Health & Fitness

She literally wrote the book on strength, so it’s no wonder Elsa Pataky has had a lifelong love affair with keeping her body in the best shape she can. Yet, she tells Body+Soul, it’s less about looking good than it is having the physical and mental capacity to make the most of each and every day.

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Researchers investigated how intestinal stem cells are controlled at the molecular level to remain stem cells or to develop into one of various intestinal cells. By studying mice lacking the protein IRF2, the researchers found a blunted regenerative response and an increased development of immature Paneth cells upon intestinal inflammation and infection. These findings help clarify the molecular biology of intestinal stem cells.

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A new bioluminescent reporter that tracks DNA double stranded break (DSB) repair in cells has been developed.

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Scientists have developed an injectable drug that blocks HIV from entering cells. They say the new drug potentially offers long-lasting protection from the infection with fewer side effects. The drug, which was tested in non-human primates, could eventually replace or supplement components of combination drug 'cocktail' therapies currently used to prevent or treat the virus.

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August normally heralds the end of summer break for children, who are preparing to head back to school. Stores compete with sales on back-to-school supplies; pediatricians' offices are swamped with athletes needing sports physicals and neighborhoods get especially noisy as children try to cram the evenings with fun activities before they're crammed with homework.

As everyone's aware, this fall is historically different. The social planning and changes accompanying the pandemic have meant that more adults are working remotely, whether they want to or not. College classes are being held online and elementary and high school children are not sure how classes will be run.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends children return to school, writing, "The importance of in-person learning is well-documented, and there is already evidence of the negative impacts on children because of school closures in the spring of 2020."¹ Yet the guidelines the CDC wants to use are nothing short of institutionalized isolation.²

Children will wear cloth masks all day; everything is cleaned and disinfected daily and between uses; students are not allowed to share pens and pencils and desks are expected to be placed 6 feet apart. Children will hear announcements throughout the day as a reminder to wash their hands and practice social distancing.

This "new normal" has a significant impact on the mental health of adults and children, which experts expect will create a deluge of psychological issues and challenges in the months to come.

Yuval Neria of the New York State Psychiatric Institute runs the facility's PTSD program and told the American Heart Association that mental health professionals are in uncharted territory in predicting the effects of this pandemic:³

"I don't think the mental health consequences will be limited to PTSD only. In fact, I think we should expect other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse and potentially increase in suicide. They are already there and kind of showing themselves.

Disasters are usually limited to space and time. And there is an onset of a disaster — which may take some time — but there is an end. But I think viruses have their own way to inflict adversities on us. The threat is ambiguous. (It) is everywhere and nowhere. It's ongoing. It may take a long time."

Children at High Risk From Largest Psychological Experiment

Despite research showing that children are not physically affected by COVID-19 nearly as badly as adults,⁴ the CDC and the AAP continue to recommend strict measures for children returning to school. As demonstrated in this short video, these recommendations are not without consequences.

Children may recover more quickly than adults, but they are expected to experience significant psychological trauma from the mandates that policy makers have imposed on the public.

With the social distancing and lockdown requirements across many countries, young people and children no longer have the interactions they need to develop a strong mental and emotional foundation.⁵ The lack of a structured routine likely means they are also less physically active. In one study from Shanghai, China, the same surveys were sent twice to the same group of 2,427 children and adolescents.⁶

The data revealed that the children were less active by 7.25 hours each week. More importantly, however, they increased the number of screen time hours by 28.83 per week when compared to their lifestyle pattern before the pandemic. This prolonged screen time can compound psychological challenges, including emotional stability and the ability to make friends.⁷

Long-Term Psychological Harm Injures at Least One Generation

Children who experience maltreatment and food insecurity during their childhood years have an increased risk of obesity, heart disease and dementia later in life.⁸ Unfortunately, more children are likely to experience these challenges during mandated social isolation. Additionally, child welfare services are stretched, which means there is less support in the community.⁹

With rising financial instability, experts expect there to be an increase in family violence, which contributes to nonaccidental injury and mental trauma. And, in fact, this prediction has been found to be accurate, as told by a physician from Texas.¹⁰

A report from the United Nations describes how more than 1.5 billion students were out of school across 191 countries due to government-enforced lockdowns.¹¹ Many students rely on their schools' breakfast and lunch programs, so having to stay home means they're less likely to get enough to eat.

School closures also create stress on parents as they are called upon to suddenly take on the responsibilities of homeschooling while still trying to maintain their jobs or deal with the stress of what to expect financially because of the upheaval from stay-at-home orders. One physician in an Italian pediatric department said he has seen increasing rates of violence, self-injury and suicide attempts in young people.¹²

Children are highly vulnerable to traumatic and adverse events. Some of the most commonly reported symptoms are anxiety, reduced appetite, depression and impaired social interactions. The physiological effects of stress and trauma can also compromise a child's immune system.¹³

Forced to stay home, isolated and without interaction at school, children are at risk for psychological and emotional damage. During the COVID-19 epidemic, a collaborative working group of the European Pediatric Association and Union of National European Pediatric Societies and Associations, along with Chinese academic institutions released the results of a preliminary study conducted in the Shaanxi province.

It showed that children from 3 to 6 years old were more likely than older children to be clingy and to be afraid their family may get COVID-19. Children from 6 to 18 years were more likely to be inattentive or to ask persistent questions. In all age groups, children showed inattention and irritability. Other symptoms included nightmares, fatigue, poor appetite and sleeping disorders.

Psychological Damage From Quarantine

Evidence of the negative mental health effects due to forced quarantines and social distancing continues to mount. In one meta-analysis, researchers found that prolonged confinement was positively correlated with psychological damage and in some cases the injury lasted months after the quarantine was over.¹⁴

In another study, the researchers compared inflammatory markers of 103 patients to their mental status while they were hospitalized with mild symptoms of COVID-19.¹⁵ Researchers used an online survey to measure psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety. Peripheral inflammatory markers were collected at baseline and within three days of completing the survey.

The researchers discovered that levels of C-reactive protein were positively associated with those who had symptoms of depression. In a separate study published in The Lancet, scientists reviewed 24 studies analyzing the effects of quarantine and found negative effects included "post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion and anger."¹⁶

The bulk of the evidence points to the significant toll on the social and emotional well-being of adults and children who are suffering during the pandemic. While the world undergoes what has been described as the largest psychological experiment ever — without informed consent — it may be time to include one of the strategies the French used in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in the mid-1990s.¹⁷

In response to the crisis, the government set up a second triage in which people who were not physically injured were given immediate psychological help and checked for indications they may need further treatment.

In a piece written in World Economic Forum, Elke Van Hoof, health and primary care psychologist at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, laments the challenges and psychological crisis we are facing because of:¹⁸

"… not setting up the second tent for psychological help and we will pay the price within three to six months after the end of this unprecedented lockdown, at a time when we will need all able bodies to help the world economy recover."

Loneliness May Exacerbate Damage From Social Isolation

Some experts believe loneliness is exacerbating the effects of social isolation and quarantine during the pandemic. A reporter from The Guardian spoke with Cheryl Webster, an active, community-involved person who moved from California to Texas.¹⁹ For 2.5 years before the lockdown, Webster hosted a game night at her home. In the months since social distancing became the norm, she's heard from one person from the group.

She spoke with a reporter from The Guardian, saying, "I think that's the hardest part about loneliness. Is it my fault? Am I not a very nice person? Or is there something wrong with me?"²⁰ There are so many people who report feeling the same way that governmental agencies have begun to consider how to work loneliness into the equation of all the rules they're creating.

Occasional bouts of the social blues are to be expected, especially after disruptive or sad events, but feeling lonely all the time carries with it a host of unsavory physical problems as well.

The Guardian also spoke with the husband and wife research team of John and Stephanie Cacioppo who, in 2014, reported on the dangers of isolation over extended periods of time. They noted that "feeling socially isolated can raise levels of the stress hormone cortisol, disrupt sleep, and also lead to long term health consequences, such as earlier morbidity."

There's a Pill for That

Although some public health policies have been written to incorporate social interventions to encourage lonely people to meet with others, many believe the solution is not in having regular interactions with people you don't know very well, but in developing long-lasting, healthy, meaningful relationships.

Others, like Stephanie Cacioppo, are taking a different approach: Since May 2017 she has been seeking an answer for loneliness using chemicals.

In other words, researchers are hoping to cure loneliness by giving you one more pill. And the pills come with a hefty price tag and a list of side effects. One drug — allopregnanolone — is a neurosteroid sold under the brand name Zulresso. The drug was released on the market in 2019 for the princely sum of $34,000 for just one prescription.

As well as having a royal-sized price tag, the medication is dispensed through a restricted program since the secondary effects are dangerous. Other researchers are testing the use of oxytocin, known as the "love" hormone. Rene Hurlemann from the University of Oldenburg in Germany knows oxytocin is central to social bonding and hypothesizes it may have an impact on treating loneliness.

To test this, they are working on an interventional study in which individuals are undergoing group psychotherapy with a focus on participation in social activities and talking about loneliness. Half are receiving oxytocin.

Hurlemann believes the drug should not be prescribed without psychotherapy, but rather that it could be used to speed the formation of a bond of trust between the therapist and the individual.

Medicalizing Loneliness May Increase Isolation

Not everyone is excited about using a pill for loneliness. Many of the psychologists and therapists the reporter from The Guardian spoke with expressed hesitancy about using a pharmaceutical solution for an emotional condition. Instead, they favored talk therapy.

Rachael Benjamin is a psychotherapist from New York who leads group therapy for individuals dealing with loneliness and believes medicalizing it may make people feel even more isolated. While she acknowledges that many medications can be lifesaving, she believes "Pills can't build intimacy."²¹

If you're experiencing depression, anxiety or feelings of loneliness, consider trying Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to help dispel negative emotions and cope with the social isolation from this pandemic.

If you're unfamiliar with EFT, Julie Schiffman does an excellent job explaining the process in the video at the top of the page at "Basic Steps to Your Emotional Freedom." In the short video below Julie demonstrates how to use EFT specifically for the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The video above features a recent vaccine debate between Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chairman of the World Mercury Project and founder/chief legal counsel for Children’s Health Defense, and Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer and legal scholar. Patrick Bet-David, founder of Valuetainment, moderated the event.

Dershowitz may seem like an odd choice for this discussion, but according to Kennedy, no health official has ever agreed to debate him on the issue of vaccine safety.

Bet-David also notes that every doctor invited to discuss the COVID-19 vaccine on his show declined the invitation. So, here, we get the perspectives of two prominent attorneys instead. The discussion initially grew out of a comment made by Dershowitz in another interview, where he said:

“You have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread the disease. Even if you disagree, you have no right not to be vaccinated. You have no right not to wear a mask. You have no right to open up your business. And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to, literally, take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”

Should You Have the Right to Decide Your Medical Treatment?

According to Dershowitz’s interpretation of Constitutional law, you only have the right to refuse to be vaccinated against a disease that would affect only you. You do not have the right to refuse a contagious disease that might spread to others.

As far as COVID-19 vaccines are concerned, he does not foresee mandatory vaccinations being an immediate concern, for the simple reason that there won’t be enough vaccines to vaccinate everyone.

Listening to the likes of Bill Gates and others, however, this probably would not be a problem for long, as vaccine manufacturers are fully prepared to go into large-scale manufacturing once a vaccine gets green-lighted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Interpretation of 1905 Court Ruling Is Not Cut and Dry

As the basis and justification for his legal orientation on this issue, Dershowitz relies on a 1905 Supreme Court ruling in the matter of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. In “Don’t Relinquish Civil Liberties for False Sense of Security,” Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, explained:

“Dershowitz … was quite reckless in the language he used. He basically said that the Supreme Court in 1905 (Jacobson v. Massachusetts), [gives] the right of state governments to come in and forcibly inject you with a vaccine. That's not really what Jacobson v. Massachusetts said ...

In that case, it was smallpox, because that was the only vaccine they had in 1905, but you have to read the Supreme Court decision very carefully to understand everything that the justices said.

They basically concluded — and I think wrongly so, because utilitarianism … is based on a mathematical equation that some can be inconvenienced or sacrificed for the greater good of a majority of people — that people [who] opposed smallpox vaccination could be required to be vaccinated during epidemics.

Even religious objections could be overridden. But there's also language in that decision that says that the court is not to be interpreted as meaning that if an individual was at risk for being harmed by the vaccination, they were not meant to [have concluded] that ‘cruel and inhuman to the last degree’ would be the standard that would be used.

I think Dershowitz overstated the opinion, although it is a utilitarian opinion. It gives authority to the states to mandate vaccines because anything that is not defined in the Constitution as a federal activity is reserved for the states.

Public health laws, by and large in this country, are written by the states, and the federal authority is requiring vaccination for people crossing territorial borders of the United States [and the federal government] could mandate vaccines for interstate travel, crossing state borders.

But most public health laws that legislatures make are for the residents of the states, which is why we have a patchwork of [vaccine] laws in this country …

I'm very worried that some attorney is going to try to challenge the Jacobson [ruling] in the 21st century. I think that, probably, in any court right now, you're going to get that ruling upheld and you're going to get it strengthened. I would advise against [challenging] that one in the Supreme Court.”

Then vs Now

Kennedy, in turn, points out there is a “big Constitutional chasm” between this 1905 case and today’s vaccine mandates. The difference is indeed rather significant. Jacobson, who had been injured by a previous vaccine, took the case to the Supreme Court in an effort to avoid the vaccine — and the fine for refusing the vaccine, which at the time was $5.

When he lost, he paid the $5 fine, which Kennedy equates to a traffic ticket by today’s standards. There’s a big difference between paying a small fine, and being forcibly injected with a potentially hazardous vaccine, against your will. As noted by Fisher above, the judge in that 1905 case did not claim government had the right to go into someone’s home and forcibly vaccinate them, Kennedy says.

Dershowitz, in turn, agrees that the 1905 ruling “is not binding on the issue of whether or not you can compel someone to get the vaccine,” but that “the logic of the opinion … strongly suggests that the courts today would allow some form of compulsion if the conditions that we talked about were met: [the vaccines are] safe, effective, [and] exemptions [given] in appropriate cases.”

Will You Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?

Kennedy and Dershowitz were able to agree that the COVID-19 vaccine should remain voluntary, and only be mandated if the public health threat is truly extreme. One of the problems the vaccine industry has nowadays is that the trust in them has significantly eroded.

According to a recent poll^1,2 cited by Kennedy, about half of Americans say they want the COVID-19 vaccine; 27% say they will “definitely” refuse and another 12% say they will “probably” refuse it.

“Why do so many Americans no longer trust our regulatory officials and [distrust] this process?” Kennedy asks. “One of the reasons is … vaccines are a very different kind of medical prerogative.

It is a medical intervention that is being given to perfectly healthy people, to prevent somebody else from getting sick. And it’s the only medicine given to healthy people.

So, you would expect that we would want that particular intervention to have particularly great guarantees that it’s safe. Because we’re saying to an individual, we are going to make you make this sacrifice for the greater good … Our side of the bargain should be, we want this to be completely safe. But, in fact, what we know about vaccines … is that they’re unavoidably unsafe.”

1 in 40 Are Injured by Vaccines

We often hear that vaccine injuries occur at a rate of 1 in 1 million. This, however, is a gross underestimation. Kennedy discusses an investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research Quality (AHRQ).

They conducted a machine cluster analysis of health data collected from 376,452 individuals who received a total of 1.4 million doses of 45 vaccines. Of these doses, 35,570 vaccine reactions were identified, which means a more accurate estimate of vaccine damage would be 2.6% of all vaccinations.

This means 1 in 40 people — not 1 in 1 million — are injured by vaccines, and a clinician who administers vaccines will have an average of 1.3 adverse vaccine events per month. In other words, we are asking 1 in 40 people to sacrifice their health in order to protect “hypothetical people from catching that particular disease,” Kennedy says.

Importantly, “it’s not hypothetical that vaccines cause injuries,” Kennedy says. The U.S. Vaccine Court has paid out $4 billion to patients permanently damaged or killed by vaccines, and that’s just a small portion of all the cases filed. According to Kennedy, less than 1% of people who are injured ever get to court, due to the high bar set for proving causation.

Vaccine Makers Have No Liability

Vaccine makers also have no liability for injuries. This worsens risks, as they have no real incentive to make sure their products are safe, not only in the short run, but also long-term.

And, as noted by Kennedy, the reason vaccine manufacturers were given immunity in the first place was because they admitted vaccines are unavoidably unsafe and there’s no way to make them 100% safe.

They were getting sued for injuries to the point they said they could not continue to manufacture vaccines, which is why the U.S. government in 1986 agreed to indemnify them against lawsuits under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, and set up a government-run Vaccine Court instead.

So, when you sue for a vaccine injury, you’re actually suing the U.S. government, and payouts are paid for by the U.S. public via a small fee tacked on to each vaccine sold.

100% of Moderna Vaccine Participants Suffered Side Effects

Kennedy goes on to discuss some of the disturbing preliminary results emerging from current COVID-19 trials. In the case of Moderna, its mRNA vaccine (mRNA-1273) was found to cause systemic side effects in 80% of Phase 1 participants receiving the 100 microgram (mcg) dose.^3,4

Side effects ranged from fatigue (80%), chills (80%), headache (60%) and myalgia or muscle pain (53%). After the second dose, 100% of participants in the 100-mcg group experienced side effects. This is important to note as, unlike the flu vaccine, the coronavirus vaccine will be a two-dose regimen and most likely recommended to be repeated annually, just like the flu vaccine.

The 45 volunteers were divided into three dosage groups — 25 mcg, 100 mcg and 250 mcg — with 15 participants in each. Even in the low-dose group, one participant got so sick he required emergency medical care. “That’s 6%,” Kennedy says.

In the high-dose (250 mcg) group, 100% of participants suffered side effects after both the first and second doses, and three of the participants suffered “one or more severe events.”

Keep in mind, the participants in Moderna’s Phase 1 trial were healthy individuals between the ages of 18 and 55.⁵ Kennedy recites some of the exclusionary criteria of these trials, such as you cannot be overweight, you must be a lifelong nonsmoker, you cannot have a family history of respiratory problems or seizures, you cannot have asthma, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis or other autoimmune disease.

“These are the people they’re testing the vaccine on, but that’s not who they’re going to give the vaccine to,” Kennedy says. Indeed, over 90% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy and struggle with chronic health conditions that can make them more prone to vaccine complications, yet these, and frail elderly, are most vulnerable to COVID-19 and would theoretically stand to benefit from the vaccine most.

If the vaccine causes severe side effects in young, healthy individuals, what will the results be in those who are old, frail and/or have underlying conditions or compromised immune systems?

“You’re going to see a lot of people dropping dead,” Kennedy predicts. “The problem is, Anthony Fauci put $500 million of our [tax] dollars into that vaccine. He owns half the patents. He has five guys working for him [who are] entitled to collect royalties.

So, you have a corrupt system, and now they’ve got a vaccine that is too big to fail. They’re not saying this was a terrible, terrible mistake. They’re saying, ‘We’re going to order 2 million doses of this [vaccine]’ … And, they have no liability … No medical product in the world would be able to go forward with a [safety] profile like Moderna has.”

Trust Is Earned

Admittedly, the interview is a rather long one — an hour and 20 minutes — but if you have the time, I encourage you to listen to it in its entirety, as Kennedy and Dershowitz cover far more than some of the key highlights I’ve summarized here. You could speed it up to 1.5 to 2 times, which is my approach for most videos now as there is so much video content to consume.

I would not be surprised if Kennedy’s prediction that the COVID-19 vaccine or vaccines will cause severe harm to a great number of people. I also disagree with Dershowitz’s position that anyone involved in medical manufacturing “obviously” has a keen interest in not hurting people.

Kennedy correctly points out that’s clearly not the case, seeing how drug companies have repeatedly been found to knowingly commit fraud in the name of profit. The opioid epidemic is but one glaring example where company executives knew they were causing harm and chose to do it anyway. Trust is earned, and the drug industry has, as Kennedy points out, eroded the public’s trust by their own malfeasance.

The drug industry and government health officials expect us to simply trust that a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine will be produced in record time. From my perspective, such trust would be misplaced. Their history simply doesn’t warrant it.

I’ve reviewed the historical failures of coronavirus vaccines in previous articles, as well as the potential hazards associated with mRNA vaccines. Importantly, we do not yet know what injecting mRNA to reprogram our DNA might actually do in the long run, since no mRNA vaccine has ever been licensed, but there’s reason to suspect it won’t be entirely beneficial.

The good news is that we probably will not even need a vaccine against COVID-19. As I have previously reviewed, there are loads of strategies to improve your immune system.

Other treatments like nebulized peroxide are really effective if you are already sick. And, as a foundational prophylactic, remember to optimize your vitamin D level, as vitamin D appears to significantly lower your risk, both of contracting the infection and developing severe symptoms, as reviewed in “Vitamin D in the Prevention of COVID-19.”

I’ve put together a comprehensive report on the topic of vitamin D for COVID-19 prevention, which you can download here.

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