Health & Fitness

This article was previously published January 10, 2019, and has been updated with new information.

History shows a wide range of uses for peppermint essential oil, which has been used as far back in time as ancient Rome and Egypt.¹ Various cultures have used this oil not only for its minty fragrance, but for its therapeutic benefits as well. In addition, peppermint oil is known to symbolize hospitality.²

What Is Peppermint Oil?

Peppermint oil is derived from the leaves of the peppermint plant (Mentha piperita), a hybrid of the water mint and spearmint plants, and M. arvensis var. piperascens, a plant from the Labiatae family.³ It is often used as a home remedy for stomach problems, muscle pain and headaches. Peppermint oil can also be utilized in capsules or supplements.⁴

9 Uses and Benefits of Peppermint Oil

Peppermint oil is used in aromatherapy, the practice of using essential oils to support health,⁵ where it is found to be effective in relieving pain and neuralgia,⁶ as well as nausea,⁷ and in improving memory and raising alertness.⁸ According to published research, peppermint oil exhibits antiviral, antimicrobial, antifungal, antioxidant, analgesic, radioprotective and anti-edema properties,⁹ and may be useful for:

Providing relief for stomach problems — Peppermint oil is a safe and effective alternative to medications in reducing colonic spasms.10 It may help ease pelvic pain11 and provide relief for indigestion and upset stomach.12 Research has also shown that peppermint oil is effective in improving symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).13 Another study reveals similar findings.14 Peppermint contains large concentrations of menthol15 that may assist in decreasing smooth muscle spasms and blocking calcium channels in the gut.16

Easing respiratory problems — Peppermint oil can be used as an expectorant and decongestant.17 It can help clear up phlegm in your respiratory tract18 when used as a chest rub or inhaled through a vaporizer.19 The essential oil may also benefit individuals with tuberculosis. Researchers found that when inhaled, the oil can help decrease tuberculosis-induced inflammation and minimize the risk of the disease from worsening or recurring.20 Peppermint oil can also relieve asthma because it contains rosmarinic acid, an anti-inflammatory compound.21,22

Relieving pain — Peppermint oil may help relieve sore muscles when added to a massage oil blend or to bathwater. Dabbing a few drops on your wrist or inhaling the aroma can ease headaches. You can also massaged the oil onto your temples.

Promoting positive effects on cancer-related treatments — Peppermint oil may help address chemotherapy-induced nausea. It may also help treat hot flashes in women receiving treatment for breast cancer.23

Helping ease herpes infections — Peppermint oil was found to have a beneficial effect against drug-resistant herpes simplex virus. Because of its lipophilic nature, peppermint oil can pass through the skin, making it potentially useful against recurrent herpes infection.24

Enhancing hair and skin health — Mixing peppermint oil into massage oils,25 shampoos and lotions may give these products antiseptic26 and antimicrobial properties. The oil can also help cool skin and eliminate dandruff27 or lice from your scalp,28 or contribute to hair growth.29

Improving dental health — Peppermint oil extract may be more effective than the mouthwash chemical chlorhexidine in preventing development of biofilm that may lead to cavities30 and bad breath.

Providing comfort for stress and nervous system problems — Due to its energizing effects, peppermint oil is used to help manage stress and treat nervous disorders and mental fatigue. Studies suggest that the essential oil may have an effect similar to psychostimulants, as shown in an animal study.31

Acting as an itch reliever — Applied topically when mixed with a carrier oil, the cooling sensation it provides may help relieve itching by blocking the irritating sensation.32

Composition of Peppermint Oil

The two major components of peppermint essential oil are menthol and menthone,³³ which are why it's widely used as an ingredient in lozenges, toothpastes and rubs.³⁴ Other constituents found in peppermint oil are menthyl acetate,³⁵ 1,8-cineole, limonene, beta-pinene and beta-caryophyllene.³⁶

How to Make Infused Peppermint Oil

There are several ways to make your own peppermint oil infusion at home. Here is one recipe from eHow.com you can try:³⁷

How Does Peppermint Oil Work?

While it is tempting to buy products containing peppermint oil, using it in its whole state without additional ingredients may yield more positive results. However, it should never be utilized undiluted because it can cause irritation, especially to those with sensitive skin. It must be diluted in carrier oils like sweet almond, jojoba, coconut and olive, and used under the supervision of a qualified practitioner.

Peppermint oil is sensitive to heat, and should be stored in a cool place in tightly sealed bottles. Avoid using peppermint oil alongside other supplements and drugs, since it may trigger negative effects. For instance, peppermint oil can disrupt the rate at which your body processes cyclosporine, causing more of the medication to stay in your bloodstream.³⁸

Peppermint oil is also known to interact with other drugs like felodipine (Plendil), simvastatin (Zocor), antacids, calcium channel blockers and blood pressure-lowering medicines.³⁹

Is Peppermint Oil Safe?

Peppermint oil is safe in low amounts in most adults, but it can trigger side effects in people with sensitivities. It is important for the following individuals to either avoid using this essential oil or to use it carefully only with the help of a health care professional:^40,41

Pregnant and nursing women — Peppermint oil or other similar products may have emmenagogue and abortifacient effects, so it would be wise not to use peppermint oil without your physician's approval.42

Children — Peppermint oil must not be used undiluted because there isn't enough information regarding its safety for children; do not use it at all for children under 30 months of age. On older children, always try a patch test first to test for allergic reactions.43,44

Diabetics — Using peppermint oil may raise your risk of low blood sugar levels or hypoglycemia.45

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and hiatal hernia patients — Peppermint can relax the sphincter between the stomach and the esophagus, and cause acid to move up to the esophagus.46

People with gallbladder problems — Peppermint oil may cause gallbladder inflammation; those diagnosed with gallstones should consult a physician before using peppermint oil.47

People taking antacids — These drugs can cause peppermint oil capsules to break down easily, increasing the risk of heartburn.48

Side Effects of Peppermint Oil

Take utmost care when using peppermint oil or other related products, since you may experience the following side effects:^49,50

Allergic reactions like skin rashes	Slow heartbeat51	Abdominal pain and diarrhea
Mouth ulcers or sores	Eye irritation	Headaches
Vomiting and nausea52	Heartburn	Dizziness
Muscle weakness	Brain damage	Seizures

If you are experiencing insomnia or other sleep disorders, avoid using peppermint oil because it can interfere with sleep.⁵³ While it can offer profound benefits, I recommend speaking to a health care provider before using it for therapeutic applications.

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This story is about a hero doctor and a human being of great courage and integrity, Dr. Meryl Nass — who is an internist in Maine with proven expertise in hard-to-treat chronic illnesses as well as bioterrorism and epidemics.

I recently had the privilege of conducting an extensive interview with the brave Dr. Nass. I am including the full transcript at the end of this article for those who like to read transcripts. By the way, when I initially published the interview, YouTube deleted the video in less than five minutes. Dr. Nass must be onto something!

Dr. Nass' plight defending the sanctity of science and doctor-patient relationship is for all of us. May her victory over the attackers come quickly and be solid — and may it stand in the way of the Great Reset.

Dr. Nass is under an attack for being outspoken and loyal to her medical calling. Recently, Dr. Nass' medical license was suspended by the state medical board in Maine for "spreading misinformation" and prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Not only that, she was also ordered to undergo a neuro-psychological evaluation, Soviet style.

Who Is Dr. Nass?

Dr. Nass is a doctor with a stellar reputation and a long career under her belt. Here is an excerpt of her bio from her pre-COVID testimony:

"Dr. Meryl Nass earned her BS in Biology from MIT and her MD from the University of Mississippi in 1980 … She is a board-certified Internist in Maine known for expertise in anthrax, bioterrorism, anthrax vaccine and Gulf War syndrome. She identified the first modern use of anthrax as a biological weapon, which occurred in 1978 during the Rhodesian Civil War.

She has testified for seven Congressional committees on bioterrorism vaccines, the anthrax letters and Gulf War syndrome. She has consulted for the Director of National Intelligence and the World Bank on the prevention and mitigation of bioterrorism."

For more detail, you can check out Dr. Nass' full CV.

What's the Alleged "Crime"?

All complaints against Dr. Nass seem ideological in nature, and none of them came from her patients or their family members — but from internet strangers and establishment-minded medical workers.

Dr. Nass Raised the Alarm About the Use of Near-Lethal Dosages of HCQ in Official Studies

In June 2020, Dr. Nass wrote a seminal article in which she shared her findings on the use of potentially lethal dosages of hydroxychloroquine in both the WHO-sponsored "Solidarity" trial and the "Recovery" trial in the UK (and then also in the "Remap" study). Not only did she raise the alarm about it, she also wrote to Tedros and other officials — and three days after her letter, the WHO trial was stopped. Here is a great overview of what happened:

"Dr. Meryl Nass has uncovered a hornet's nest of government sponsored Hydroxychloroquine experiments that were designed to kill severely ill, Covid-19 hospitalized patients.

On June 14th [2020] Dr. Nass first identified two Covid-19 experiments in which massive, high toxic doses – four times higher than usual of hydroxychloroquine were being given to severely ill hospitalized patients in intensive care units.

Later, "Dr. Nass uncovered a third, "Even Worse" hydroxychloroquine experiment. REMAP targets patients who are on a ventilator, or in shock – i.e., near death. Such patients are hardly capable of giving consent. Rather than attempting to save their lives, they are being used given multiple high doses of hydroxychloroquine and other drugs whose combination is contraindicated."

In the interview I conducted recently with Dr. Nass, she talks about how using these dosages could not have been a mistake. The only word that comes to my mind is "premeditated murder." Dr. Nass, on the other hand, is a hero who is loyal to the medical profession and not afraid to put herself on the line to save lives. And I suspect that had the bosses of the people waging an attack on Dr. Nass gotten really sick, they would be begging her to be their doctor — and not begging Dr. Fauci.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who wrote a best-selling book about Dr. Fauci, "The Real Anthony Fauci", also interviewed Dr. Nass on this topic which you can see in the video below.

Exposing the Lab Origin of the Pathogen

As early as in March of 2020, Dr. Nass proposed that the pathogen we know today as "SARS-CoV-2" was likely made in the lab.

When the now notorious Nature study come out, "proving" the natural origin of the virus, Dr. Nass suggested that it was either ghost-written or heavily "guided" — and her theory was later strongly supported by Fauci emails.

Here is also a recent post from Dr. Nass, titled, "Scientists Who Were Instrumental to COVID-19 'Natural Origins' Narrative Received Over $50 Million in NIAID Funding in 2020-2021/ Epoch Times":

"Four prominent scientists who played key roles in shaping the public narrative around the origin of COVID-19 received substantial increases in grant money from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, in the subsequent two years, a review of funding data by The Epoch Times has found."

Transcript

Tessa Lena:

Hello, and welcome to "Make Language Great Again." Today it is my tremendous honor to welcome Dr. Meryl Nass — who doesn't need much introduction — but just to say a few words, she is a prominent physician, and she's an expert on bioweapons, anthrax specifically. In 2001, Dr. Nass testified in Congress about anthrax, and she has had a stellar career.

And for me personally, it would be an honor to interview Dr. Nass at any point, but the occasion is really strange. And I'm frankly rubbing my eyes still that this is happening. So what happened to Dr. Nass recently is that her medical license was suspended by the medical board, and she was ordered to undergo psychological evaluation, like, Soviet style, because she has been a good doctor. Let's just take it from there.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

So … Well, I'm a physician in internal medicine. I've been practicing medicine for 41 years, and I've been in Maine 24 years. And I basically have two tracks. One track is that I take care of patients who have chronic illnesses that are hard to diagnose and hard to treat, like chronic Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, and other … Gulf War Syndrome, other things that other doctors have not been able to manage successfully.

And I changed my practice so that it mainly focused on treating COVID and giving people prescriptions for ivermectin, and vitamins and other things, when COVID came around.

Because I have a strong background in biological warfare, and pandemics, and pandemic response, I started doing a lot of research at the beginning of 2020 — and keeping a blog, and telling people, trying to explain the pandemic to them: explain SARS-CoV-2, explain SARS-CoV-1, try to put things into perspective. I talked about masks, talked about tests, you know how to protect yourself, how to clean your vegetables, for example. I talked about every aspect of the pandemic in this blog.

And so as things evolved … and also what I did by chance was I read articles, the Nature Medicine article, an article in The Lancet, and other things. And I came to conclude very early back in the end of March of 2020, that there was a cover-up going on regarding the origin of COVID. And that it certainly came from a lab there was no question about that.

So … so that I've written about also over time, and I, in fact, am … I was the only person who said regarding the Nature Medicine article that I don't believe the five authors actually wrote that article. It was an article that lacked scientific validity, it was clearly propaganda — and I said, these guys would not have come up with this by themselves.

Either someone else wrote it, or they were told to write it. And, in fact, when we got the Fauci emails early in 2021, we found out that Fauci and Francis Collins and Jeremy Farrar, who's the head of the Wellcome Trust in the UK, in fact, did direct them to write this article … and assisted … Fauci edited it, and people from the Wellcome Trust were who … so Fauci was an a … he was a ghost writer, and, and staff at the Wellcome Trust, were also ghost writers on that paper.

So anyway, so I've sort of been stuck into many aspects of this. And then when the vaccines came out, I of course, being also an expert in vaccines, I took a close look at the vaccines — and as evidence became obvious that they were not working the way they should, and were causing a lot of side effects, I made that very plain as well.

What happened after that was that national organizations that are involved with the licensing or the certification, a board specialty certification of doctors started issuing advice to their members, that they should not use "misinformation" or "disinformation" regarding treatments and vaccines for COVID and threatening them with loss of their specialty certification or even loss of their license.

And this started in mid 2021, and it was broad … it came from the AMA, the American Medical Association, the American Board of Internal Medicine, Family Practice, and Pediatrics, and the Federation of State Medical Boards, which is an organization that all the licensing boards for all the states and territories belong to.

So for some reason, all these organizations that are allegedly nonprofit, but earn a great deal of money, their CEOs, in general earn more than a million dollars a year … all these organizations at the same time started threatening doctors not to spread "misinformation," and basically follow the government program on the evaluation and treatment of COVID.

Well, I wrote to several of them and said, you know, you have no authority to issue these threats. Guess what, we have a First Amendment. It's … it gives us freedom of speech. And I also challenged my own licensing board and said, you know, what, who, who created a new crime of "misinformation"? I, you know, I don't see that on the statute. The legislature didn't vote on this, you know, does the board of licensure and medicine get to invent new crimes?

So all these things happened. And so I wasn't surprised when they went after me. But I felt like this was such a fundamental issue, because it's not only happening in Maine, it's happening throughout the country. So this Federation of State Medical Boards has managed to exhort 15 different medical boards to actually go after, to challenge the licenses of doctors in 15 states.

Luckily, the other 50 or so boards, 55 have not, they have a little they actually maybe read the law. Maybe they know there's a First Amendment, and they haven't done it, but 15 of the boards have started threatening or even removing the licenses of doctors force free speech.

And as I said, I mean, we're going through a really apocalyptic time in history. And this is a fundamental constitutional freedom of speech issue, I'm out towards the end of my career, I don't need the money to practice. I'm not supporting a family anymore.

And I felt that if anyone could take a risk to challenge this, what I thought was totalitarian, Soviet style approach to controlling medicine, then I, you know, would be … and I have a stellar record, I've never had a malpractice case, I've never had an adverse board action, you know, my medical career is so clean, I thought they can't possibly go after me for my treatment of patients. And in fact, they haven't. So … so that's my story.

Tessa Lena:

Oh, that is such a stunning situation that you're dealing with, especially the psychological evaluation … like, as I'm saying, that I'm still rubbing my eyes, because that is straight back to the USSR, before my days, actually. And so your response on your blog to the complaints and to the suspension of your license is stellar, I think. So if you want to go over the points?

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Okay. So, the Board … here's what happened. So the Board said, we got two complaints from citizens. They are not your patients. They've never met you. But they saw videos of you online, and they complain that you were spreading "misinformation." Respond. Which was very Soviet in itself.

So I said, Look, what's the "misinformation"? Be specific! And they wouldn't answer. So I said, you expect me to defend myself against anything I've ever said, online or outside the office? I said, what right do you have to even investigate my private life? Of course, they didn't answer that, either.

So then they … one of the complaints was the interview that Dr. Mercola did with me. So they got it transcribed, and they just put, you know, they just threw the transcript into my docket, as if I have to … now … I'm expected to provide evidence for every single statement I made in an hour plus interview.

Well, you know, again, that doesn't sound very legal. You know, they haven't actually accused me of a crime. They haven't said one statement is wrong, but I have to defend myself. So another Soviet tactic.

That was the first two complaints. The third one was … so what the Board of Medicine and the Board of Pharmacy have done in my state, and I suspect has happened in many other states, is because they don't have the authority to stop the prescribing by doctors and the dispensing by pharmacists of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, they have instead sent out letters, memos and other things, indicating that these are not FDA approved for purpose, and implying that doctors and pharmacists who do provide these to patients could be investigated, could have their licenses removed.

And they didn't say that in so many words. They implied it in several warnings. And so what happened is almost every pharmacist in the state of Maine will no longer dispense these medications, even though they're legal, that they have licenses, they are for humans. I can write prescriptions. And the governor of the state even made an order in 2020 that hydroxychloroquine cannot be used for prophylaxis but can be used for the treatment of acute COVID.

So I had a patient about six weeks ago, who was a very high risk patient. I was very frightened of what might happen to him if he got COVID. And I had prescribed ivermectin previously, which was legal, but not hydroxychloroquine because it wasn't legal in my state. And when he got COVID, I then said, well, we better give you the hydroxychloroquine now, and I knew there were no pharmacies in his area that were willing to dispense it.

So I called it in any way. And I didn't state the reason which you … they want you to stay so that they can decide whether or not to dispense it. And the pharmacist, I left a message and the pharmacist called me back and said what's it's for. And so I could either say COVID, and the patient wouldn't receive the medication. Or I could say something else. So I said something else.

I said Lyme disease, and the pharmacist dispensed the medication, the patient took it, he eventually wound up in the hospital on a ventilator anyway. That's how high risk he was. He survived. He's much better now. But that's what happened.

And I immediately informed the board and I said, Look, your policies and the policies of the pharmacy board have forced me to lie to a pharmacist in order to get a patient a sorely needed medication. And you need to change your policies. This is not acceptable.

So … so the third complaint was that I lied to a pharmacist. Now I had told them five minutes after I did it that I had lied to a pharmacist, they had forced me to lie to a pharmacist because it was perfectly legal to do what I had done to prescribe this drug and have it dispensed. But only because of these whispers and veiled threats we couldn't get it for the patient, and I had to lie.

So that was complaint three. There were two more complaints from health care professionals. Both of … one said, this doctor prescribed hydroxychloroquine to a patient she was pregnant. And I should have I should have been called. And I would have given the patient monoclonal antibodies.

The second doctor said, this doctor prescribed ivermectin to a patient and the patient didn't recover and wound up in the hospital. And this could have delayed care, proper care. So those were the complaints, not one from a patient or a patient's family. Not one, not a single one of these five complaints really alleging that I had harmed a patient.

But that was enough for them to start a witch hunt, a fishing expedition. And so, by … so then they said, Well, you're immediately a danger to your patients. So we summarily suspend your license, and we direct you to a neuro psychological examination.

Now, they had nothing, really they had nothing on me, just these, you know, things that are not really crimes. So it's not a crime to prescribe a licensed drug. And when you're a licensed doctor, and it was off label, well guess what, 20 to 40% of all drugs are prescribed off label. It's nothing wrong with that. So …

What they really wanted to do was to ruin my life as much as possible. By ordering the psychological exam, they then were able to put these records in the public domain and smear me. So the national news then reported on me, implying that I had a substance abuse problem, and this is why I needed a neuropsych exam. And I've never been a substance abuser.

 The other thing the board did … so, once you're reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank, basically you can't get a license in another state, and you can't get a job. So that's also … by ordering the psych exam, that sends me into the National Practitioner Data Bank.

The other thing they did was said we want … because they needed a patient … they needed to find something I've done wrong, and they still didn't have anything … they said, we want a list of every patient you've seen in the last six months. So … and I've had two lawyers who are assigned to me by my malpractice insurer, and both of them, when they got into this case, they quit. So at the moment, I don't even have a lawyer. The lawyers don't want to handle it. Yeah, so that's the situation.

Tessa Lena:

But it's stunning. The amount of ignorance … because even though I am not a doctor … my closest relationship to medicine is I grew up with doctors, and I helped my mom translate her thesis when I was a kid. But even I knew, before reading your blog, that hydroxychloroquine was safe in pregnancy. I mean, I knew that being a layman, and they did not know that?

Dr. Meryl Nass:

The midwife apparently did not know that. She also didn't know that the monoclonal antibodies she wanted to give the patient are not approved or authorized in pregnancy, and the risk is completely unknown.

You know … but this is … people have drunk the Kool Aid, they don't realize that they cannot any longer trust the advice from federal agencies, you know, and especially someone like a midwife who's a nurse, a nurse practitioner, basically, they are … their whole career has been taking orders from the medical establishment and from doctors.

They don't realize they have the ability to actually look things up, and they don't have to just do what they're told.

So … with the electronic medical record, now, if you type in "COVID," you know, the electronic medical record will come up and spit out what you're supposed to give the patient and it will say Remdesivir, or it'll say monoclonal antibodies, or, you know, another experimental antiviral … it doesn't say, hydroxychloroquine, or ivermectin — and doctors who are using these electronic medical records don't even, you know, realize that there are other options out there.

Tessa Lena:

But your record of treating patients has been extremely successful. And, as you said, none of your patients complained, none of their family members complained.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Correct.

Tessa Lena:

That is just stunning. And you know, what I was thinking as I was preparing for this interview, probably the same people who are complaining, or at least their higher ups, if they were in a critical condition, they would probably choose you as a doctor. And not Dr. Fauci.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Yes. Because …

Tessa Lena:

Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

That's true. I know Peter McCullough has said he has treated, you know, many legislators, for example. And I met a lawyer who then became an Attorney General in one of the states. And he and his wife told me that they had to smuggle ivermectin into their son … in the hospital, with COVID, because the doctors wouldn't give it. So, I mean, it's an amazing story.

This this person who's now an Attorney General, not in New England, had to smuggle ivermectin in for his son, to keep him alive.

So yes, many of the officials do know that these drugs are effective and want them for themselves, and get them for themselves. But they go along with the narrative. They don't challenge it. And, you know, their career is more important.

And I felt that, you know, truth and the First Amendment, and changing medicine … medicine should … medicine is supposed to be about a relationship between a doctor and a patient and helping an individual patient get the best care they need, not enforcing government diktats on patients, not … not bringing in a new normal via … sorry … a new normal via enforced medical care and enforced medical lockdowns, masks, etc.

The I think the whole medical profession the medical establishment has been used to make profound changes in our society, you know, under the guise of dealing with a pandemic. And so, you know, I feel like I have to stand up for that. That's much more important than preserving my career.

Tessa Lena:

I admire you, and the situation in medicine … Well, several things to say here. One, it reminds me of the early Nazi Germany where as we know, the doctors and the nurses were at the forefront of the psychological change, where the nurses would, you know, hug a baby with a disability, and then inject them with a lethal injection and kill them.

And they knew they were doing that, and they did it kind of from love. And it took seemingly not that much to convince them that that was an act of goodness, to kill that baby with disability. And that says a lot.

And … and doctors, from what I hear, in Nazi Germany were very, very highly represented in the Nazi Party.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Yes.

Tessa Lena:

They were joining in high numbers and other professions. And these were educated people who well, presumably, joined the profession in order to help people. So, what can be done to human head with ideology is just horrifying and stunning. And just …

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Tessa, there is a … there is a very disturbing movie … there have been rumors about euthanasia in the UK, during the pandemic. And there's a disturbing movie called "A good death" that has just been released, about the fact that doctors and nurses in hospitals in the UK have been injecting patients with COVID, with a mix of midazolam, which is like Valium, but stronger, and morphine, and sometimes other drugs, to give them also a good death, as quick and easy death.

And it's very disturbing, there are documents showing that the UK bought a couple of years worth of midazolam, this drug, like Valium, that is used for euthanasia, and … at the beginning of the pandemic, and went through this two years stockpile in a couple of months, two or three months, and then wound up buying some more.

I can't vouch for the total veracity of this, but it is extreme … there are many families interviewed … It's very disturbing. And one can see that under … again, in the UK, in the US under the guise of protecting the National Health Service or protecting our hospitals, you know, people had to put off their surgeries had to do various things, so they wouldn't disturb the hospital so they could take care of COVID patients.

And if you're in a hospital, and you run out of beds, it may make sense that you have to kill off the older COVID patients. So you have room for the younger ones, or something like that. These are, you know, the obviously against the law, very troubling.

One of the ways that this can be ushered in is if drugs or if drugs or ventilators are used that are emergency use authorized, all liability is taken away from the doctors, nurses and others who are making use of these products. So if you give a patient, for example, Remdesivir was authorized, now it's approved, or monoclonal antibodies, and the patient dies, you can't be sued. If the patient's injured, you can't be sued, the manufacturer can't be sued, the hospital can't be sued.

Everybody has had their liability waived as long as you're using one of these experimental products. And when you go into the hospital with COVID, those experimental products are what the doctor has been told to use. So this is a legal mechanism that enables very bad things to happen in a way where nobody is afraid they will be punished afterwards.

Tessa Lena:

That is a frightening thought. And I've also heard about it, I haven't seen the documentary, so thank you for mentioning, I will definitely watch it. But it is stunning to think about the slide towards evil.

Like, it does not have to start with a person desiring to do evil, it can start in an entirely different place. And then, by peer pressure, and just seeing evil happening and gradually normalizing it in own head, somebody who started with the greatest intentions, can become a messenger of evil without even realizing that, and then it's too late. And it's really, really stunning to think about it.

Like I know, for example, that after the fall of the Soviet Union, what was happening in the hospitals there, I don't know about euthanasia or anything like that, but I know for a fact that they would sometimes tie a patient to a bed or not allow relatives to come in, and then the person might die, and things like that that are just unthinkable cruelty.

And this is something I've been thinking about for years just because of my family history over there, and It stunned me back then. And it seems like now, it is almost the norm in hospitals. I don't want to say "the norm," it's too scary, it's too dark … maybe not. But at least much more of a norm. And …

Dr. Meryl Nass:

It actually is the norm. Most hospitals will not let family in anymore. What someone told me, I don't know if this is true, either. They said the family was only led in once they had agreed basically to let the patient go. Once they agreed to disconnect them from a ventilator, then the family was allowed in to say their goodbyes … Sorry …

Tessa Lena:

I don't know … I am like, what is happening to people's heads? Because the concept of medical murder, I think, is something that is so hard for many average citizens, and I mean," average" as in, just like normal people … so hard to accept.

Because if you think about, say, an American, a regular American who had a somewhat successful career, or very successful career, they made money, they had their prime time, they went to parties, they had relationships, they, I don't know, gave interviews … they did all those things that are glorious and pleasant.

And then all of a sudden, they're old. And they're locked in the hospital room. And all of a sudden, they see the face of the machine, and that's it. And their families are not allowed in, and they're being murdered. And maybe they even realize at that point, in those last few days, that they're being murdered, or maybe not, but that that is it. And nobody sees that. Talking about it is suspicious, it makes you sound crazy because it just "can't be happening." And that is a horrifying thought.

And so many people had even their family members who died from COVID in the hospital. And then that was used to frighten everybody else, and to justify all the draconian measures, and …

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Or the families who begged the hospital to give their family member ivermectin, and they won't. And then … and then they have to bring in a lawyer and sue the hospital. And the hospitals are paying lawyers to fight back to not give patients a drug that could be life-saving. Who is who is paying the hospital, to spend money to try to prevent patients from getting a perfectly safe drug that might be life-saving?

I mean, we're in a very, very dark situation. As I said, the medical industry is being used to bring in the new normal, and the new normal is not looking very nice.

And people don't really know what's going on, even I don't know, I'm not working in a hospital any longer, so I don't know what's happening. But I do have people call me, begging me to help, you know, get their relative medications. But once you're in the hospital, I can't help.

I can help as a … I could have helped as an outpatient … I cannot now do anything. But before, you can treat patients as long as there are outpatients … once they enter the hospital. You have no … no say over them. It's the doctors who are assigned to them there.

Tessa Lena:

It is frightening. I know one good story where a friend's relative in her 90s was in the hospital for another reason … she developed pneumonia, then she was diagnosed with COVID. And nobody knows whether COVID was the reason or what but she ended up surviving, and they treated her as a human being, as in … I don't think they were giving her COVID medications per se, but that probably wasn't even the reason, so they treated her with care.

And they treated her pneumonia properly, and she survived, and she was out, and she's fine. So that is one story because I was terrified when she was in the hospital. But there are so many stories that are the opposite of that, unfortunately. So the hospital …

Dr. Meryl Nass:

You know, another thing that happened early on, and I … I wrote widely about this mean, I probably wrote the seminal article, was that there were several clinical trials, which gave patients excessive doses of hydroxychloroquine that were potentially lethal.

And one of these trials was done throughout the UK and enrolled 1600 people in the arm of the trial that gave a dose of hydroxychloroquine that was several times higher than normal. It's … that those has never been used therapeutically before for anything. There was no justification for it. And 25% of the patients in that trial died.

They … WHO had a trial, and they enrolled about 1000 patients, and they overdose hydroxychloroquine arm, and a bit over 100 patients died.

These trials persisted even after a Brazilian trial had overdosed people on the cousin of hydroxychloroquine, which is Chloroquine … had shown that they had an enormous number of deaths, 40% in in a small trial of overdosed Chloroquine, and they, the Brazilians told the world about it, they immediately reported it, it was published in the Jama in April of last year, as soon as it happened — and yet the UK trial, and the WHO trial persisted and continued until June, and the WHO trial only stopped three days after I had written to Tedros and others at the WHO and told them, If you have not disclosed to your subjects that you're giving them a potentially lethal dose of this drug, you will be liable. And then the trial stopped.

But the fact that, you know, many doctors in different countries were involved with these trials, and none of them apparently bothered to look up the dose and find out that they were giving a borderline lethal dose to patients … when you think about it … think of …

I mean, over 2600 people in these large clinical trials in multiple countries were overdosed with hydroxychloroquine, apparently, for the purpose of making the … giving the drug such a bad name, that nobody would use it. And this is April, May 2020.

Tessa Lena:

I remember when you just wrote about it, I was stunned. And the fact that the medication that is so old, and, I don't know, people at the WHO didn't know the correct dosage? With the doctors, they probably just complied, even though it would have helped to read about the dosage, but … stunning.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

So … you can't … you can't make a mistake, I don't think you can make a mistake like this when the WHO had committees designed to figure out what those to use, right? And the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had people on all the committees of the WHO, determining what drugs and doses should be used to … in the trials for COVID, early on, starting in March, two years ago.

And Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a group of scientists who work on malaria drugs, Chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine are malaria drugs. So this group actually models dosing for malaria drugs, and members of this group were in the group at WHO determined the doses. So I don't think this was a mistake.

Tessa Lena:

It is so dark. Because then, there is no other explanation than murder. And it is so dark. And even when the evidence points at that … it is like, even for me, and I write about those things, I research those things, it is very hard to accept. Something in me wants to find another explanation, there has to be another explanation … it's just too dark!

Dr. Meryl Nass:

I don't think there were too many people who actually knew, I think. I think most people in, you know, Western Europe, In the UK, they don't deal with malaria, right. I've had malaria. I have familiarity with these drugs. I spent six months in Africa, six months in India. So I know all the malaria drugs, but most doctors don't.

I think a few people came up with the dosing, for whatever reason, and everybody else simply went along, they were all busy, it was the beginning of the COVID pandemic, right? Everybody was scratching their heads, trying to figure out what to do, didn't have PPE, everybody was frightened out of their wits, the doctors and the nurses were wearing garbage bags instead of PPE. And everybody did what they were told.

And these trials were set up, certainly the WHO trial was set up, such that the, the doctors and nurses did not select the doses, you just typed in a little bit of demographic information on the patient, and then WHO would say which drug to be used, and the dose, so it kind of took those decisions out of the hands of the local doctors.

There also was … was not formal, informed consent in that WHO trial. They claimed that they … some of the consent was obtained afterwards, and that they'd given the informed consent forms to the patient. Well, of course, you don't do that. You'll have to keep them for the trial. It's a legal document.

They say they gave them to the patient, so … they did not get informed consent from … for the patients in the WHO clinical trial. I don't know … it's a very difficult time. There are a few bad people and a lot of people who don't know any better. They probably don't know what the laws are. They don't know how the system works and they're, you know, putting one foot in front of the other.

It's very hard to be a doctor today. You don't have very much autonomy, you don't have much authority, everybody's looking over your shoulder. And they're, I think most of them are just trying to keep their nose clean and just keep on marching until they can retire.

Tessa Lena:

That is so sad. And now, switching towards philosophy for a second, I remember the time prior to the pandemic, a few years before the pandemic, when there were so many warnings, saying that if algorithmic thinking and algorithmic technology takes over medicine or aviation, it's not going to be pretty, because eventually doctors are going to be slaves to the algorithm, and they're going to be afraid for their licenses, because they're going to be sued if they step a little bit away from the algorithm, and they're going to be trapped, and not really practicing medicine anymore. But a few years ago, it was just philosophy, kind of, a conversation over a glass of wine.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Right. Exactly. Theoretical,

Tessa Lena:

Theoretical. And … and I had those conversations, and I even led some of those conversations — and I could not imagine in my wildest dreams that this would be happening in 2020 and on. It is really scary.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Well, so … so you can see. I mean, from my perspective, when all these things are happening, it makes sense that you have to stand up and say no, you know, I can't be a silent German. Whatever the risk, you know … you have to say enough is enough.

Tessa Lena:

Good for you! And I actually suspect that when the darkness passes, which it will, even though we don't know when, but those doctors who are compliant, many of them might be thrown under the bus. Because that's how it usually works in history.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Yeah … I mean, I … I'm not so sure that's what happens in history. I think the … the obedient people continue to be obedient and usually get by, but I, I have nothing … you know, I think everybody is doing their best.

I think there's very few people who have the background I have, who have … you know, I've consulted for the Director of National Intelligence here in the United States. And I've consulted for the Ministry of Health in Cuba. You know, as I said, I've traveled to many countries. I've seen how things work. And I, you know, so I have a broader perspective.

I know … I know, the law because I was very much involved with the legal work around the anthrax vaccine for years. So I learned what the law was regarding drugs and vaccines, and almost no doctors have that kind of background.

So when … when a board tells them they can't, you know, spread "misinformation," they assume the board has the authority to say that, and they assume they better not spread "misinformation." And they, you know, try … try to do the right thing, so …

I don't have … I'm, I'm not really angry at anyone, I think this is a combination of a lot of ignorance, and a few bad actors. And I do hope the bad actors will be, you know, taken to task. But I think for the rest, we need to start teaching people the Constitution, the law, you know, your … your country has guaranteed you rights, and you must not give them up.

You know, a lot of people fought and died for these rights, and you can't walk away from them. And freedom of speech is the First Amendment as is freedom of religion. The states are not allowed to take these rights away from you, that's the 14th amendment.

So, hopefully, people will learn, they'll learn what their rights are, they learn what the right thing is, and they'll learn that there's something sacred about the doctor patient relationship. It's not the doctor patient government relationship, or the doctor patient pharma relationship. It's the doctor patient relationship. And unless the patient is the only thing the doctor cares about, that trust is broken, and the whole edifice of medicine will collapse.

Tessa Lena:

Well, thank you for being so wonderful and courageous. I really admire you as a human being and your work and your stance. It is really, really admirable. And I hope that a lot more people will follow in your footsteps, and stop complying if they're compliant today, it is very important.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

Thank you, Tessa. Thank you. Good to meet you.

Tessa Lena:

Good to meet you, too. So, is there anything that you want to add before we wrap up, and also where can people find you? I'm sure people know, but just the mention it here.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

So I have two blogs. The one I update most frequently is anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com. My other blog is merylnassmd.com. And if I have time, I will make a Substack. Thank you.

Tessa Lena:

Oh thank you. And good luck! I hope you win very very soon and gloriously.

Dr. Meryl Nass:

I appreciate it, thank you, bye-bye.

Tessa Lena:

Bye-bye.

About the Author

To find more of Tessa Lena's work, be sure to check out her bio, Tessa Fights Robots.

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Early on in the COVID pandemic, people suspected that the deaths attributed to the infection were exaggerated. There was plenty of evidence for this. For starters, hospitals were instructed and incentivized to mark any patient who had a positive COVID test and subsequently died within a certain time period as a COVID death.

At the same time, we knew that the PCR test was unreliable, producing inordinate amounts of false positives. Now, the truth is finally starting to come out and, as suspected, the actual death toll is vastly lower than we were led to believe.

COVID Deaths Have Been Vastly Overcounted

In the video above, Dr. John Campbell reviews recent data released by the U.K. government in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. They show that the number of deaths during 2020 in England and Wales, where COVID-19 was the sole cause of death, was 9,400. Of those, 7,851 were aged 65 and older. The median age of death was 81.5 years.

During the first quarter of 2021, there were 6,483 deaths where COVID-19 was the sole cause of death, again with the vast majority, 4,923, occurring in seniors over 65.

A total of 346 died from COVID-19 alone during the second quarter of 2021, and in the third quarter, the COVID death toll was 1,142. Again, these are people with no other underlying conditions that might have caused their death.

So, in all, for the 21 months covering January 2020 through September 2021, the total COVID-19 death toll in England and Wales was 17,371 — a far cry from what's been reported. As of the end of September 2021, the U.K. government reported there were 137,133 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, and these deaths were therefore all counted as "COVID deaths."

In a January 19, 2022, press conference, U.K. health secretary Sajid Javid admitted that the daily government figures are unreliable as people have been and continue to die from conditions unrelated to COVID-19, but are included in the count due to a positive test.¹

He also admitted that about 40% of patients presently counted as hospitalized COVID patients were not admitted due to COVID symptoms. They were admitted for other conditions and simply tested positive.

COVID Has Primarily Killed Those Close to Death Anyway

Campbell also points out that of the 17,371 people who had COVID-19 as the sole cause of death, 13,597 were 65 or older. The average age of death in the U.K. from COVID in 2021 was 82.5 years. Compare that to the projected life expectancy in the U.K., which is 79 for men and 82.9 for women.² This hardly constitutes an emergency, least of all for healthy school- and working-age individuals.

Campbell then goes on to review data on excess deaths from cancer. Estimates suggest there have been an extra 50,000 cancer deaths over the past 18 months — deaths that normally would not have occurred. Delayed diagnosis and inability to receive proper treatment due to COVID restrictions are thought to be primary reasons for this.

As noted by Campbell, when we're looking at excess deaths, we really need to take things like age of death into account. COVID-19, apparently, killed mostly people who were close to the end of life expectancy anyway, so the loss of quality life years isn't particularly significant.

That needs to be weighed against the deaths of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s who have died from untreated cancer and other chronic diseases, thanks to COVID restrictions.

CDC Highlights Role of Comorbidities in Vaxxed COVID Deaths

>>>>> Click here <<<<<

In the U.S., data suggest a similar pattern of exaggerated COVID death statistics. Most recently, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky cited research³ showing that 77.8% of people who had received the COVID jab yet died from/with COVID also had, on average, four comorbidities.^4,5

"So, really, these are people who were unwell to begin with," Walensky said. But while Walensky points to this study as evidence that the COVID shot works wonders to reduce the risk of death, the exact same pattern has been shown in the unvaccinated. People without comorbidities have very little to worry about when it comes to COVID.

For example, a 2020 study⁶ found 88% of hospitalized COVID patients in New York City had two or more comorbidities, 6.3% had one underlying health condition and 6.1% had none. At that time, there were no COVID jabs available.

Similarly, in late August 2020, the CDC published data showing only 6% of the total death count had COVID-19 listed as the sole cause of death. The remaining 94% had had an average of 2.6 comorbidities or preexisting health conditions that contributed to their deaths.⁷ So, yes, COVID is a lethal risk only for the sickest among us, just as Walensky said, but that's true whether you're "vaccinated" or not.

Most COVID Deaths Likely Due to Ventilator Malpractice

In addition to the issue of whether people die "from" COVID or "with" a SARS-CoV-2 positive test, there's the issue of whether incorrect treatment is killing COVID patients. By early April 2020, doctors warned that putting COVID-19 patients on mechanical ventilation increased their risk of death.^8,9

One investigation showed a staggering 80% of COVID-19 patients in New York City who were placed on ventilators died,¹⁰ causing some doctors to question their use. U.K. data put that figure at 66% and a small study in Wuhan found 86% of ventilated patients died.¹¹ In an April 8, 2020, article, STAT News reported:¹²

"Many patients have blood oxygen levels so low they should be dead. But they're not gasping for air, their hearts aren't racing, and their brains show no signs of blinking off from lack of oxygen.

That is making critical care physicians suspect that blood levels of oxygen, which for decades have driven decisions about breathing support for patients with pneumonia and acute respiratory distress, might be misleading them about how to care for those with COVID-19.

In particular, more and more are concerned about the use of intubation and mechanical ventilators. They argue that more patients could receive simpler, noninvasive respiratory support, such as the breathing masks used in sleep apnea, at least to start with and maybe for the duration of the illness."

At the time, emergency room physician Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell argued that patients' symptoms had more in common with altitude sickness than pneumonia.¹³ Similarly, a paper¹⁴ by critical care Drs. Luciano Gattinoni and John J. Marini described two different types of COVID-19 presentations, which they refer to as Type L and Type H. While one benefited from mechanical ventilation, the other did not.

Despite that, putting COVID patients on mechanical ventilation is "standard of care" for COVID across the U.S. to this day. Without doubt, most of the early COVID patients were killed from ventilator malpractice, and patients continue to be killed — not from COVID but from harmful treatments.

Better Alternatives to Ventilation Exist

Mechanical ventilation can easily damage the lungs as it's pushing air into the lungs with force. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBOT) would likely be a better alternative, as it allows your body to absorb a higher percentage of oxygen without forcing air into the lungs. HBOT also improves mitochondrial function, helps with detoxification, inhibits and controls inflammation and optimizes your body's innate healing capacity.

Doctors have also had excellent results using high-flow nasal cannulas in lieu of ventilators. As noted in an April 2020 press release from doctors at UChicago Medicine:¹⁵

"High-flow nasal cannulas, or HFNCs, are non-invasive nasal prongs that sit below the nostrils and blow large volumes of warm, humidified oxygen into the nose and lungs.

A team from UChicago Medicine's emergency room took 24 COVID-19 patients who were in respiratory distress and gave them HFNCs instead of putting them on ventilators. The patients all fared extremely well, and only one of them required intubation after 10 days …

The HFNCs are often combined with prone positioning, a technique where patients lay on their stomachs to aid breathing. Together, they've helped UChicago Medicine doctors avoid dozens of intubations and have decreased the chances of bad outcomes for COVID-19 patients, said Thomas Spiegel, MD, Medical Director of University of Chicago Medicine's Emergency Department.

The proning and the high-flow nasal cannulas combined have brought patient oxygen levels from around 40% to 80% and 90% …"

How to Use Prone Positioning at Home

You can also use prone positioning at home if you struggle with a cough or have trouble breathing. If you're struggling to breathe, you should seek emergency medical care. However, in cases of cough or mild shortness of breath being treated at home, try to avoid spending a lot of time lying flat on your back.

Guidelines from Elmhurst Hospital suggest "laying [sic] on your stomach and in different positions will help your body to get air into all areas of your lung." The guidelines recommend changing your position every 30 minutes to two hours, including:¹⁶

• Lying on your belly
• Lying on your right side
• Sitting up
• Lying on your left side

This is a simple way to potentially help ease breathing difficulties at home. If you or a loved one is hospitalized, this technique can be used there too.

Hospital Incentives Are Driving Up COVID Deaths

You might wonder why doctors and hospital administrators insist on using treatments known to be ineffective at best and deadly at worst, while stubbornly refusing to administer anything that has been shown to work, be it intravenous vitamin C, hydroxychloroquine and zinc, ivermectin or corticosteroids.

The most likely answer is because they're protecting their bottom line. In the U.S., hospitals not only risk losing federal funding if they administer these treatments, but they also get a variety of incentives for doing all the wrong things. Hospitals receive payments for:¹⁷

COVID testing for all patients	COVID diagnoses
Admitting a "COVID patient"	Use of remdesivir
Use of mechanical ventilation	COVID deaths

What's worse, there's evidence that certain hospital systems, and perhaps all of them, have waived patients' rights, making anyone diagnosed with COVID a virtual prisoner of the hospital, with no ability to exercise informed consent. In short, hospitals are doing whatever they want with patients, and they have every incentive to maltreat them, and no incentive to give them treatments other than that dictated to them by the National Institutes of Health.

As reported by Citizens Journal,¹⁸ the U.S. government actually pays hospitals a "bonus" on the entire hospital bill if they use remdesivir, a drug shown to cause severe organ damage. Even coroners are given bonuses for every COVID-19 death.

A Bounty Has Been Placed on Your Life

"What does this mean for your health and safety as a patient in the hospital?" Citizens Journal asks.¹⁹ Without mincing words, it means your health is in severe jeopardy. Citizen Journal likens government-directed COVID treatments to a bounty placed on your life, where payouts are tied to your decline, not your recovery.

"For Remdesivir, studies show that 71–75% of patients suffer an adverse effect, and the drug often had to be stopped after five to 10 days because of these effects, such as kidney and liver damage, and death," Citizen Journal writes.

"Remdesivir trials during the 2018 West African Ebola outbreak²⁰ had to be discontinued because death rate exceeded 50%. Yet, in 2020, Anthony Fauci directed that Remdesivir was to be the drug hospitals use to treat COVID-19, even when the COVID clinical trials of Remdesivir showed similar adverse effects.

In ventilated patients, the death toll is staggering ... [attorney Thomas] Renz announced at a Truth for Health Foundation Press Conference that CMS data showed that in Texas hospitals, 84.9% percent of all patients died after more than 96 hours on a ventilator.

Then there are deaths from restrictions on effective treatments for hospitalized patients. Renz and a team of data analysts have estimated that more than 800,000 deaths in America's hospitals, in COVID-19 and other patients, have been caused by approaches restricting fluids, nutrition, antibiotics, effective antivirals, anti-inflammatories, and therapeutic doses of anti-coagulants.

We now see government-dictated medical care at its worst in our history since the federal government mandated these ineffective and dangerous treatments for COVID-19, and then created financial incentives for hospitals and doctors to use only those 'approved' (and paid for) approaches.

Our formerly trusted medical community of hospitals and hospital-employed medical staff have effectively become 'bounty hunters' for your life.

Patients need to now take unprecedented steps to avoid going into the hospital for COVID-19. Patients need to take active steps to plan before getting sick to use early home-based treatment of COVID-19 that can help you save your life."

Treat COVID Symptoms Immediately and Aggressively

Considering the uncertainties around diagnosis, it's best to treat any cold or flu-like symptoms early. At first signs of symptoms, start treatment. Perhaps it's the common cold or a regular influenza, maybe it's the much milder Omicron, but since it's hard to tell, your best bet is to treat symptoms as you would treat earlier forms of COVID.

Considering how contagious Omicron is, chances are you're going to get it, so buy what you'll need now, so you have it on hand if/when symptoms arise. And, remember, this applies for those who have gotten the jab as well, since you're just as likely to get infected — and perhaps even more so. Early treatment protocols with demonstrated effectiveness include:

• The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance's (FLCCC's) prevention and early at-home treatment protocol. They also have an in-hospital protocol and long-term management guidance for long-haul COVID-19 syndrome. You can find a listing of doctors who can prescribe ivermectin and other necessary medicines on the FLCCC website
• The AAPS protocol
• Tess Laurie's World Council for Health protocol
• America's Frontline Doctors

Based on my review of these protocols, I've developed the following summary of the treatment specifics I believe are the easiest and most effective.

>>>>> Click here <<<<<

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The bad news is that there's a new Omicron variant, BA.2 doing the rounds overseas. The good news? It's expected to be relatively mild, scientists say.

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She beat American Danielle Collins in straight sets.

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It has long been known that lactic acid is produced in large quantities by cancer cells and that this lactic acid disrupts our defense against tumors. However, scientists did not know exactly how this happens. Now researchers report they have found the answer.

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This article was previously published December 30, 2018, and has been updated with new information.

Fasting is one of the oldest dietary interventions in the world, and modern science confirms it can have a profoundly beneficial influence on your health. Dr. Jason Fung, a nephrologist (kidney specialist) with a practice in Canada, has written an important landmark book on this topic.It has a weekly 

"The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting," co-written with health blogger Jimmy Moore, details how to implement fasting and overcome some of the most common challenges that might arise, including persistent fears and myths associated with extended water fasting.

For the first decade of his practice, Fung was — like most doctors — conventionally oriented. As a kidney specialist, many of his patients had Type 2 diabetes as the primary cause of their kidney failure.

Fasting Helps Reverse Diabetes and Related Health Conditions

It became clear to him that the conventional treatment of Type 2 diabetes was seriously flawed. Despite patients' best efforts to manage their diabetes, take their insulin and follow the recommended diet, they would still end up with complications such as kidney disease, requiring dialysis, or they'd need amputations, or they'd go blind.

"As a doctor, we got trained to give medications, but obviously it wasn't working," he says. "The answer is actually pretty obvious. Because if diabetes, Type 2 predominantly, is what's causing the kidney disease, you're not going to be able to do anything about the kidney disease until you get rid of the diabetes.

That was kind of where I started. Then I thought, 'Everybody says Type 2 diabetes is this chronic kind of progressive disease … It only goes forward, one way.' But actually when you think about it, Type 2 diabetes isn't like that at all …

[I]f you want to get rid of the Type 2 diabetes, you have to get rid of the obesity … That's how you're going to help people get better. I started thinking about what causes weight gain … It's certainly not calories.

That's our big mistake. That's why we've been unsuccessful at creating weight loss, because we've got the wrong kind of target …

It's really about the hormonal balance and predominantly about insulin. We have to reduce insulin. Low-carbohydrate diets are a way to lower insulin … In some people, that'll reverse their diabetes …

I started using low-carbohydrate diets and it didn't really work. The problem was that it was a little complicated for people …

I had to make it simpler … I thought, 'Why not fasting?' … It's been used for thousands of years … I started looking at some of the science … There are actually huge benefits that we weren't recognizing.

Part of it was also we've always been trained, 'You have to eat. You have to eat.' But in fact, that's not true. If you think about it, in the old days … there would be lots of days where people didn't eat …

That's really what [body] fat is [for]. It's really simply stored fuel; stored food energy. We're using it [when we fast]. That's it. That's all that happens. There's no serious side effects or consequences to fasting.

If there was, we would have known about it several thousand years ago. But there wasn't. That's where I started from."

The Clinical Use of Fasting

Fung went on to implement fasting in his practice, and the results, he says, have been "unbelievable." He's been able to take many patients off all medications; they're losing weight, report increased energy, and their diabetes is reversed.

"This is why we go into medicine: to make people better. For the first time, this was what was happening. Before, for 10 years, all I did was watch people get worse until I put them on dialysis. That was really not the way to go," he says.

When he first sought to implement this program clinically, there was no formal guide to follow, which is what inspired him to write "The Complete Guide to Fasting." Using his own clinical experience, he created a guide that anyone can use to their benefit.

"When people start, they're super skeptical. They think it's [a] terrible [idea]. But then they come back and they're total converts. They're like, 'This is the best thing.'

Because they're losing weight, they're seeing that their medications are going down, their sugars are going down, it's obvious to them that they're actually getting much, much healthier," he says.

"This is all without medications. We're trying to take away medications. It's an all-natural solution. You're really letting your body just clean itself out from all of that excess sugar and fat.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's free. It's available. All we have to do is give people the knowledge and they can make themselves better, which is incredible."

If you're obese, nutritional ketosis is another excellent dietary protocol. I once interviewed Dr. Jeanne Drisko, head of the University of Kansas Integrative Medical Center, who has used a ketogenic protocol in a clinical setting for many years.

The challenge is implementation and compliance. Nutritional ketosis is more complicated than fasting. Fasting can also be a more rapid process. Rather than waiting weeks or months for your body to upregulate and be able to effectively metabolize fat again, fasting really jumpstarts this process.

Breaking Down Myths About Fasting

Fung's book is so helpful because it provides easy-to-follow basic guidelines for fasting, and reviews some of the most common myths and fears that keep many from implementing a fasting regimen.

One common myth is that fasting will lead to loss of muscle mass. The book clearly describes the process of protein catabolism, explaining how your body actually downregulates protein catabolism and upregulates growth hormones in response to fasting.

"If you follow the biochemistry, your body stores energy as glycogen in the liver, which is links or chains of sugar, and then it stores [it as] body fat.

During fasting, you start by burning off all the glycogen in the liver, which is all the sugar. There's a point there where some of the excess amino acids in your body need to get burnt as well.

That's where people say, 'That's where you're burning muscle.' That's not actually what happens. The body never upregulates its protein catabolism. Never is it burning muscle; there's a normal turnover that goes on.

There is a certain amount of protein that you need for a regular turnover. When you start fasting, that starts to go down and then fat oxidation goes way up. In essence, what you've done is you switched over from burning sugar to burning fat. Once you start burning fat, there's almost an unlimited amount of calories there. You could go for days and days.

What's interesting is that if you take a pound of fat, that's roughly 3,500 calories. If you eat somewhere around 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day, it takes two full days of fasting to burn a single pound of fat, which is very surprising to people.

If you're trying to lose 100 pounds, you could theoretically go 200 days of fasting just to burn all that fat … People worry about fasting for 24 hours. I'm like, 'You could go 200 days.' Then it's like, 'OK. Maybe it's OK to go 24 hours without eating.'"

The 'Starvation Mode' Myth

Another common fear is that fasting equals starvation, which is not true. First of all, starvation is a forced situation that you have no control over whereas fasting is optional. You have complete control. Many also believe they cannot or should not fast because it will send their body into "starvation mode" — a situation where the body starts holding on to fat rather than burning it off.

"What they're talking about is where the body's metabolism starts to slow down so significantly that instead of burning 2,000 calories a day, your body might burn 1,000 calories a day.

In that case, even if you're eating only 1,500 calories a day, for example, you're going to gain your weight back. That's actually what happens when you reduce your calories. We know that … as you cut your calorie intake, your calorie expenditure goes down as well.

Starvation mode actually is guaranteed if you just try and cut your calories. But what's interesting is that fasting doesn't do that. What happens during fasting is that … after four days of fasting, the basal metabolic rate is actually 10 percent higher than when you started.

The body has not shut down at all. In fact, what it's done is it switched fuel sources. It switched from burning food to burning [body] fat. Once it's burning [body] fat, it's like, 'Hey, there's plenty of this stuff. Let's burn our 2,000 calories'…"

This is also why fasting tends to increase energy opposed to leaving you feeling drained. If you're overweight and lethargic, fasting helps unlock all that energy already lodged in your body that you previously had no access to. Fasting forces your body to start accessing those stores of energy, and once that happens, your body suddenly has a near unlimited supply of energy!

Fasting also helps improve other biochemical systems in your body. There's interplay of hormonal systems like the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), AMPK, leptin and IGF-1 — all of which are optimized in the right direction when fasting. It also improves your mitochondrial function, allowing your mitochondria to regenerate. So it's not just simply turning on an enzyme switch to burn fat; it's a very complex process that upregulates in the direction of health.

Understanding the Role of Insulin

Insulin is the primary hormone that tells your body whether to store energy or burn it. When you eat, you're taking calories in and insulin goes up. Higher levels of insulin signal your body to store energy. When insulin falls, it tells your body to release energy. When you develop insulin resistance, your insulin levels remain chronically elevated; hence, your body is in constant fat-storing mode.

Without the signal to burn energy, you end up feeling tired and sluggish. You have plenty of fuel available, but it's all "locked away" in your fat cells, and it will remain unavailable until your body receives the appropriate signal — a drop in insulin. This is also why it's so difficult to lose weight when you are insulin resistant.

The key to breaking this cycle is to have sustained low insulin for periods of time, and this is why fasting can be so tremendously beneficial. Fasting lowers insulin more powerfully than any other strategy, which then allows the stored energy (body fat) to be used again.

"That's why you start to use up some of your fat stores and you're not hungry, because you're, in essence, eating your own fat. That's the other thing that people are always surprised about. When they come back, they say, 'Hey, I'm not actually that hungry.' I'm like, 'That's no surprise, because your body is burning fat. If it's burning [body] fat, it doesn't need to eat,'" Fung explains.

"We talk a lot about what you should eat and what you shouldn't eat. But people never talk about meal timing — making sure you have long periods where you're not eating. Look at the word "breakfast" in English. That's break fast. That's the meal that breaks your fast. That implies two things: One, fasting is a part of everyday life. We've forgotten that. We think it's some sort of Herculean effort, but it's not. We should be fasting every day.

If you balance your periods of feeding and fasting, you will stay in balance. If you are always in feeding phase, then you're not going to be in balance and you're going to gain weight. The second thing it means is that you can break your fast at any time. It doesn't have to be 8:00 in the morning. You can break your fast at any time of the day or you can eat two days later.

It's not that important … People, even when they're not hungry, are forcing themselves to eat something … Forcing yourself to eat when you're not hungry is not a winning strategy for weight loss. Logically, it doesn't make sense. But these sort of illogical thoughts get propagated and then it becomes conventional dietary advice."

Variations of Fasting

There are many ways to do an extended fast. Following are some of the most common variations:

Dietary fat produces a very minor insulin response, and since you're keeping your insulin levels low, you're still getting most of the benefits of fasting even though you're consuming plenty of calories. Adding healthy fats such as butter, coconut oil, MCT oil and avocado can make the fasting experience a lot easier. "Lots of people have done very well with this sort of fat fast," Fung notes, adding "Anything that increases your probability of success I'm all for."

I'm personally quite intrigued with the fat fast. I recommended water fasting to my landscaper, but after three days she felt really fatigued. While this is a normal response in the initial stages, I made her a "fat-bomb drink," which perked her right back up. I use Pau d'arco tea as the base.

It contains beta-lapachone, which upregulates NAD+, an important electron transfer mechanism and mitochondrial signaling molecule. To that, I add some coconut oil, MCT C8 oil, butter and a little stevia. It contains about 400 or 500 calories per cup.

Part of the key is to avoid protein to inhibit mTOR. While the level of protein at which you'll counteract the benefits of fasting is individual, Fung believes you'll likely see results as long as you stay below 10 or 20 grams of protein per day. As a reminder, protein raises your insulin, although not to the same degree as net carbs do. Excess protein is likely more damaging metabolically than excess carbs.

"I was looking at some data recently where they graphed where your blood sugars are in relation to where your ketones are. Ketones start to go up as your blood glucose falls [but] that slope changes in different people," Fung says. "If you look at, for instance, Type 2 diabetics, they have a very steep slope. That is their blood glucose — even as it falls — ketones don't go up.

That's probably why they feel like crap, because they're not getting the ketones. The blood glucose is going down, which it should, but the body should be producing ketones for their fuel for the brain, but it's not.

In those cases, some of the fat bombs, some of the exogenous ketones, may actually make it a lot easier for people to get through that. As your body becomes [fat] adapted, which can take two weeks to a month, that shouldn't happen anymore …

If you have never fasted and you do a three-day fast, you may feel pretty lousy. We tell people to expect that. You can either continue or you can take a break and let your body become more adapted to it."

The same applies to hunger pangs, which tend to kick in the hardest on the second day of a fast. By the fifth or sixth day, however, hunger practically disappears.

Important Contraindications

While 80 percent of the population would likely benefit from water fasting, there are several absolute contraindications. If any of the following apply to you, you should NOT do extended types of fasting:

• Underweight, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 18.5 or less.
• Malnourished (in which case you need to eat healthier, more nutritious food).
• Children should not fast for longer than 24 hours, as they need nutrients for continued growth. If your child needs to lose weight, a far safer and more appropriate approach is to cut out refined sugars and grains. Fasting is risky for children as it cuts out ALL nutrients, including those they need a steady supply of.
• Pregnant and/or breastfeeding women. The mother needs a steady supply of nutrients in order to assure the baby's healthy growth and development, so fasting during pregnancy or while breastfeeding is simply too risky for the child.

Use Caution if You're on Medication

If you're on medication, you need to use caution when fasting, as some drugs may need to be taken with food. This includes metformin, aspirin and any other drugs that might cause stomach upset or stomach ulcers. Risks are especially high if you're on diabetes medication. If you take the same dose of medication but don't eat, you run the risk of having very low blood sugars (hypoglycemia), which can be very dangerous.

So, if you're on diabetes drugs, you must adjust your medication before you fast. If your doctor is adverse toward or unfamiliar with fasting, you'd be wise to find one that has some experience in this area so they can guide you on how to do this safely.

Keep in mind that hypoglycemia is best diagnosed by symptoms alone, opposed to any specific blood glucose number. I wear a 24-hour continuous glucose monitor. Sometimes when I'm really pushing my carbs low, I'll go down to 35 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) at night, yet I'm not symptomatic at all. For someone who's hypoglycemic or used to having blood sugar levels of 180, dropping to 35 could put them in serious trouble.

Also be aware that if you have high uric acid, fasting can precipitate gout. Fasting tends to increase your uric acid level because your kidneys increase their reabsorption of uric acid when you don't eat. Most people will not experience a problem, but if you have gout you may need to consult with your physician about this.

Interesting Facts About Fasting and Meal Timing

Your body is a marvel of ingenuity, and the more you work WITH it rather than against it, the healthier you're likely to be. Consider the following: Intermittent fasting involves scheduling your meals in such a way that you get a period of fasting each day. Typically, you'll eat all of your meals within a six- or seven-hour window. When I first started intermittent fasting, I decided to skip breakfast.

However, in studying mitochondrial function, I realized it's not a good idea to eat late at night, because that's when your body is readying for rest, regeneration and repair. Eating in the evening creates surplus ATP, which will simply generate excessive amounts of damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS). At that point, I began avoiding food for a minimum of three hours (and typically it's closer to five or even six hours) before bedtime.

"There's some interesting data on that," Fung says. "If you look at insulin response, insulin drives a lot of weight gain. But if you take the same meal close to bedtime versus in the middle of the day, you actually get a higher insulin response at the end of the day, which is interesting and which is not good.

I actually think it's best to take your biggest meal sometime [around] lunch to early afternoon, and then go easy at [your] night time meal and into the next day. I think there's something in that … There's not a lot of science out there, but I think it really makes a lot of sense. In terms of the advantages of fasting, the key thing to understand is that fasting is almost the opposite of every diet that's out there. That's why it's so successful.

There are so many advantages to it: It's not complicating your life. It's actually simplifying your life. It doesn't cost any money. In fact, this saves you money. It doesn't take any time. In fact, it saves you time because you don't have to cook, you don't have to eat, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to plan for it.

There are so many different ways that it's beneficial. You can add it to any diet. If you're vegetarian, you can still fast. If you don't eat nuts, if you have an allergy to meat, if you can't cook, you can still fast. Any diet can be improved by fasting. It's so powerful. You can continue fasting as long as you want until you get the benefits that you want. The world record is 382 days. You can go a long time powered on your own body fat."

Yes, Fasting Is Safe and, Yes, You Can Do It

Barring you fall into any of the contraindicated groups, fasting is safe. Even very sick patients have done it and improved their health in the process. Fung has been using water fasting and variations thereof in his clinical practice for the past five years.

In that time, he's placed well over 1,000 patients on various fasting regimens. Some do tremendously well. One man in his mid-50s had struggled with diabetes for two decades. Within two weeks, he was able to quit taking all of his diabetes medications. His blood sugar was back to normal without them.

"Then his sister saw he was doing really well. She comes in. She's on three pills for diabetes. Within a month, we took her off all three. She takes herself off the other two blood pressure medications and cholesterol pills. We took her off six medications in a month and a half. That's amazing. Obviously, they did very well. But that just goes to show you what can happen when you try some of these things," Fung says.

"Initially, there was a huge amount of skepticism. Everybody thought I was crazy. But now I have so much support from my own local area because everybody has seen the results. I have lots of doctors at my hospital who are doing it. Once they see it themselves, they're like … 'This is amazing.'

They start referring me patients and say, 'I want these benefits for my patients' because they know they can't provide that kind of supportive environment that we can provide; that we set up in our clinic, where we kind of anticipate their problems, give them the support, the online resources, the books … to be able to do it successfully.

That's the key: to have the acceptance. There are so many naysayers out there who say, 'You shouldn't do this. You can't do this.' But within my own local area now, we're really seeing a lot of strong support for this, because it's undeniable."

More Information

I believe Fung has written an excellent, if not the best, book on how to implement extended fasting. If you're overweight or struggle with chronic illness, I highly recommend getting "The Complete Guide to Fasting," as it will really guide you through the process. Most likely — unless you're taking medications — you will not require a professional health care consultant to help you. It's nice to have, but you can likely manage on your own.

You can also learn more by visiting Fung's website, thefastingmethod.com. It has a weekly blog you can click on that provides a lot of information about fasting and related topics.

"The most important message, I suppose, is that health is really yours to take back, to take back from all the drug pushers and the people who just want you to take medications and who tell you that you can't do it and you'll always have Type 2 diabetes," Fung says.

"The solutions are all there. It's all within your grasp. It just requires the right knowledge … As physicians, the 19th to 20th century is all about drugs because we had a lot of infections. That was a great model. You take those antibiotics, you get better.

But now as we go onto the 21st century, it's all metabolic diseases. They're all dietary diseases. The problem is we're trying to use drugs for dietary diseases. Then we wonder why our drugs are no good. It's because the premise is entirely wrong. It's like bringing a snorkel to a bicycle race. It's just the wrong thing. We've got to move on."

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