risk for this virus infectivity especially in winter months or while living in colder environments. Thus, this study further recommends that a nationwide policy is to be framed in order to combat COVID-19 pandemic and its clinical outcomes for taking care of vulnerable individuals with such metabolic diseases of a cold country. However, further study is required to know whether the infectivity rate of mutant variants of SARS-CoV-2 depends on these factors.

Serum vitamin D and change in lipid levels over 5 y: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study

Serum vitamin D and change in lipid levels over 5 y: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study

Deficiency of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) is associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease, perhaps mediated through dyslipidemia. Defic…

www.sciencedirect.com

Highlights

•

We investigated the longitudinal association between vitamin D deficiency and lipids.

•

Vitamin D deficiency was associated with lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol over time.

•

Vitamin D deficiency was associated with a higher ratio of total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein over time.

•

More data are needed to determine if vitamin D supplementation improves lipid levels.

Abstract

Objectives

Deficiency of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) is associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease, perhaps mediated through dyslipidemia. Deficient 25(OH)D is cross-sectionally associated with dyslipidemia, but little is known about longitudinal lipid changes. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship of 25(OH)D deficiency to longitudinal lipid changes and risk for incident dyslipidemia.

Methods

This was a longitudinal community-based study of 13 039 participants from the ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities) study who had 25(OH)D and lipids measured at baseline (1990–1992) and lipids remeasured in 1993 to 1994 and 1996 to 1998. Mixed-effect models were used to assess the association of 25(OH)D and lipid trends after adjusting for clinical characteristics and for baseline or incident use of lipid-lowering therapy. Risk for incident dyslipidemia was determined for those without baseline dyslipidemia.

Results

Baseline mean ± SD age was 57 ± 6 y and 25(OH)D was 24 ± 9 ng/mL. Participants were 57% women, 24% black. Over a mean follow-up of 5.2 y, the fully adjusted average differences (95% confidence interval [CI]) comparing deficient (<20 ng/mL) to optimal (≥30 ng/mL) 25(OH)D were: total cholesterol (TC) −2.40 mg/dL (−4.21 to −0.60), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) −3.02 mg/dL (−3.73 to −2.32) and the ratio of TC to HDL-C 0.18 (0.11–0.26). Those with deficient compared with optimal 25(OH)D had modestly increased risk for incident dyslipidemia in demographic-adjusted models (relative risk [RR], 1.19; 95% CI, 1.02–1.39), which was attenuated in fully adjusted models (RR, 1.12; 95% CI, 0.95–1.32).

Conclusions

Deficient 25(OH)D was prospectively associated with lower TC and HDL-C and a greater ratio of TC to HDL-C after considering factors such as diabetes and adiposity. Further work including randomized controlled trials is needed to better assess how 25(OH)D may affect lipids and cardiovascular risk.

Quote from THHuxleynew

One other thing - it may be that in some circumstances the smell of ozone could be confused with sulfur.

Go ask a chemist about this. When you find one that agrees with you let me know, I'm very patient.

Quote from JedRothwell

Perhaps you know better than the doctors do.

perhaps fm knows better than the parrots

btw FDA applied for 75 year suppression of vaccine info..

Russell Brand's send-up is appropriate

Why does Africa have a very low death rate from Covid?

Therapeutic Potentials of Antiviral Plants Used in Traditional African Medicine With COVID-19 in Focus: A Nigerian Perspective

Therapeutic Potentials of Antiviral Plants Used in Traditional African Medicine With COVID-19 in Focus: A Nigerian Perspective

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is caused by an infectious novel strain of coronavirus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus…

www.frontiersin.org

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is caused by an infectious novel strain of coronavirus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which was earlier referred to as 2019-nCoV. The respiratory disease is the most consequential global public health crisis of the 21st century whose level of negative impact increasingly experienced globally has not been recorded since World War II. Up till now, there has been no specific globally authorized antiviral drug, vaccines, supplement or herbal remedy available for the treatment of this lethal disease except preventive measures, supportive care and non-specific treatment options adopted in different countries via divergent approaches to halt the pandemic. However, many of these interventions have been documented to show some level of success particularly the Traditional Chinese Medicine while there is paucity of well reported studies on the impact of the widely embraced Traditional African Medicines (TAM) adopted so far for the prevention, management and treatment of COVID-19. We carried out a detailed review of publicly available data, information and claims on the potentials of indigenous plants used in Sub-Saharan Africa as antiviral remedies with potentials for the prevention and management of COVID-19. In this review, we have provided a holistic report on evidence-based antiviral and promising anti-SARS-CoV-2 properties of African medicinal plants based on in silico evidence, in vitro assays and in vivo experiments alongside the available data on their mechanistic pharmacology. In addition, we have unveiled knowledge gaps, provided an update on the effort of African Scientific community toward demystifying the dreadful SARS-CoV-2 micro-enemy of man and have documented popular anti-COVID-19 herbal claims emanating from the continent for the management of COVID-19 while the risk potentials of herb-drug interaction of antiviral phytomedicines when used in combination with orthodox drugs have also been highlighted. This review exercise may lend enough credence to the potential value of African medicinal plants as possible leads in anti-COVID-19 drug discovery through research and development.

Introduction

The current pandemic threatening the global community, a highly communicable viral infection otherwise known as Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus two or SARS-CoV-2 (Figures 1, 2) (Chan et al., 2020a). The sudden emergence of the disease was first noticed in Wuhan city, China, East Asia (Chan et al., 2020b; Guo et al., 2020). Social distancing, hand washing, alcoholic disinfectants or hand sanitizers, isolation/quarantine, travel restrictions, wearing of face mask, community containments and partial or total lockdown (World Health Organization, 2020) have continued to remain effective non-pharmaceutical preventive measures.

Despite all the divergent efforts to halt the spread and mortalities associated with COVID-19, the devastating micro-enemy has continued to spread causing more deaths and a lot of socio-economic implications. While most of the affected countries in Europe and America are relying solely on orthodox drugs, South-East Asia and in particular, China where the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have originated, has adequate documentation of successful outcomes following the integration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with orthodox medicines in COVID-19 management (Chang et al., 2020; Gao et al., 2020). Interestingly, overwhelming literature evidence suggests that China and neighboring Asian territories practice a robust age-long traditional medicine system that has been favorably integrated with the western medicine; the TCM-western system of healthcare was therefore adopted to combat the earlier outbreak of SARS-CoV in Guangdong, China in 2002 leading to the reported defeat of the epidemic (Leung, 2007). Top among the well documented herbal recipes and formulations used as adjuvants alongside western medicines during the time included San Ren Tang, Yin Qiao San, Ma Xing Shi Gan Tang, Gan Lu Xiao Du Dan, and Qing Ying Tang, a polyherbal formulation containing many indigenous plants. In addition, Hong Kong has documented the traditional application of Sang Ju Yin and Yu Ping Feng San, Isatis tinctoria L. (Brassicaceae) and Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi (Lamiaceae), for prophylactic use among health workers against SARS-CoV infection (Hensel et al., 2020; Luo et al., 2020). Following the reported success with the use of herbal adjuvants during the previous outbreaks of viral infections in China, the outbreak of SARS-CoV2 received an immediate authorization of integral Traditional Chinese–Western medicines to treat COVID-19 (Gao et al., 2020). This means Traditional Chinese Medicine - TCMs (mainly plant-based) were co-administered with western drugs as adjuvants.

However, in Africa, the use of phytomedicines which is also referred to as herbal medicine or phytotherapy is well embraced in different Pan African territories where 80–90% of its rural populations rely on traditional medicines (mainly plant-based) for primary healthcare (Elujoba et al., 2005; Mahomoodally, 2013). The extensive use of the predominantly plant-derived traditional medicine in Africa otherwise referred to as Traditional African Medicine, has been described to be associated with African socio-economic and socio-cultural endowments (Elujoba et al., 2005). For this reason, the WHO has continued to sensitize African Member states toward the integration of TAM into their health system (Mahomoodally, 2013) as the body recognizes the relevance of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine to Africa which has a long history of TAM and knowledgeable indigenous practitioners. For instance, there has been an unprecedented use of phytomedicines in Africa following the outbreak and global spread of COVID-19 pandemic, a situation which has been compounded by lack of authorized medicines that are effective, affordable and accessible to the populations coupled with a relatively weak African health sector (Lone and Ahmad, 2020; WHO, 2020). Coincidentally, available evidence from Africa Center for disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) suggests that the African continent is the last to be hit by the viral pandemic and least affected continent whose mortality rate (2.1%) until July 21, 2020 was less than half of the reported global mortality (5%) rate. Hence, despite the vulnerability of the African continent, it accounts for only 5% of the globally reported cases of COVID-19. While several factors may be attributable to this seeming positive trend, the near absolute dependence on the obvious potentials of the African medicinal plants for COVID-19 management may not be ruled out. As a malaria endemic region, the Sub-Saharan Africa often co-administer herbal remedies alone or combined with orthodox drugs as adjuvants and many of these plant-based medicines have since been informally repurposed by various users for COVID-19 prevention and symptomatic management as simple home remedies. Unlike the Traditional Chinese Medicine, there is a paucity of well reported studies on the impact of the widely embraced TAM adopted so far for the prevention, management and treatment of COVID-19. This review is therefore aimed at the documentation of African medicinal plants and their therapeutic potentials in the prevention and management of COVID-19. The potential risks associated with herb-drug interaction of antiviral phytomedicines when used in combination with orthodox drugs have been highlighted. In addition, we document the pharmacokinetic considerations in developing potential anti-COVID19 herbal products.

Quote from RobertBryant

perhaps fm knows better than the parrots

You are saying that just about every doctor on earth is a parrot. If you believe this, you are suffering from an extreme case of conspiracy theory-itis. You need to get a grip. Doctors and medical journals worldwide are not lying.

Quote

Doctors and medical journals worldwide are not lying.

You can't mean it seriously, Jed...

Rossi Sez:

2022-03-22 10:45 Anonymous

Dr Rossi:

Can you give us an update about the number of the pre-ordered units ?

2022-03-22 11:28 Andrea Rossi

Anonymous,

Thank you for your question, because I was going to explain what follows.

We are still around 800000, but the situation is very dynamic, not static, for the following reasons: most of the units have been ordered by the so called “big buyers”, which means buyers that made pre-orders for more than 1000 units. As you can understand, we cannot risk to manufacture hundreds of thousands of units on the base of a not engaging pre-order, without having the guarantee that the buyer will be able to pay: this would lead us toward a bankrupcy. For this reason, this is the situation: buyers for small quantities are not a problem, because most of them are surely able to pay and the few of them which refuse to pay when we call them to organize the delivery will be easily substituted by the incoming orders. Therefore in this period we are vetting the references of all the big buyers; it is turning out that several big buyers are respectable guys, but absolutely lacking the financial ground proportionated to the amount they should have to pay at the delivery.

To avoid to risk a bankrupcy, the steps will be the following:

SMALL BUYERS

1- we manufacture the units based on the pre-orders of the small buyers

2- when the ordered units are ready, we call the Clients and inform them that the delivery is ready

3- the Client is free to come to us and test his units, then decide if he wants the Ecats he pre-ordered, or not, and, if yes, he has to pay before the delivery by Paypal

BIG BUYERS

1- before starting to manufacture their units, we vet their financial status based on the information they give us and that we find about them and eventually decide if to proceed or not with the manufacturing, provided the Client puts the sum he has to pay in an escrow account agreed between the parties

2- when the units the Client has pre-ordered will be ready, we will inform him and he will be able to come to test his units: if the test will be successful ( based upon a test protocol agreed by the parties ) the money in the escrow account will be sent from the escrow agent to Leonardo Corporation and the Client will be able to get his units; if the test will be unsuccessful, the escrow agent will give back to the Client his money and the Ecats will remain where they are.

This said, in this period we are cancelling all the pre-orders of the Clients that resulted to be not able to guarantee their capacity to pay the amount of units they ordered. Presently there is an equilibrium between cancellations and new orders, so we still are around 800000.

I invite our Clients to avoid to make jumbo orders they are not able to pay for, because it results in a loss of time for both parties, with no avail.

Warm Regards,

A.R.

Well done Rossi, this looks like an ideal pyramid scheme! How else could E-cats be sold!

Has there ever been a bigger steaming raft of turd than Rossi’s Ecat?

Mercy

Quote from JedRothwell

You are saying that just about every doctor on earth is a parrot. If you believe this, you are suffering from an extreme case of conspiracy theory-itis. You need to get a grip. Doctors and medical journals worldwide are not lying.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

You can't mean it seriously, Jed...

I think we have about reached a resolution of the antivaxxer arguments here.

RB, Zephyr, FM1, doubtless others I have blocked, are inclined to think that throughout the world doctors and medical journals are lying in a conspiracy to kill people.

Jed, me (not sure who else on the thread) believe that is implausible, while there can be mistakes, and occasional wrong-doing, most doctors in the vast majority of countries are motivated by ethics that would preclude lying.

I fully realise RB and FM1 (not sure about Zephyr) don't want to be called antivaxxers. Not sure why not. They are making all the antivaxxer arguments which if true would indeed imply a worldwide medical conspiracy.

THH

Disclosure: I'm not an antivaxxer