Health & Fitness

By Dr. Mercola

You may be aware, and possibly have experienced firsthand, that antibiotics can cause diarrhea.

This is because antibiotics, by design, disrupt the balance of good and bad bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract, often killing off both beneficial and harmful microorganisms without distinction.

It is through this same mechanism that antibiotics may also be causing you to pack on extra pounds.

In fact, Dr. Martin Blaser, a professor of microbiology at New York University Langone Medical Center, suggests that antibiotics may permanently alter your gut bacteria and interfere with important hunger hormones secreted by your stomach, leading to increased appetite and body mass index (BMI).

Antibiotics Lead to Increases in Body Fat and Hunger Hormones

Research by Dr. Blaser has shown that 18 months after antibiotics are used to eradicate H. pylori bacteria, there is a:

• 6-fold increase in the release of ghrelin (the "hunger hormone") after a meal
• 20 percent increase in leptin levels (leptin is a hormone produced by fat tissue)
• 5 percent increase in BMI

Levels of ghrelin should ordinarily fall after a meal to signal your brain that you're full and ready to stop eating; an increase would therefore essentially tell your brain to continue eating, leading to weight gain. Further, the increase in leptin levels is concerning because overexposure to high levels of the hormone can lead to leptin resistance, which means your body is unable to properly hear leptin's signals.

The way your body stores fat is a highly regulated process that is controlled, primarily, by leptin. If you gain excess weight, the additional fat produces extra leptin that should alert your brain that your body is storing too much fat and needs to burn off the excess.

To do this, signals are sent to your brain to stop being hungry and to stop eating. When you become leptin-resistant, your body can no longer hear these messages -- so it remains hungry and stores more fat.

Interestingly, you can easily become leptin resistant by eating the typical American diet full of sugar (particularly fructose), refined grains and processed foods … which, like antibiotics, will upset the balance of bacteria in your gut.

Farmers Use Antibiotics to Fatten Up Livestock Quickly

About 70 percent of all the antibiotics produced are used in agriculture -- not necessarily to fight disease, but rather to promote weight gain.

As stated by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs:

"Continuous, low-dose administration of an antibiotic can increase the rate and efficiency of weight gain in healthy livestock. The presence of antibiotics likely changes the composition of the gut flora to favor growth. Debate is ongoing as to how gut flora are changed; change may simply be a reduction in numbers, a change in species composition or a combination of the two.

… Some antibiotics may also enhance feed consumption and growth by stimulating metabolic processes within the animal."

Unfortunately, this practice is also contributing to the alarming spread of antibiotic-resistant disease. As it pertains to your weight, there's ample reason to believe that this same phenomenon occurs in humans as well, figuratively turning Americans into fatted calves.

Your Gut Bacteria and Your Waistline Go Hand-in-Hand

Research by Dr. Blaser, for instance, found that mice fed antibiotics (in dosages similar to those given to children for throat or ear infections) had significant increases in body fat despite their diets remaining unchanged.

Multiple studies have actually shown that obese people have different intestinal bacteria than slim people, and that altering the microbial balance in your gut can influence your weight. Here are six such studies:

1. When rats were given lactic acid bacteria while in utero through adulthood, they put on significantly less weight than other rats eating the same high-calorie diet. They also had lower levels of minor inflammation, which has been associated with obesity.
2. Babies with high numbers of Bifidobacteria and low numbers of Staphylococcus aureus -- which may cause low-grade inflammation in your body, contributing to obesity -- appeared to be protected from excess weight gain. This may be one reason why breast-fed babies have a lower risk of obesity, as Bifidobacteria flourish in the guts of breast-fed babies.
3. Two studies found that obese individuals had about 20 percent more of a family of bacteria known as Firmicutes, and almost 90 percent less of a bacteria called Bacteroidetes than lean people. Firmicutes help your body to extract calories from complex sugars and deposit those calories in fat. When these microbes were transplanted into normal-weight mice, those mice started to gain twice as much fat.
4. Obese people were able to reduce their abdominal fat by nearly 5 percent, and their subcutaneous fat by over 3 percent, just be drinking a probiotic-rich fermented milk beverage for 12 weeks.
5. Probiotics (good bacteria) have been found to benefit metabolic syndrome, which often goes hand-in-hand with obesity.
6. Probiotics may also be beneficial in helping women lose weight after childbirth when taken from the first trimester through breastfeeding.

Healthy Gut Bacteria Cannot Coexist With Antibiotics

Antibiotics can save your life if you develop a serious bacterial infection, but it's important that you resist the urge to ask your physician for a prescription for every ear, nose, or throat infection you come down with. Likewise for a cold or the flu. Antibiotics are useless against viral infections like these, and when used for this purpose will only harm your health by wiping out the good bacteria in your gut.

Antibiotic use has become so routine in the United States that one round of the drugs may seem like no big deal, but remember that using them drastically alters the makeup of bacteria in your gut, which will need to be rebuilt in order for you to stay in good health. Whenever you use an antibiotic, you're also increasing your susceptibility to developing infections with resistance to that antibiotic -- and you can become the carrier of this resistant bug and even spread it to others.

Ultimately the problem of antibiotic-overuse needs to be stemmed through public policy on a nationwide level, especially in the agricultural community, but I urge you to also take personal responsibility and evaluate your own use of antibiotics, and avoid taking them -- or giving them to your children -- unless absolutely necessary.

Remember that the foods you eat are also a major source of exposure to antibiotics, so to protect your gut bacteria you should buy primarily antibiotic-free, organically raised meat and produce. Keep in mind that conventionally farmed food is often grown in fertilizer derived from factory-farmed animal waste and human sewage, which may be a source of contamination with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The Recipe for Healthy Gut Bacteria

Your gut bacteria are vulnerable to your lifestyle. If you eat a lot of processed foods, for instance, your gut bacteria are going to be compromised because processed foods in general will destroy healthy microflora and feed bad bacteria and yeast.

In addition to antibiotics, your gut bacteria are also very sensitive to:

• Chlorinated water
• Antibacterial soap
• Agricultural chemicals
• Pollution

Because virtually all of us are exposed to these at least occasionally, ensuring your gut bacteria remain balanced should be considered an ongoing process, and consuming fermented foods is one of the best ways to do this.

One of the reasons why fermented foods are so beneficial is because they contain lactic acid bacteria -- a type of beneficial gut bacteria that research shows can help you stay slim.

I have long stated that it's generally a wise choice to "reseed" your body with good bacteria from time to time by taking a high-quality probiotic supplement or eating non-pasteurized, traditionally fermented foods such as:

• Lassi (an Indian yoghurt drink, traditionally enjoyed before dinner)
• Fermented  organic grass-fed raw milk, such as kefir
• Various pickled fermentations of cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash and carrots
• Natto (fermented soy)

If you do not eat fermented foods on a regular basis, a high-quality probiotic supplement can be incredibly useful to help maintain healthy gut bacteria when you stray from your healthy diet and consume excess grains or sugar, or if you have to take antibiotics.

Also please remember that it is vital to eliminate ALL sugars. They will sabotage any beneficial effects of the fermented foods, as they will act as nutrients for the pathogenic yeast, fungi and bacteria that are in your gut.

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Breast cancer rates dropped by half in tandem with the discontinuation of hormone replacement therapy, according to a study published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The study was reported in the Telegraph in the United Kingdom.

The Telegraph said:

"Dr Prithwish De, of the Canadian Cancer Society, and colleagues, found that use of HRT dropped from 12.7 per cent in 2002 to 4.9 per cent in 2004.

During the same period breast cancer rates dropped by 9.6 per cent even though the same number of women were having mammography tests.

Between 2004 and 2006 use of HRT remained stable at around five per cent of women aged 50 to 59 but breast cancer rates began to increase again.

Dr De wrote: 'The results support the hypothesised link between the use of hormone replacement therapy and invasive breast cancer incidence and indicate that the sharp decline in breast cancer incidence in 2002 is likely explained by the concurrent decline in the use of hormone replacement therapy among Canadian women.'"

The study's authors said these numbers support existing evidence of the link between HRT and breast cancer.

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In January of this year, Oprah Winfrey invited Suzanne Somers on her show to talk about health tips. The 62-year-old actress uses bio-identical estrogen cream and progesterone on her other arm two weeks a month.

According to Somers, the bio-identical hormones are identical to the ones created by the human body, unlike conventional hormones, which are made from mare’s urine.

The result has been a media firestorm condemning both Somers and Oprah, including the hit piece in Newsweek linked below. The authors of the piece, Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert, argue that bio-identical hormones are just as synthetic as conventional hormones -- although they don’t much discuss the fact that conventional hormones are actually different from the 17-beta-estradiol made by your body, while the bio-identical hormones are 17-beta-estradiol itself.

The real reason for the attacks on bio-identical hormones?

As Somers points out, many doctors, scientists and media figures make a good deal of money off of the pharmaceutical industry.

And one thing you won’t see mentioned in the Newsweek article is the fact that Pat Wingert is the co-author of a pharmaceutically biased book on hormones and menopause, and that  Newsweek is heavily funded by pharmaceutical companies.

This resembles an incident a few years ago when the cattle industry actually sued Oprah Winfrey just for talking about Mad Cow Disease.

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The contraceptive pill may disrupt women's natural ability to choose a partner genetically dissimilar to themselves. This could result in difficulties when trying to conceive, an increased risk of miscarriage and long intervals between pregnancies. Passing on a lack of diverse genes to children could also weaken their immune systems.

Humans tend to be attracted to those with a dissimilar genetic make-up to themselves, maintaining genetic diversity, which is signaled by subtle odors. A research team analyzed how the contraceptive pill affects odor preferences, and found that the preferences of women who began using the contraceptive pill shifted towards men with genetically similar odors.

Not only could genetic similarity in couples lead to fertility problems, but it could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odor perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners, researchers said.

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Your entire body takes direction from your hormones. Hormones are secreted by your endocrine system and are responsible for telling your organs what to do and when to do it.¹ They are essentially chemical messengers that travel throughout your bloodstream, working slowly over time to affect processes like growth and development, metabolism and reproduction.

Sometimes, these chemical messengers may get out of balance, and this leads to chronic disorders such as Type 2 diabetes, weak bones and infertility.² Hormones may be secreted by your adrenal glands, endocrine-related organs, hypothalamus, sex glands and other organs.³

Progesterone is important to fertility and supporting a pregnancy. It’s a steroid hormone secreted by the corpus luteum and then by the placenta if you become pregnant.⁴ In some cases, when couples suffer from infertility, they choose in vitro fertilization (IVF).

This is a complex series of procedures in which eggs are retrieved from the ovaries, fertilized by sperm in a lab and then transferred into the uterus.⁵ One full cycle can take up to three weeks⁶ and cost $12,000.⁷ In response to her struggles with infertility, Amy Galliher-Beckley, Ph.D.,⁸ co-founded MFB Fertility and the progesterone test Proov.⁹

The Estrogen and Progesterone Relationship

Each of your bodily systems maintains a balance to help you maintain optimal health. Your reproductive system is no different. For a woman, there are several hormones affecting a complex system to mature an egg follicle and release an egg where it travels to the uterus. If fertilized, the egg must implant into the uterus, called the endometrium, where it begins to develop into a baby.

These events are controlled by hormones secreted from several sources in the body. The ovaries produce the eggs and are the main source of estrogen. The adrenal glands sit on top of each kidney and also make a small amount. Estrogen plays a role in physical changes during puberty; it also controls the menstrual cycle, protects bone health and affects your mood.¹⁰

The second hormone essential to fertility is progesterone, a steroid hormone that is first secreted by the corpus luteum. After the egg is released, the corpus luteum is left attached to the ovary, which functions as a temporary gland.¹¹ These two hormones are controlled by the release of other hormones.

During the menstrual cycle gonadotropin-releasing hormone is secreted from the hypothalamus, triggering the secretion of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) from the pituitary gland.¹² This begins follicle development and triggers a rise in estrogen.

Luteinizing hormone (LH), also secreted by the pituitary gland, supports the maturation of the follicle and a trigger to cause the egg to be released. When estrogen levels get sufficiently high it signals a sudden release of LH, around mid-cycle, which triggers a set of events that ultimately release the mature egg from the follicle.¹³

Once released, the empty follicle becomes the corpus luteum, which produces progesterone. The release of progesterone triggers the uterus to develop a highly vascularized bed suitable for implantation of a fertilized egg.

Without fertilization, the corpus luteum begins to degenerate, the secretion of progesterone drops off and menstruation occurs. If pregnancy occurs then the corpus luteum produces progesterone for the first 10 weeks until production is taken over by the placenta.^14,15

Not About Getting Pregnant, but Staying Pregnant

As Beckley explains in her interview with Forbes magazine,¹⁶ her test is not about getting pregnant, but rather staying pregnant. Progesterone not only prepares the uterus for the egg to implant; it also protects the endometrium from degeneration and menstruation. While the body is producing high levels of progesterone during a pregnancy, a second egg will not mature.¹⁷

In order to maintain a pregnancy, the corpus luteum must continue to secrete progesterone. This maintains the blood vessels in the endometrium to feed the growing baby. It is in these early weeks that women with low levels of progesterone may have difficulty, both conceiving and developing the right environment for a fertilized egg to grow.

Some women who do get pregnant are at a high risk for miscarriage.¹⁸ The test Beckley developed comes with sticks used in much the same way ovulation and pregnancy tests are used. These sticks measure the amount of progesterone metabolites excreted in the urine. To date, this is the first at-home, over-the-counter test used to evaluate a woman's ability to produce progesterone.¹⁹ Beckley explains:²⁰

"Low progesterone is the number one cause of unexplained infertility. Women who go through IVF protocols all are offered progesterone. If you are not going through IVF, most doctors don't talk about progesterone, they don't offer progesterone, they don't test for progesterone. When your progesterone crashes too quickly, it is called a luteal phase defect."

Luteal Phase Defect Increases Chances of Miscarriage

The luteal phase in a woman's cycle begins after ovulation and represents the second half of the menstrual cycle. The luteal phase is named after the corpus luteum. Luteal Phase Defect (LPD) results in an abnormal endometrial growth that may not support a pregnancy.^21,22

While researchers struggle to identify the underlying dysfunction and efficacy of LPD in supporting fertility, experts report women undergoing IVF always have LPD present.²³ LPD is marked with a luteal phase less than 11 days. However, not all physicians believe the condition exists; reliable tests are lacking.²⁴

Beckley developed the Proov urine test to help women identify a reduction in progesterone during their cycle. According to Beckley,²⁵ her test gives women more knowledge about how their body works and provides a foundation for asking their infertility doctors better questions.

The test measures the presence of metabolites in the urine that should increase and remain elevated after ovulation. It may be used to confirm ovulation and confirm levels of progesterone afterward. A single negative test before ovulation followed by a single positive test will confirm ovulation for women trying to get pregnant.²⁶

For women trying to conceive, the test is recommended four days after peak fertility and then for continued testing 10 days past ovulation.²⁷ When questions arise about levels of progesterone to maintain a pregnancy, they recommend testing six days after peak fertility and as needed during the pregnancy since the test should remain positive.

Other Functions of Progesterone

Although LPD has a significant impact on a woman's ability to carry a pregnancy, it is the subject of debate.²⁸ In some cases, the ovaries release enough progesterone but the uterine lining does not respond.²⁹ LPD has been linked to other health conditions, including:³⁰

Anorexia	Endometriosis
High levels of exercise	Obesity
Thyroid disorders	Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
High levels of prolactinemia (the hormone responsible for breast milk)

In some circumstances, when these conditions are treated, the LPD resolves.³¹ Later in life, if levels of progesterone decline, a woman’s period may become irregular, heavier and longer,³² increasing her chance of experiencing anemia, depending on the amount and length of her period.³³

Variations in hormone levels after menopause may also influence cognition and mood.³⁴ In a study of 643 healthy postmenopausal women, researchers found that while estrogen had little effect on tests of executive function or global cognition, progesterone concentrations were associated with verbal memory. The researchers suggest this positive association merits additional study.

Bioidentical progesterone, also known as micronized progesterone in the oral form, has been successful in helping relieve hot flashes and night sweats during menopause. Dr. Jerilynn Prior from the University of British Columbia Vancouver presented her study at an endocrine society meeting during which she compared the use of progesterone to placebo.³⁵

The study assigned 114 postmenopausal women into one of two groups, a placebo group and another who took 300 mg of micronized oral progesterone daily. To be eligible for the study, the women had to be off hormone therapy for at least six months.³⁶

At the end of the 12-week study, researchers found that the group taking micronized progesterone demonstrated a 56% decrease in a score reflecting the number and intensity of symptoms, while the women taking the placebo reported a 28% decrease.³⁷

Age Does Affect Hormone Balance

As is borne out by the number of women struggling with hormonal imbalances as they age and those requiring fertility assistance to become pregnant after 40,³⁸ Beckley is vocal about the difficulty women may have supporting a pregnancy after she turns 40.³⁹

Beckley says,⁴⁰ “The closer a woman gets to menopause, the least likely her body is going to be able to support a pregnancy.” Much of this is related to the imbalance of hormones required to successfully support a pregnancy that occurs as women age.

Her research in designing the progesterone urine test led Beckley to believe 30% to 40% of women who undergo IVF treatment to become pregnant ultimately do not need IVF.⁴¹ Instead, they may require progesterone to develop a healthy endometrial lining and support early pregnancy.

Overall Fertility Is on the Decline

Couples experience infertility for a number of reasons. In a study⁴² released in 2017, researchers evaluated 38 years of information and found sperm counts declined significantly between 1973 and 2011. The sperm counts declined 52% to 59% in men located in North America, Europe and Australia.

The Australian Department of Health reports 1 in every 6 Australian couples suffers from fertility problems, which they attribute to the decision to have children later in life as well as declining sperm count. Quality and lifestyle factors such as smoking, not eating healthfully, consuming excessive amounts of alcohol and not having a healthy BMI also affect fertility.⁴³

In May 2019, the Pew Research Center reported that for the fourth year in a row, key fertility indicators for U.S. couples declined, reaching a record low.⁴⁴ Two of the three indicators used to determine fertility reflected a decline in numbers.

The total fertility rate, or the estimation of the number of children a woman would have in her lifetime, was 1.73 children in 2018. This was lower than the estimate of 1.74 from the mid-1970s.⁴⁵

Research suggests men’s fertility is affected by environmental toxins and chemicals you may find in your own home, which I discuss in a past article, “50 Percent Fertility Reduction Because of These Household Chemicals.”

Additionally, as described in the past article, “Birth Rate Reaches Record Low as Premature Deliveries Rise,” statistics from the CDC show the number of new births was down 2% in 2018 as compared to 2017, but the number of premature births was rising. Infertility and pregnancy are complex conditions that likely need a comprehensive approach to experience a successful outcome.

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In a January 2021 lecture, Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., introduced the term "the pandemic virus industrial complex," to describe the academic, military and commercial complexes that are driving the pandemic agenda and obscuring facts that indicate SARS-CoV-2 is a manmade virus.

In the video above, David E. Martin, Ph.D., introduces shocking evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is indeed a manmade bioweapon, and has been in the works for decades. Much of this research was funded by none other than the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Pandemic virus industrial complex indeed! You do not want to miss this bombshell interview, conducted by Reiner Fuellmich,¹ founding member of the German Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee^2,3 (Außerparlamentarischer Corona Untersuchungsausschuss or ACU⁴). A transcript⁵ is available if you prefer to read it.

SARS-CoV-2 Is Not a Novel Coronavirus at All

Martin has been in the business of tracking patent applications and approvals since 1998. His company, M-Cam International Innovation Risk Management, is the world's largest underwriter of intangible assets used in finance in 168 countries. M-Cam has also monitored biological and chemical weapons treaty violations on behalf of the U.S. government, following the anthrax scare in September 2001.

According to Martin, there are more than 4,000 patents relating to the SARS coronavirus. His company has also done a comprehensive review of the financing of research involving the manipulation of coronaviruses that gave rise to SARS as a subclade of the beta coronavirus family.

In his testimony to ACU, he reviews some of the most pertinent patents, showing SARS-CoV-2 is not a novel coronavirus at all but, rather, a manmade virus that has been in the works for decades.

A comprehensive list of 120 patents relating to SARS-CoV-2-associated features can be found here.⁶ The features patented are referenced in two key scientific papers, "A Novel Bat Coronavirus Reveals Natural Insertions at the S1/S2 2 Cleavage Site of the Spike Protein and a Possible Recombinant 3 Origin of HCoV-19," and "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2."

On that list, we see numerous patents detailing manipulation of the polybasic cleavage site for SARS-CoV, the spike protein, as well as ACE2 binding, all three of which are supposed to be unique features of SARS-CoV-2. As explained by Martin:

"We took the reported gene sequence, which was reportedly isolated as a novel virus, indicated as such by the ICTV, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses of the World Health Organization. We took the actual genetic sequences that were reportedly novel and reviewed those against the patent records that were available as of the spring of 2020.

And what we found, as you'll see in this report, are over 120 patented pieces of evidence, to suggest that the declaration of a 'novel coronavirus' was actually entirely a fallacy.

There was no novel coronavirus. There are countless, very subtle modifications of coronavirus sequences that have been uploaded, but there was no single identified 'novel coronavirus' at all.

As a matter of fact, we found records in the patent records, of sequences attributed to novelty, going to patents that were sought as early as 1999. So not only was this not a novel anything … it's not been novel for over two decades."

Spike Protein Vaccine for Coronavirus Patented 22 Years Ago

Up until 1999, coronavirus patents were all in the veterinary sciences. The first coronavirus vaccine to use the S spike protein was patented by Pfizer in January 2000 (Patent No. 6372224). It was a spike protein virus vaccine for canine coronavirus. You can look up the actual patents for yourself on the United States Patent and Trademark Office's website,⁷ if you like.

"Ralph Baric's work on … rabbit cardiomyopathy … and then canine coronavirus in Pfizer's work, to identify how to develop S spike protein vaccine target candidates, [give] rise to the obvious evidence that …

… neither the coronavirus concept of a vaccine, nor the principle of the coronavirus itself, as a pathogen of interest with respect to the spike proteins behavior, is anything novel at all. As a matter of fact, it's 22 years old based on patent filings," Martin says.

From HIV Vaccine Development to COVID-19

According to Martin, Fauci and the NIAID "found the malleability of coronavirus to be a potential candidate for HIV vaccines," and in 1999, Fauci funded research at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (where Baric has a lab) to create "an infectious replication-defective coronavirus" specifically targeted for human lung epithelium.

The patent for that replication-defective coronavirus that attacks human lung cells was filed April 19, 2002 (Patent No. 7279327). "In other words, we made SARS," Martin says. Or perhaps more accurately, Fauci and UNC did. Several months after that patent filing, the SARS outbreak in Asia occurred.

"That patent, issued as U.S. Patent 7279327 … clearly lays out in very specific gene sequencing, the fact that we knew that the ACE receptor, the ACE2 binding domain, the S-1 spike protein, and other elements of what we have come to know as this scourge pathogen, was not only engineered, but could be synthetically modified in the laboratory using nothing more than gene sequencing technologies.

Taking computer code and turning it into a pathogen, or an intermediate of the pathogen, and that technology was funded exclusively, in the early days, as a means by which we could harness coronavirus as a vector to distribute HIV vaccine."

Coronavirus — A Biological Weapon Candidate Since 2001?

As mentioned, Martin has monitored biological and chemical treaty violations since 2001, following the anthrax attacks. Throughout the fall of 2001, an "enormous number" of bacterial and viral pathogens were patented through the National Institutes of Health, the NIAID, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and their international collaborators.

"Our concern was that coronavirus was being seen as not only a potential manipulatable agent for potential use as a vaccine vector, but it was also very clearly being considered as a biological weapon candidate," Martin says.

Before the SARS outbreak in China, Martin reported these concerns publicly. "So, you can imagine how disappointed I am to be sitting here … having 20 years earlier pointed that there was a problem looming on the horizon with respect to coronavirus," he says.

CDC Holds Patents on SARS Coronavirus

In April 2003, after the SARS outbreak in China had occurred, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to file a patent for the entire gene sequence for the SARS coronavirus (Patent No. 7220852). This is a violation of 35 U.S. Code Section 101, which states you cannot patent a naturally-occurring substance.

That CDC patent also had several derivative patents associated with it, including U.S. patent 46592703P and U.S. patent 7776521. These two patents cover the gene sequence of SARS coronavirus and the means for detecting it using RT PCR testing.

Together, these patents are highly problematic, because if you own both, then "you have a cunning advantage to being able to control 100% of the provenance of not only the virus itself, but also its detection, meaning you have entire scientific and message control," Martin explains.

The CDC tried to justify the patent by saying they were being sought in order to ensure that everyone would be free to research coronaviruses. However, that is a lie, Martin says. The U.S. patent office rejected the patent on the gene sequence as unpatentable because it was 99.9% identical to a coronavirus that was already in the public domain.

The CDC paid an appeal fine in 2006 and again in 2007. They also paid an additional fee to keep the application private. In the end, the CDC overrode the patent examiner's rejection and secured the patent in 2007.

"Last time I checked, if you're trying to make information available for the public research, you would not pay a fee to keep the information private," Martin says. According to Martin, the gene sequence filed by the CDC in 2003, 2005 and 2006 is 89% to 99% identical to the sequence identified as SARS-CoV-2.

Sequoia Pharmaceuticals

April 28, 2003 — three days after the CDC filed its patent for the SARS coronavirus — Sequoia Pharmaceuticals filed a patent on an antiviral agent for the treatment and control of infectious coronavirus (Patent No. 7151163). So, the CDC files a patent on SARS coronavirus, and three days later there's a treatment?

This strongly suggests there was a working relationship behind the scenes. Sequoia Pharmaceuticals, founded in 2002, develops antiviral therapeutics with a special focus on drug-resistant viruses.⁸ Its lead investors include the Wellcome Trust.

But there's yet another problem with Sequoia's 2003 filing for an antiviral agent. It was actually issued and published before the CDC patent on SARS coronavirus had been granted, which didn't happen until 2007, and the CDC had paid to keep the application private.

"So, the degree to which the information could have been known by any means other than insider information between those parties is zero," Martin says. "It is not physically possible for you to patent a thing that treats a thing that had not been published, because CDC had paid to keep it secret.

This, my friends, is the definition of criminal conspiracy, racketeering and collusion. This is not a theory, this is evidence. You cannot have information in the future, and form a treatment for a thing that did not exist. It is a RICO case ...

And the RICO pattern, which was established in April of 2003 for the first coronavirus, was played out to exactly the same schedule when we see SARS COV-2 show up, when we have Moderna getting the spike protein sequence by phone from the vaccine research center at NIAID, prior to the definition of the novel subclade. How do you treat a thing, before you actually have the thing?"

Sanofi Holds Patents to Novel Feature of SARS-CoV-2

The next bombshell revelation occurred on June 5, 2008, when Ablynx, now a part of Sanofi, filed a series of patents detailing what we've been told are novel features of SARS-CoV-2, namely the polybasic cleavage site, the spike protein and the ACE2 receptor binding domain. The first of those patents, U.S. Patent No. 9193780, was issued November 24, 2015.

Between 2016 and 2019, a series of patents were issued to Ablynx and Sanofi covering the RNA strands and the subcomponents of the gene strands.

Between 2008 and 2017, a series of patents were also filed by a long list of players, including Crucell, Rubeus Therapeutics, Children's Medical Corporation, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in München, Protein Science Corporation, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, University of Iowa, University of Hong Kong and the Chinese National Human Genome Center in Shanghai.

This series of patents detail ever single attribute that is supposed to be unique to SARS-CoV-2, according to the paper, "A Novel Bat Coronavirus Reveals Natural Insertions at the S1/S2 2 Cleavage Site of the Spike Protein and a Possible Recombinant 3 Origin of HCoV-19."

This paper has routinely been used to identify the so-called novel coronavirus that is SARS-CoV-2. Yet there are 73 patents, issued between 2008 and 2019, that describe the very elements that are said to be unique to SARS-CoV-2. Patents have been filed for SARS-CoV-2's polybasic cleavage site, the ACE2 receptor binding domain, and the spike protein.

"So, there was no 'outbreak' of SARS, because we had engineered all of the elements of that," Martin says. And by 2016, when Baric published a paper warning that SARS coronavirus was "poised for human emergence," the virus in question had already been patented for commercial exploitation 73 times!

The Pandemic Virus Industrial Complex Is Swimming in Profit

Baric is one of the few people who has profited significantly from this pandemic, which he appears to have been part of creating. Another is Fauci. The same drug companies that hold patents on not-so-novel SARS-CoV-2 features are also raking in profits from their COVID shots.

In 2015, Dr. Peter Daszak, head of the EcoHealth Alliance that funneled research dollars from the NIAID to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for coronavirus research, who has promoted the official narrative that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin, stated:⁹

"We need to increase public understanding of the need for medical countermeasures such as a pan-coronavirus vaccine. A key driver is the media and the economics will follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage, to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of the process."

Sounds an awful lot like what we're facing right now, doesn't it? At the end of the day, this pandemic has primarily been about profit and the shifting of wealth, from the lower- and middle-classes to the already ultra-wealthy. This is a war on the public, waged using biological weapons and information warfare, with the ultimate goal of "resetting" life and commerce as we know it.

Intentional Weaponization of Spike Protein

Martin says:

"There wasn't a lab leak. This was an intentional bio-weaponization of spike proteins to inject into people, to get them addicted to a pan-coronavirus vaccine. This has nothing to do with a pathogen that was released, and every study that's ever been launched to try to verify a lab leak, is a red herring.

[There are] 73 patents on everything clinically novel — 73, all issued before 2019. And I'm going to give you the biggest bombshell of all to prove that this was actually not a release of anything, because Patent No. 7279327, the patent on the recombinant nature of that 'lung-targeting' coronavirus, was transferred mysteriously from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill to the National Institutes of Health in 2018.

Now, here's the problem with that. Under the Bayh-Dole Act, the U.S. government already has what's called a march-in right provision. That means if the U.S. government has paid for research, they are entitled to benefit from that research at their demand or at their whim.

So, explain why, in 2017 and 2018, suddenly the National Institutes of Health have to take ownership of the patent that they already had rights to, held by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. And how did they need to file a Certificate of Correction to make sure that it was legally enforceable, because there was a typographical error in the grant reference in the first filing?

They needed to make sure that not only did they get it right, but they needed to make sure every typographical error that was contained in the patent was correct on THE SINGLE PATENT REQUIRED, to develop the Vaccine Research Institute's mandate, which was shared between the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Moderna in November of 2019, when UNC Chapel Hill, NIAID and Moderna began the sequencing of a spike protein vaccine — a month before an outbreak ever happened."

'New Normal' Coined by Merck at 2004 Bioterrorism Conference

The more we learn, the grimmer it gets. Clearly, plans for our current-day predicament were laid well over a decade ago. According to Martin, the slogan "The New Normal" was coined by Merck during a January 6, 2004, conference called "SARS and Bioterrorism, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Antimicrobial Therapeutics, and Immune Modulators."

This term has now become a branded campaign adopted by the World Health Organization, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board and the rest of the pandemic virus industrial complex.

Incidentally, Fauci is on the board of directors of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, as is Dr. Chris Elias, president of the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and George Fu Gao, Ph.D., director-general of the Chinese CDC and a Chinese communist party member.¹⁰

It's a long interview, but it does not disappoint. I urge you to take the time to listen to it, as Martin really lays out the timeline of when and how this pandemic virus came to be. He's also published a 205-page paper¹¹ detailing Fauci's involvement that you can download from archive.org.

It now seems clearer than ever that everything we're experiencing was planned and executed with a profit motive in mind. Armed with this new knowledge, I urge you once again to reclaim your life, your freedom and independence, and resist this manufactured notion of a "new normal." A new normal will surely be established if we persist, but it will be the converse of what the pandemic virus industrial complex is hoping for.

We will resurrect medicine and science from the induced coma these fields are currently in, and usher in a new era of medical freedom, personal liberty, responsible and transparent government, fiscal stability and health care that actually promotes health rather than slow death. It may take a while, but together, we can do it. To get there, keep sharing information such as that provided by Martin in this mind-blowing interview in any way you can. In the end, truth will prevail. Believe it.

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A significant portion of Americans have some type of vitamin deficiency, one of which is vitamin B12.¹ Vitamin B12 (cobalamin) is a water-soluble vitamin, which is vital for optimal health. Unfortunately, many of the symptoms of deficiency mimic other health conditions and so it is often considered last in a variety of health issues.

There are four known forms of the vitamin² including methylcobalamin and 5-deoxyadenosylcobalamin, which are metabolically active. Two other forms, hydroxocobalamin and cyanocobalamin, become biologically active after they are converted.

Vitamin B12 is an essential vitamin, which means your body cannot make it. Instead, you must consume an average of 2.4 micrograms each day from food or supplements.³ While it's found in a wide variety of animal foods,⁴ some experts estimate that 3.2% of people over age 50 are deficient in vitamin B12, and another possible 20% have a borderline deficiency⁵ and others estimate that up to 43% of older adults may be deficient.⁶

Although it affects a significant number of people, particularly the elderly and those in developing countries, it is one of the most overlooked conditions.⁷ Vitamin B12 plays a vital role in many functions throughout your body. For example, it is important to create blood cells and keep nerve cells healthy.

Vitamin B12 also helps prevent megaloblastic anemia.⁸ The vitamin is necessary for cardiovascular and cognitive health, and it helps to produce hemoglobin, improve nerve strength and regulate homocysteine levels.^9,10,11

Homocysteine is an amino acid produced by the body, which in large amounts can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. One function of vitamin B12 is to help break down homocysteine in your blood.¹² What symptoms might be a warning that you or a loved one may have a vitamin B12 deficiency?

Symptoms of Vitamin B12 Deficiency Are Not Diagnostic

The most common cause of megaloblastic anemia is a deficiency in vitamin B12.¹³ In this condition the bone marrow produces large and immature red blood cells, which leads to fatigue, lightheadedness and skin pallor. Other symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency include:^14,15,16,17

Shortness of breath	Dizziness	Difficulty breathing
Loss of appetite	Tingling or numbness in the hands or feet	Balance or gait problems
Loss of vision	Mental confusion	Memory loss
Depression	Insomnia	Panic attacks
Weight loss	Infertility	Dementia
Mouth or tongue soreness	Swollen or inflamed tongue	Difficulty reasoning
Joint pain	Paranoia and delusions	Incontinence
Constipation	Headache	Heart palpitations (Feeling like your heart is pounding or racing)

Infants who are deficient present with failure to thrive, megaloblastic anemia and delayed development.¹⁸ Permanent damage to the nervous system can occur, so identifying deficiency in people who don't first present with megaloblastic anemia is crucial, so it is treated as soon as possible.

Although an experienced health care provider may recognize symptoms and theorize that you have a deficiency, testing is required to confirm the condition. Certain groups of people are at greater risk of developing a vitamin B12 deficiency than others. These groups of people have difficulty absorbing vitamin B12 from the food they eat, or they don't get enough in their diet.¹⁹

To absorb the vitamin your body goes through a two-step process. First, hydrochloric acid in your stomach separates the vitamin from protein in the food source. Next, vitamin B12 attaches with a protein your stomach makes — called intrinsic factor — so it can be absorbed into the body.

In certain conditions, even people taking supplements cannot absorb the vitamin since they don't make enough intrinsic factor to bind with the vitamin so it can be absorbed. You may have a higher risk of developing a vitamin B12 deficiency if you are/have:^20,21

An older adult — Age increases the potential you don't make enough hydrochloric acid.

A regular coffee drinker — One study22 found those who drank four or more cups of coffee daily had lower plasma concentrations of circulating vitamin B concentrations.

A regular alcohol drinker — The effect of regular alcohol consumption was measured in healthy, well-nourished, postmenopausal women,23 which demonstrated lower levels of vitamin B12, potentially since vitamin B12 is stored in the liver.

On certain medications — Experts recommend “Special attention should also be given to patients on medications such as PPIs, H2-receptor antagonists, antacids, metformin, colchicine, cholestyramine, and patients chronically on anticonvulsants or antibiotics.”24

An autoimmune disease called atrophic gastritis — This condition decreases both the amount of hydrochloric acid and intrinsic factor needed to process and absorb the vitamin.

Pernicious anemia — People with this type of anemia do not make intrinsic factor. This means they cannot absorb the vitamin from supplements or their food and require vitamin B12 shots for treatment.

Stomach or intestinal surgery — For example, weight loss surgery may remove a large part of the stomach, and thus reduce the amount of hydrochloric acid and intrinsic factor to absorb vitamin B12.

Disorders of the stomach or small intestines — This includes celiac disease, Crohn's disease, tropical sprue or bacterial overgrowth.

Vegetarian or vegan — Vitamin B12 is only found naturally in animal foods such as meat, fish, dairy and eggs. Additionally, women who are strict vegetarians who are pregnant, or nursing do not give enough vitamin B12 to their babies.

Low Levels of B12 May Be Missed

Unless you have recognizable signs of vitamin B12 deficiency, your physician may not think to test your level. Yet, even when tested, serum norms in the U.S. may be suboptimal. Additionally, individual requirements can vary, so you may have symptoms of deficiency even when your serum levels appear to be in the normal range.²⁵

Serum levels can also be altered by the presence or absence of binding proteins. Some serum tests identify inactive forms of cobalamin, which masks deficiencies of the active form of the vitamin.

Instead, researchers recommended evaluating deficiency through the measurement of metabolites, including homocysteine, or levels of cobalamin bound to holo-transcobalamin, which more accurately represents the active form of the vitamin.

Evidence suggests that relying on serum levels of vitamin B12 can significantly underestimate tissue deficiency by as much as 50%. Serum levels may be maintained as vitamin B12 is pulled from the tissue. This means that a value above the normal cut off point does not necessarily mean you have adequate levels of vitamin B12 for your body to use.

Researchers from this study and other experts²⁶ suggest several other ways of more accurately predicting potential deficiency. One method is to look at the spectrum of metabolic abnormalities and clinical symptoms as compared against homocysteine and MMA levels.²⁷

B12 Deficiency May Be an Underestimated Cause of Dementia

Some of the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency are mental health disorders, including depression. One study²⁸ of 89 children and adolescents with depression found those who are depressed had “clearly low” levels of vitamin B12 and vitamin D and their homocysteine levels were “remarkably high.”

Another study²⁹ engaged 199 depressed adults who received vitamin B12 supplementation with antidepressants and exhibited significantly improved symptoms. In addition to depression, low levels of vitamin B12 have been associated with minimal cognitive impairment and dementia and may be an option to improve patient outcomes.³⁰

One study³¹ characterized the cognitive pattern of elderly adults who had vitamin B12 deficiency and compared it against those who had Alzheimer's disease. Their results suggested a distinctly different pattern in both diseases.

The researchers found that of the 19 individuals who had low levels of vitamin B12, 12 improved with treatment and seven continued to deteriorate. The researchers went on to analyze the initial neuropsychological evaluation of the two groups of patients and found there was a different profile in those who had a form of dementia that responded to vitamin B12 supplementation and those who did not.

In the group who responded to B12 supplementation there were initially more psychotic problems and a greater number of deficits in executive functioning and concentration. In the group who did not respond to supplementation there were greater problems with language and apraxia.

The scientists discovered memory pattern challenges were also different, leading them to believe that vitamin B12 deficiency may be differentiated from Alzheimer's disease with a thorough psychological evaluation.³²

Scientists recognize that the hematological and neuropsychiatric effects of vitamin B12 deficiency may not occur systematically. The true incidence of neuropsychiatric symptoms is unknown. However, depending on the population being studied and the definition of vitamin B12 deficiency used by the researchers, the rate can vary between 4% and 50%.³³

Testing for Vitamin B12 Deficiency With Cognitive Decline

As early as 2009, Dr. Ronald Devere, then-director of the taste and smell disorders clinic and Alzheimer's disease and memory disorders center in Austin, Texas, recommended guidelines for evaluating vitamin B12, folate, MMA and homocysteine blood levels to discern those who may respond to vitamin B12 or folate supplementation to reduce cognitive impairment.³⁴

He recommended continuing to use vitamin B12 and folate serum levels in those who present with changes in cognitive functioning. In addition, he set limits for measuring MMA and homocysteine to determine if serum vitamin B12 was an accurate reflection of the vitamin level.

In one paper³⁵ published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry, the scientists recognized only one-third of individuals with low levels of vitamin B12 receive adequate supplementation. The researchers warned that in the early phases of replacement therapy in patients who have megaloblastic anemia, clinicians should watch for falling potassium levels that may result in early death.

Administering folate in conjunction with vitamin B12 supplementation may help partially correct megaloblastic anemia. On the other hand, they suggest it could aggravate encephalopathy that may be present with vitamin B12 deficiency.

The doctors suggest that the devastating impact of dementia on the individual and their family warrants testing for vitamin B12 deficiency and potentially supplementation, since deficiency in the elderly is a common condition and modern diagnostic tools in addition to neurophysiological parameters may help improve cognitive performance.

B Vitamins May Help Prevent the Worst COVID Outcomes

Vitamin B12 belongs to a complex of B vitamins which researchers’ postulate may significantly improve COVID-19 outcomes. One cohort study^36,37 of 43 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 admitted to the Singapore General Hospital in early 2020 analyzed the oral administration of vitamin D3, magnesium and vitamin B12, collectively called DMB, against a control group who did not receive DMB therapy.

The researchers found that only 17.6% required oxygen therapy during hospitalization as compared to 61.5% of those in the control group. Of the patients who required oxygen in the DMB group, two were admitted to ICU and one was not. Of the control group that required supplemental oxygen, all were admitted to the ICU.

The B vitamins play a significant role in a healthy functioning immune system. Additionally, the same group of vitamins play a role in reducing the severe effects of COVID-19,³⁸ including roles in viral replication, cytokines storm induction, adaptive immunity and hypercoagulability.

In one paper³⁹ published in the journal Maturitas, scientists detailed the various routes that each of the B vitamin may affect in the management of COVID-19 symptoms. Specifically for vitamin B12, a deficiency can increase an inflammatory response and raise homocysteine levels.

These actions may trigger endothelial dysfunction and activate a platelet and coagulation cascade that can potentially lead to blood clots. For further explanation see “B Vitamins Might Help Prevent Worst COVID-19 Outcomes.”

Vitamin B12 is found almost exclusively in animal tissue. This includes foods like beef, lamb, venison, poultry, eggs and dairy products. Nutritional yeast is high in B12 and recommended for vegetarians and vegans. Two tablespoons provide 7.8 micrograms.⁴⁰

A sublingual under the tongue fine mist spray or vitamin B12 injections are also effective as they allow the large molecule to be absorbed directly into your bloodstream and bypasses the need for hydrochloric acid and intrinsic factor.

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