Health & Fitness

As you know, a novel coronavirus (initially labeled 2019-nCOV before being renamed COVID-19 by the World Health Organization¹) originating in Wuhan City, Hubei Province in China, is rapidly spreading across the world.

The first case was reported in Wuhan on December 21, 2019. Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, severe cough and pneumonia which, in more severe cases, can lead to impaired kidney and liver function and kidney failure.^2,3

On January 21, 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first U.S. case⁴ — a patient in Washington state who had recently visited Wuhan. Then, the first U.S. death was reported February 29, 2020, in Washington state.⁵

Less than a week later, CBS News reported March 5, 2020, that the number of deaths had quickly risen to 11 nationwide in the U.S. — 10 in Washington state and one in California.⁶ Not only that, but as of that day, “The World Health Organization urged governments around the world to pull out ‘all the stops’” to fight the outbreak. On the up side, China “appeared to be over the worst” of it, CBS said.

All told, as of March 5, 2020, there were 98,067 reported cases of novel coronavirus infections affecting 88 countries, 80,430 of which were in China. Worldometer.info provides an easy overview of confirmed cases and deaths that you can check for the latest statistics.⁷

COVID-19 — A Weaponized Coronavirus?

In this interview, Francis Boyle — whose background includes an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago, a juris doctor (lawyer) degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. in political science — shares his theory of the origin of this novel coronavirus.

For decades, he's advocated against the development and use of bioweapons, which he suspects COVID-19 is. In fact, Boyle was the one who called for biowarfare legislation at the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, and the one who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by George Bush, Sr.

At the time of this recording, February 14, 2020, more than 50,000 people in China had been infected with the virus. Certainly, it does not originate from infected bat soup.

As a result of Boyle's antibiological warfare work, which goes back to the early days of the Reagan administration — a time in which they were using DNA genetic engineering to manufacture biological weapons — Boyle has carefully followed "mysterious outbreaks of disease in both humans and animals around the world" that have appeared since then.

"My biowarfare antiterrorism act was specifically designed to not only to deal with regular biological weapons but also with DNA genetic engineering for biological weapons that was just coming into its infancy when the BWC was being drafted.

Even though the BWC would cover DNA genetic engineering, I wanted to make it clear by name that it was covered. I also made it clear [that] it covered synthetic biology as well," Boyle says.

"So, when these unexplained mysterious illnesses break out, I monitor them a while and usually I just conclude they can be explained by normal reasons: lack of sanitation, poverty, things of that nature. But in Wuhan it seemed pretty suspicious to me.

There is this Biosafety Level 4 facility there in Wuhan. It's the first in China, and it was specifically set up to deal with the coronavirus and SARS. SARS is basically a weaponized version of the coronavirus.

There have been leaks before of SARS out of this facility, and indeed the only reason for these BSL-4 facilities, based on my experience, is the research, development, testing and stockpiling of offensive biological weapons.

For that reason, I stated my opinion: That this Wuhan coronavirus leaked out of that BSL-4 facility … maybe mid-November … and the Chinese government has been lying about it and covering up ever since."

Many Unknowns Remain

The first reported case of COVID-19 infection was December 1, 2019. Depending on the incubation period, which is still unknown, the initial lead, provided there was one, might have occurred anywhere in November. The official estimate is a 14-day incubation period, but a British health expert believes it's 24 days, and North Korean biological warfare experts believe it's 30 days, Boyle says.

"As for Wuhan and Hubei Province, they're basically under martial law. There's no other word for it. If you read the statements by President Xi and his assistants, they've made it very clear they're at war here, and that is correct. They're at war with their own biological warfare agent.

President Xi just fired the party apparatchiks in charge of this and has brought in trusted military personnel to handle it, as well as large numbers of PLA [People's Liberation Army] forces saying they're health care workers. They don't look like health care workers to me. So, as of now, that's my best reading of the situation."

When asked about rumors the COVID-19 virus might have been stolen from a high-security laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada, Boyle says:

"It could have been. I want to make it clear that, in my opinion they were already working on that at the Wuhan BSL-4 facility. They were working on a biological warfare weapon involving SARS, which is a coronavirus to begin with.

We do know that Dr. [Yoshihiro] Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin … resurrected the Spanish flu virus for the Pentagon, obviously for weapons purposes, and he specializes in mating the Spanish flu virus to all sorts of hideous biowarfare instrumentalities. And there was a record of him shipping his products to Winnipeg.

Winnipeg is Canada's equivalent of our own Fort Detrick. It's a BSL-4 facility, and yes, they research, develop tests, manufacture and stockpile every type of hideous biological warfare weapon that we know of. So, some of this technology could have been stolen from Winnipeg. I don't know about that but, as I said, the Wuhan BSL-4 was already working on this to begin with.

They had already developed SARS. SARS had leaked out two to three times before this, and it seems they were turbocharging SARS, which is what [COVID-19] looks to be. This is a brand-new generation of biowarfare weapons we haven't seen before.

Its lethality goes from 15%, as estimated by Lancet, up to 17% to 18% by a British health official and even Chinese statistics. Its infectivity is 83%. It can infect maybe three to four people for every person infected.

It has gain of function properties, which means it travels through air at least 6 or 7 feet, and … there are reports that even contaminated human feces give it off, that the human feces radiate off maybe 6 or 7 feet. So, we've never seen anything like this before in the history of biological warfare, at least in the public record.

I want to make it clear: I have never worked for the United States government. I've never had a security clearance. I've never had access to any type of secret information.

I just read what is in the public record and the scientific record and try to draw my own conclusions, and that's what I'm giving you today. I could change my opinion if people can provide me reputable scientific evidence to the contrary.

Right now, I'm standing by my conclusion that it leaked out of the Wuhan BSL-4, the highest level of the Chinese government has known about it, they've been covering it up from the get-go, until they informed the WHO at the end of December."

Despite Laws, Biowarfare Experimentation Is Alive and Well

As noted by Boyle, the Wuhan lab is a designated WHO research lab, which may sound odd, considering these facilities specialize in developing and researching dangerous pathogens that can easily be turned into bioweapons.

According to Boyle, we should not be surprised however, as "WHO is up to its eyeballs in this type of work and has been for quite some time." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the drug industry also appear to have had their hand in many of the outbreaks of what appear to be weaponized viruses.

"I won't go through the long history of big pharma getting involved in this. There's huge amounts of money here. I believe the West Africa Ebola pandemic originated out of the US BSL-4 facility in Sierra Leone, and [that] they were testing out a so-called vaccine that contained live Ebola and gave it to these poor people," Boyle says.

"As for the CDC, it has been involved in every … BSL-4 biological warfare death science you could possibly imagine … It's a matter of public record that during the Reagan administration, the CDC and the American Type Culture Collection sent 40 shipments of weapons-grade biological warfare agents to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, in the hope and expectation that he would weaponize these agents and use them against Iran …

Of course, the problem is that when that war was over … an order was given to U.S. military forces to blow up Saddam Hussein's biological warfare facilities, and that's not how you deal with biological warfare weapons …

[It] contaminated our own troops, and that was a causative factor in the Gulf War Syndrome that … murdered about 11,000 U.S. troops and disabled about 100,000."

According to Boyle, the U.S. government spent $100 billion on biological warfare programs since September 11, 2011, up until October 2015, which is no small sum. To put it into perspective, the U.S. spent $40 billion (assuming a constant dollar value) on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. Boyle also estimates the U.S. has some 13,000 life scientists working within the biowarfare industry.

"Clearly, the Reagan administration, under the influence of its neoconservatives who definitely believe in biological weapons and ethnic-specific biological weapons (you can see that in the PNAC report), were engaged in the use of DNA genetic engineering for the purpose of manufacturing biological weapons.

That is why I gave a Congressional briefing in Washington, D.C. in 1985. I was asked to do that by the Council for Responsible Genetics that I work with, which involves the leading life scientists in the world from MIT and Harvard.

I spent seven years at Harvard. I have three degrees and I knew all these people. They asked me to serve as their lawyer and give this Congressional briefing. I blew the whistle, and then they asked me to draft the implementing legislation, which I did …

I want to make it clear I'm not here to speak in their name, I'm only speaking in my name, but if you look at my book, 'Biological Warfare and Terrorism,' professor Jonathan King wrote the foreword. So, I have the leading MIT professor of molecular biology supporting what I'm saying, if you don't think I know enough science about it."

US Prepares for COVID-19 Pandemic

While there have so far only been a limited number of reported cases of COVID-19 infection in the U.S., the U.S. military has designated several detention sites around the country to quarantine Americans,⁸ should the situation take a turn for the worse.

Historically speaking, however, government health officials have been vastly exaggerating the threat of pandemics in the U.S., including the bird flu, the swine flu, anthrax and Ebola.

For example, as detailed in my 2009 New York Times bestseller "The Great Bird Flu Hoax," then-President George Bush Jr. projected 2 million Americans would die from bird flu; the best-case scenario taking only 200,000 lives. The final death count in the U.S. from that pandemic was zero.

It generated massive profits, though, as U.S. taxpayer dollars were used to purchase 20 million doses of Tamiflu. One of the people who was able to line his pockets from that hoax was defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was president of Gilead Sciences when the drug was created.

"[The bird flu] was another DNA, genetically engineered biological warfare weapon," Boyle notes. "It was a chimera. It had three different elements in it and we were all lucky that somehow they attenuated the lethality and the infectiveness of the bird flu."

Whether or not COVID-19 will be similarly ineffective in its spread and lethality remains to be seen. Judging by the statistics in China, "it doesn't look very good," Boyle says.

Understanding the COVID-19 Virus

According to Boyle, the COVID-19 virus is a chimera, like the avian flu virus before it. It includes SARS, an already weaponized coronavirus, along with HIV genetic material. "That was in a published article by Indian scientists. You could see the pictures right there, [but] political pressure was brought to bear upon them so they withdrew [the paper]."

This is why some scientists are now looking into using HIV drugs to treat it,⁹ Boyle says. COVID-19 may also have a flu virus mixed in, along with gain of function properties that allow it to spread a greater distance than normal.

Pandemics Repeatedly Used to Further Police State

Pandemics have also been used to chip away public freedoms. For example, the anthrax scare of 2001 was used as the impetus for signing the Patriot Act, which was the first step in taking away many of our personal freedoms and rolling out a complete surveillance state. To me, such outcomes are far more concerning than the risk of infection itself. Boyle adds:

"They used Amerithrax to ram the Patriot Act through, that is correct … We became a police state … And as I pointed out in 'Biowarfare and Terrorism,' I think the same people who were behind the 9/11 terrorist attack were also behind the Amerithrax, but I'm just connecting dots there …

What's called Amerithrax came out of a U.S. government biological warfare weapons lab and program, and I publicly blew the whistle on that the first weekend of November 2001.

The Council for Responsible Genetics was having its convention at Harvard Business School and I was chairing a panel with King and other experts on biological warfare, on U.S. biological warfare programs.

As I was walking into the Harvard Divinity School, Fox TV had a camera crew there and I said, 'Obviously, this came out a U.S. biological weapons program and probably Fort Detrick.'

I conducted the session and made the same comment. Then I made a comment to a Washington, D.C., radio station to that effect [and to] the BBC, so everyone in the world heard me.

At that point, someone gave an order that I was never to be interviewed again by any mainstream news about biological warfare programs. And that's been the case since the first week of November 2001."

As noted by Boyle, George Orwell's book, "1984," has become reality. Boyle has since lectured lawyers at DePaul Law School in Chicago about the totalitarian nature of the Patriot Act.

"Snowden has correctly pointed out the federal government is spying on everything we say, all of our electronic communications, you name it," Boyle says.

"And again, the proof is I've been completely blackballed out of U.S. media. Indeed, if you go back and look at the Amerithrax attacks, they also hit mainstream U.S. media to make it clear to them that if they covered this issue they will be killed too."

Bioweapons Are Developed To Be Used

As noted by Boyle, the U.S. government has a large stockpile of Amerithrax — a super weapons-grade nanotechnology anthrax with 1 trillion spores per gram — and that's just the tip of the iceberg of the biological weapons developed. What's more, Boyle has no doubt these weapons will eventually be put to use, as they have in the past. He says:

"There was a tabletop exercise at John Hopkins University last fall … on coronavirus.¹⁰ Tabletop exercise, that's a euphemism for a war game. Their estimate was that it killed 65 million people¹¹ …

John Hopkins is up to their eyeballs in this Nazi biological warfare dirty work. They have a BSL-3 facility there … that they proudly announce on their website … They justify it by saying they're developing vaccines. OK … How do they do that?

They go out around the world, and this is a matter of public record, and scour for every type of hideous disease, fungus, virus and bacteria you can possibly imagine. They then bring it back to these BSL-4 labs and develop an offensive, biological agent using DNA genetic engineering and synthetic biology … set up by the Pentagon under DARPA …

Once they have this offensive agent, they then proceed to develop a vaccine, because the agent is no good unless you can have a vaccine to protect your own people.

So, they're developing vaccines to have biological weapons, because a biological weapon consists of two elements: the offensive biological warfare agent in the first place, and then, second, a vaccine to protect your own people, and that is what is being done at all these BSL-4 facilities, and many of the BSL-3s as well.

John Hopkins has a BSL-3 and they admit they do dual use. That's what dual use means. They first develop the offensive biological warfare agent and then they develop the supposed vaccine."

Indeed, Johns Hopkins University is the biggest recipient of research grants from federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and Department of Defense. It has also received millions of dollars in research grants from the Gates Foundation.¹² In 2016, Johns Hopkins spent more than $2 billion on research projects, leading all U.S. universities in research spending for the 38th year in a row.¹³

How Can We Best Prevent or Treat COVID-19 Infection?

While it's unclear exactly which treatment is the most effective, my guess is that Dr. Paul Marik's intravenous vitamin C protocol for sepsis would be a good starting point, seeing how sepsis appears to be what kills those who succumb to a serious COVID-19 infection.

Marik's retrospective before-after clinical study^14,15 showed that giving patients IV vitamin C with hydrocortisone and vitamin B1 for two days reduced mortality from 40% to 8.5%. The precise protocol used was 200 mg of thiamine every 12 hours, 1,500 mg of ascorbic acid every six hours, and 50 mg of hydrocortisone every six hours.¹⁶ Importantly, the treatment has no side effects and is inexpensive, readily available and simple to administer.

According to Marik, vitamin C and corticosteroids have a synergistic effect,¹⁷ which is part of why his combo protocol is so effective. Still, simply using high-dose IV vitamin C exclusively has been shown to improve survival in patients with sepsis and acute respiratory failure, reducing mortality from 46% to 30%.¹⁸

It also reduced the number of days they needed to remain hospitalized. On average, those who received vitamin C had by Day 28 spent three fewer days in the intensive care unit than the placebo group (seven days compared to 10). By Day 60, the treatment group had also spent seven fewer days in the hospital overall —15 days compared to 22.¹⁹

While there are no trials that look at integrating hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), my suspicion is that this would provide a powerful synergy that could get the fatality rate from sepsis even closer to zero. Sadly, HBOT is not available at many hospitals, and even if it were, it is not approved for sepsis.

You can learn more about Marik's sepsis protocol in "Vitamin C — A Game Changer in Treatment of Deadly Sepsis," along with commonsense recommendations for how to lower your risk of sepsis in the first place.

You can also review Marik's PowerPoint presentation, "Hydrocortisone, Ascorbic Acid and Thiamine for the Treatment of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock," presented at the 2020 Critical Care Reviews meeting in Australia. For COVID-19 at-home care advice from the WHO, please see "Novel Coronavirus — The Latest Pandemic Scare."

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In this interview, Dr. Lynda Frassetto, a nephrologist and professor emeritus in the department of medicine at University of California San Francisco (UCSF), shares important information about how acid in your diet affects your kidney health and longevity.

“When I was in internal medicine training, I happened to have a really super mentor, Dr. Eli Friedman, at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Brooklyn,” Frassetto says. “He made nephrology sound really interesting.

And so, after I finished my residency and was a hospitalist for a couple of years, I decided to go back and do nephrology, because people who did nephrology just have a better understanding of physiology than most internists do.

I thought that would help make me a better doctor. After I finished my fellowship, I started working with Anthony Sebastian here at UCSF. He was interested in diet acid load in people who were relatively healthy.

The kidneys do a lot of things. One of the things they do is they get rid of acid. We know that as kidney failure progresses, you have trouble getting rid of the acid. It accumulates in your system and has a lot of bad side effects.

We also know that, as you get older, your kidneys tend not to work as well. What Tony was looking at was, in otherwise healthy, older people — whose kidneys just aren’t working as well as they did, let’s say, 40 or 50 years earlier — does eating a high-acid diet have any potential side effects?”

Low-Acid Diets as a Means to Protect Kidney Function

In the initial stages of their work, Frassetto and Sebastian worked on neutralizing acid in the diet using bicarbonate. Then, just over a decade ago, they started looking at low-acid diets. While all foods contain precursors that can be metabolized into acids, fruits and vegetables contain a lot of alkali precursors that are metabolized into bicarbonate, like citrate or malate.

Frassetto’s interest in low-acid diets began with the paleo diet, promoted by Loren Cordain, Ph.D. According to Cordain, many foods in our modern diet were unavailable to our ancestors, such as processed grains and sugars.

He believed a diet closer to our ancestral diet would be healthier, and one of the reasons for this is because any diet high in fruits and vegetables (and devoid of processed food) will be lower in acid. As explained by Frassetto:

“If you look at any large population, and you just look at the average kidney function over time, on average, everybody’s kidney function declines. But if you look at specific individuals, kidney function either declines much more slowly or may even level out.

The question is, ‘How related is that to eating a low-acid diet or doing things that wouldn’t bother your kidneys?’ This has actually been looked at by Dr. Donald Wesson, a nephrologist at University of Texas (UT) Southwestern.

He’s looked at both alkalized supplements and fruits and vegetable diets in people with Stage 2 kidney disease, with an estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) between 60 and 90, and Stage 3 chronic kidney disease (CKD), which has an estimated GFR from 30 to 60.

[GFR is] an estimate of kidney function. So, if you’re 50 years old, your GFR is about 90. If you’re 80 years old, your GFR is about 60. On average, people who are older are going to have … Stage 2 or Stage 3 CKD.

Wesson showed that in these people, if you either give them alkalized supplements like baking soda, or put them on a diet with more fruits and vegetables, that you could slow the rate of decline ...

If you extrapolate that from people with kidney failure to just older people, the idea would be that, maybe, you can slow the rate of decline of your kidney function, even if you’re otherwise healthy and just getting older. That’s the idea.

Everything that you do, everything, is related to kidney function in some degree. Because the kidneys get rid of a lot of things. The worse the kidneys work, the worse everything works.”

Fasting Also Protects Kidney Function

According to Frassetto, most kidney disease in western countries is more advanced kidney disease caused by high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes. Three-quarters of patients on dialysis are there due to high blood pressure and diabetes. So, ultimately, anything that helps improve diabetes and high blood pressure will also improve kidney health.

One strategy known to significantly lower your risk of Type 2 diabetes is fasting, including time-restricted eating. I’ve previously interviewed Dr. Jason Fung, a nephrologist in Canada, who uses fasting to reverse diabetes in his patients. Exercise is yet another strategy that will lower your risk of diabetes, and thus protect your kidney health.

Acid Versus Protein Damage

Acid isn’t the only thing that can damage your kidneys. High-protein diets can also cause harm, thanks to the ammonia generated. As for which may ultimately be worse for you — high acid or high protein — Frassetto explains:

“All proteins contain acid precursors. If you’re eating a high protein load and you don’t have enough alkali to help the kidneys either buffer or get rid of the acid, then that’s ultimately bad for your kidneys. But you do need to eat a certain amount of protein, or you’re going to have problems building things too.

This is really a balance question. It’s not that protein is bad. It’s that, if you’re eating a lot of protein, you should also be eating a lot of alkali. That will help you not use the body systems to neutralize or buffer the acid in your system. The whole idea is that you want to maintain your blood pH within the range considered to be normal.

To do that, you either move the acid inside the cells, you break down the muscles to supply glutamine, ultimately to the kidneys, to excrete the acid as ammonium. You also break down your bone, which is calcium hydroxyapatite, which is the alkali.

Or, you have to decrease the amount of endogenous acids that you produce in order to be able to maintain your blood pH. Your body has a lot of ways of dealing with the acids that the kidney has to get rid of.

So, if you’re giving the body exogenous alkali, meaning you either take bicarbonate or you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, you don’t need to break down your bones and muscles in order to be able to neutralize the acid in your system …

Hydrogen ions are balanced at the level of 10-9, which is a super-low level of free hydrogen ions in the body. And the changes that you can make to that without going outside the range of normal and becoming ill is not very big.

There are only a couple of things you can do here. Either you’re going to break down your body systems or you [need to] give your body exogenous alkali.”

Patients with advanced kidney disease will typically get exogenous alkali — usually a combination of sodium bicarbonate and sodium citrate — as it’s been shown to slow the advancement of the disease and delay the need for dialysis. The sodium citrate will also lower your risk of kidney stones.

Potassium bicarbonate should not be used when you have kidney disease. The reason for this is because, when you have kidney failure, potassium can accumulate to lethal levels. Controlling blood pressure and diabetes are also important when you have kidney disease, as is controlling proteinuria (damage to the glomerular barrier).

How Klotho Benefits Kidney Function

The protein klotho is helpful for ridding your body of phosphate, and phosphate is another acid that has to be excreted by your kidneys. Interestingly, transgenic animals that have been genetically edited to overexpress the klotho gene also live 10% to 40% longer.

Klotho is a membrane transporter and a soluble protein. When you eat a high-phosphate diet, you release fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23), which attaches to klotho as a cofactor and then goes to the kidneys, where it removes the transporters that allow your kidneys to reabsorb phosphate. This helps maintain a normal phosphate balance.

However, with age and declining kidney function, you need more and more FGF23 to get rid of the phosphate. FGF23 also prevents the actions of 1-alpha hydroxylase, an enzyme necessary for the activation of vitamin D, and vitamin D is necessary for the production of klotho.

So, as you get older and continue eating a high-phosphate diet (which is easy since phosphate is in most foods), your FGF23 goes up while your vitamin D and klotho levels go down. As a result, your kidneys start reabsorbing more phosphate, thus incurring more and more damage.

The answer, then, is not only a low-acid diet. You also want your diet to be relatively low in phosphate. What is a high-phosphate diet? Frassetto explains:

“First off, dairy products. All dairy products contain essentially four things: calcium, phosphorus, protein and fat … So, for kidney failure patients, we pretty much eliminate dairy products.

And then colas. They add phosphatidic acid to a lot of things, including soda. We try to get people not to drink stuff that has phosphatidic acid in it. And then there are some other specific foods, like chocolate and nuts that we tell people with advanced kidney failure to avoid ... Beans are another high source of phosphate.”

Assessing Your Kidney Function

To get an idea of how well your kidneys are functioning, you’d typically start with a renal panel. This will give you your blood urea nitrogen level and serum creatinine. Your GFR is then calculated based on your gender, age, race and serum creatinine level. Based on the results of your renal panel, other tests may be prudent.

“In terms of just looking at kidney health, there are two things that we look at,” Frassetto says. “One is [the estimated] GFR number. Two is, ‘Do you have any protein in the urine?’ Those can be two separate problems. Protein in the urine, in and of itself, is bad for kidney function …

This was discovered many years ago by Dr. Barry Brenner. He did five/sixth nephrectomies in rats (so only a small part of one kidney remained) and showed that the remaining kidney, the so-called nephron remnant, had to hyperfilter to be able to clear all the blood. That hyperfiltration through the glomerular membrane was bad for the membrane, so the membrane started to leak protein, and the kidneys failed faster.

So, we now know that there are a number of kidney problems where the membrane is leaking protein. That causes the kidney to be more damaged.

If you had to do just two things just to see how healthy you are, the first would be to get a blood test to see where your kidney function is. The second is to get a urinalysis. Pretty much any time you go in for a primary care visit, those are the two tests that they usually do.”

Acidotic Stress

While most people are familiar with oxidative stress, acidotic stress is another type of stress that can take a significant toll on your health. Frassetto believes both are equally important, especially where kidney disease is concerned. Acidotic stress also plays a role in aging.

“A friend of mine named Dr. Elissa Epel has looked at the relationship between telomere length, telomerase activity and oxidative stress. [She] has shown people who are under a lot of psychological stress have shorter telomeres and abnormal telomerase function.

They have higher levels of oxidative stress. I happen to have done more research on [acidotic stress], but really, I think it's a combination of both,” Frassetto says. “So, the whole idea would be to lower the amount of oxidative stress and lower the amount of acidotic stress, and therefore limit the damage to the body.”

More Information

To summarize, a low-acid diet is basically a diet high in fruits and vegetables, with a moderate amount of protein. Again, the more protein you eat, the more fruits and vegetables you need to maintain a healthy balance. A low-acid diet is also low in or devoid of dairy products.

Keep in mind that by the time most people are sent to a nephrologist, they’ve already lost three-quarters of their kidney function. So, to make a difference, you really want to start thinking about your kidney function early on. Get regular blood tests of your BUN and creatinine, and a urinalysis, and if they start revealing a problem, address it as soon as possible.

While the kidney transplant process has improved a great deal in recent years, the number of available donors is limited, so the number of patients on dialysis has steadily risen.

As noted by Frassetto, dialysis is extremely expensive, and just barely keeps you alive. Moreover, while end-stage renal disease is covered by Medicare in the U.S., it only really covers dialysis. It does not cover all needed medications, for example.

The take-home message is that you cannot count on sophisticated end-stage therapies. The answer is preventing the problem in the first place. The role of dietary acid is a fairly recent discovery that is not widely known, but that can make a big difference in your renal health.

Avoiding high-phosphate foods could go a long way toward improving and maintaining your kidney function as you get older. Cronometer, a free online nutrition tracker, is an easy way to track the amount of phosphorous is in your diet. The National Kidney Foundation’s website¹ is another helpful resource.

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When 119 young adults consumed a meal while playing a simple computer game for 15 minutes, they ate significantly less than when they ate the same meal without distractions.

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Scientists have discovered that signals in the motor cortex act like a series of clutches when it comes to moving, and that these signals can be disrupted to slow the brain's initiation of movement.

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Cellular pores, which were once invisible to biologists, have been imaged for the first time. The resulting insights set the stage for investigating the mechanisms behind cellular suicide, regulating blood pressure, inflammation, and even pain.

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A new study showed that people who periodically drank beverages with the low-calorie sweetener sucralose, which is found in low-cal soft drinks, candy, breakfast bars, and other products, did experience problematic metabolic and neural responses -- but only when a carbohydrate in the form of a tasteless sugar was added to the drink. In contrast, people drinking beverages with low-calorie sweeteners alone, or beverages with real sugar, showed no changes in brain or metabolic response to sugars.

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Microorganisms in your gastrointestinal tract form a highly intricate, living "fabric" that plays an integral part in your health, affecting everything from body weight and nutrition to chronic diseases of all kinds. And, as detailed in the featured documentary, “Microbirth,” written, produced and directed by Alex Wakeford and Toni Harman, the groundwork for your gut microbiome laid at the time of birth.

The film highlights how events during childbirth have lifelong consequences, and reviews the current scientific views on how to best seed your baby’s microbiome in order to build a robust immune system.

Importantly, a baby basically “inherits” the microbiome from its mother, which is why it’s so important to address your gut health before, during and after pregnancy.

If you've taken antibiotics or birth control pills, if you eat a lot of processed or sugary foods — even being bottle-fed as a baby — can impact the makeup of bacteria and microbes in your gut, which in turn will influence your child’s microbiome and health after birth. Your microbiome may even have a generational impact, affecting DNA that is then passed on to future generations.

Loss of Microbial Diversity Extols a Steep Price

The film begins by asking questions about what is it that sets humans apart from the millions of other species on Earth. Our intellect has allowed us to develop a technological society that would appear “magical” to those in centuries past. Yet for all our accomplishments and scientific miracles, we find ourselves sicker than ever before.

In 2008, the World Health Organization announced noncommunicable chronic diseases had taken over as the chief causes of death globally.¹ “The shifting health trends indicate that leading infectious diseases — diarrhea, HIV, tuberculosis, neonatal infections and malaria — will become less important causes of death globally over the next 20 years,” WHO wrote.

By 2018, noncommunicable diseases were responsible for 71% of global deaths,² with cardiovascular diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases and diabetes topping the list of lethal conditions.

The film cites research suggesting that by 2030, about half the net worth of all nations in the world will go toward treating chronic illnesses. To say we’re on an unsustainable trajectory would be an understatement.

Considering we are basically a walking ecosystem — a symbiotic superorganism — with microbes outnumbering our cells 10-to-1, could this changing health trend have something to do with changes occurring in our microbiomes?

As noted in the film, the human body is 90% microbial and only 10% mammalian, and research suggests decades of inappropriate medical interventions and diet — such as overuse of antibiotics and antibacterial products, routine cesarean births, pesticides and processed food — have led to a steep loss of diversity in the human microbiome.

With this loss of microbial diversity, the homeostasis (balance) of your body is disrupted, rendering it more vulnerable to disease. Bacteria play an essential role in your metabolism and immune function, but in order for them to do their job, there must be enough of them to go around. They also need to be in the proper ratio with other microbes.

Experts featured in the film believe the degradation of our microbiome is one, if not the primary, underlying cause of most of our current disease epidemics. Comparisons between indigenous peoples living in the jungles of South America and people living in modern societies suggest we’ve lost one-third of our natural microbiome.

Mode of Birth Influences Your Baby’s Microbial Profile 

The film goes on to discuss the importance of natural childbirth, skin-to-skin contact after birth, and breastfeeding. These are all critical times for seeding and nurturing your baby’s microbiome. During vaginal birth, your baby is “seeded” with microbes as it goes through the birth canal.

According to a 2014 study,³ the microbiome of a healthy woman’s vagina is dominated by Lactobacillus genus, which confer a variety of health benefits, including protection against more hostile and disease-causing microbes.

Research⁴ shows the microbes found in a woman’s vagina change during pregnancy in preparation for birth. Specifically, Lactobacillus species are enriched, while there’s a decrease in overall diversity, the hypothesis being that this helps ensure the transfer of beneficial microbes to the baby as it passes through the birth canal. As noted in the 2017 paper, “The Maternal Infant Microbiome: Considerations for Labor and Birth:”⁵

“This ‘seeding’ or transfer of microbes from the mother to newborn may serve as an early inoculation process with implications for the long-term health outcomes of newborns.

Studies have shown that there are distinct differences in the microbiome profiles of newborns born vaginally compared to those born by cesarean. Antibiotic exposure has been shown to alter the microbial profiles of women and may influence the gut microbial profiles of their newborns.

Considering that the first major microbial colonization occurs at birth, it is essential that labor and birth nurses be aware of factors that may alter the composition of the microbiome during the labor and birth process.”

Gut flora is not the only factor influenced by the method of birth, however. According to animal research published in PLOS ONE,⁶ vaginal birth triggers the expression of mitochondrial uncoupling protein 2, which is important for improving brain development and function in adulthood. The expression of this protein was impaired in mice born via C-section.

Your Gut Microbiome Also Changes During Pregnancy

The composition of a woman's gut microbes also changes during each trimester of pregnancy, in ways that support fetal growth. These changes are largely influenced by the hormonal shifts that occur during pregnancy.

Interestingly, research published in the journal Cell⁷ in 2012 found that, as pregnancy progressed, there was an increase in Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria.

When the microbiota taken from women in their third trimester were transferred to germ-free mice, it induced greater weight gain and insulin resistance compared to the microbiota taken during the first trimester.

As noted by the authors, “Many of the immune and metabolic changes occurring during normal pregnancy also describe metabolic syndrome,” and “Gut microbiota can cause symptoms of metabolic syndrome in nonpregnant hosts.” In a pregnant female, on the other hand, the promotion of energy storage in fat tissue is part of what allows the fetus to grow normally.

The Drawbacks of C-Section

While a C-section can be necessary and lifesaving in some instances, they’ve become overused in many parts of the world. The most significant drawback to C-section is that the baby will not be inoculated with bacteria from the mother, as the baby is not passing through the birth canal. 

As noted in the film, this leaves the baby open to acquiring bacteria from some other source instead, and in most cases, this will be the hospital environment. This could spell trouble, as hospitals are hotbeds for pathogenic bacteria.

Experts interviewed in the film say a hypothesis currently being looked at is whether this might be what’s happening to so many of our children. Their immune systems have been primed by the wrong bacteria right from the start, thus making them more prone to illness. 

The Importance of Skin-to-Skin Contact

Even if you do end up needing a cesarean though, you can still nurture your baby’s microbiome through close skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding for at least six months. In a “Microbirth” film review, naturopath Louise Loula writes:⁸

“Not only is skin to skin necessary to further seed them with bacteria from your skin but it can also regulate and stimulate their hormone production which allows them to calm down, to regulate their blood sugar levels and their instinct of hunger to then seek out the mother’s nipple to being the third phase in seeding, breastfeeding ...

A baby with a C-section, especially those who are then fed formula are potentially at risk for some very serious long term complications. They may be picking up bacteria from an imbalanced environment, especially in a hospital.

Their immune training if incorrect right at the beginning may or may not be possible to correct. It is seen to then go on to affect all tissue from brain development to muscle and mucosal lining development.”

Bacterial Swabbing Can Inoculate Baby Born Via C-Section 

In the film, Rodney Dietert, professor of immunotoxicology at Cornell University, also discusses the use of a bacterial swab when doing a C-section. Quite simply, the baby is inoculated with bacteria from a swab taken from the mother’s vagina, thus receiving the same bacteria he or she would have received if birthed vaginally.

To do this, an 8-by-10-inch piece of sterile gauze is folded in a fan pattern and inserted much like a tampon into the mother’s vaginal canal one hour before the C-section.

The gauze is extracted and placed in a sterile container right before the procedure, and once the baby is out, the gauze is unfolded and used to “wash” the baby’s whole body, starting with the mouth and face.

According to a researcher studying this technique, the health parameters of babies born by C-section who get swabbed with their mother’s bacteria are closer to those born vaginally than those born by C-section who do not get swabbed.

The Importance of Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the third crucial component that primes your baby’s microbiome. Breast milk is uniquely designed to nourish beneficial bacteria. As explained by Dietert, it also contains important immune hormone-like substances, some of which have anti-inflammatory activity.

Breast milk also provides your baby with antibodies against diseases to which you have a natural immunity (meaning you got sick, recovered from your illness and now are immune against it), and unique sugars called oligosaccharides.

These sugars are indigestible, so for a long time, their presence in breast milk puzzled scientists. As it turns out, oligosaccharides feed beneficial bacteria in the baby’s gut.

The refined sugar found in most infant formulas cannot replicate this function. In fact, processed sugar tends to feed harmful bacteria instead, and promote excess weight gain. To prime and educate your baby’s immune system and give him or her a healthy start in life, breastfeeding for six months to two years is recommended.

Unbalanced Microbiome Linked to Neurobehavioral Disorders

Researchers are also starting to understand how a child’s microbiome can play a role in neurobehavioral disorders, including autism. A 2014 article in Scientific American pointed out:⁹

“Scientists have long wondered whether the composition of bacteria in the intestines, known as the gut microbiome, might be abnormal in people with autism and drive some of these symptoms. 

Now a spate of new studies^10,11 supports this notion and suggests that restoring proper microbial balance could alleviate some of the disorder's behavioral symptoms.”

The film addresses this issue as well, pointing out that an infant’s gut microbes influence not just the maturation of their immune system, but also the development of their brain and nervous tissue. According to Dietert, when the initial seeding of bacteria is inadequate, the byproducts produced from normal nutrients can have adverse effects on their brain.

Indeed, this is precisely what Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride surmised when she created the Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) Nutritional Program, which is designed to heal leaky gut by restoring the integrity of your gut lining. According to Campbell-McBride, in children with GAPS, toxicity flows from their gut throughout their bodies and into their brains.

This continually challenges their nervous system, preventing it from performing its normal functions and process sensory information. Virtually any toxic exposure, including a vaccine, can be the “straw that broke the camel’s back” in a situation like this. The end result can be symptoms of autism, and/or any number of other neurological problems.

The answer is to optimize the microbiome transfer during and after delivery through vaginal delivery, skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding. Once your baby is ready for soft foods, you can provide probiotics in the form of fermented foods.

The first fermented food Campbell-McBride recommends for infants is raw organic grass fed yogurt (not commercial yogurt from the grocery store), because it's well tolerated by most. Once yogurt is well tolerated by your baby, you can introduce kefir. Another alternative is to use vegetables fermented with yogurt culture or kefir culture.

Another Overlooked Yet Critical Factor — Vitamin D

Optimizing your vitamin D levels prior to, or at the very least during, pregnancy is another important factor to safeguard your and your baby’s health. Research shows pregnant women with a vitamin D level between 40 ng/mL and 60 ng/mL have 46% lower preterm birth rate than the general population.¹²

Those with a vitamin D level at or above 40 ng/mL by their third trimester have a 59% lower risk for premature birth compared to those with levels below 20 ng/mL.¹³ Among African-American and Hispanic populations, as much as 70% to 75% of all preterm births might be prevented.^14,15

A mother’s vitamin D status during pregnancy can also have lifelong ramifications for her child. Vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy has been linked to higher rates of childhood allergies, asthma,^16,17 colds and flu, dental cavities, diabetes, and even strokes and cardiovascular disease later in life.^18,19

Suggestions for a Healthy Pregnancy and a Healthy Baby

Besides the issues of seeding your baby’s microbiome and optimizing your vitamin D level, entire books could also be written about the hazards of chemical exposures during pregnancy. Research clearly shows that prenatal chemical exposures, particularly to endocrine disruptors like BPA and phthalates, can have wide-ranging and long-term health effects.

While you may not be able to avoid all toxic exposures, it’s important to take whatever proactive measures you can to reduce your toxic burden, especially before and during pregnancy. For example, avoiding any and all unnecessary drugs and vaccinations is one aspect you have a large degree of control over. Below are several more.

Rather than compile an endless list of what you should avoid, it's far easier to focus on what you should do to lead a healthy lifestyle, free of as many toxic exposures as possible. This includes:

As much as you’re able, eat organic and grass fed foods to reduce your exposure to agricultural chemicals like glyphosate. Steer clear of processed, prepackaged foods of all kinds. This way you automatically avoid pesticides, artificial food additives, dangerous artificial sweeteners, food coloring, MSG and unlabeled genetically engineered ingredients. Rather than eating conventional or farm-raised fish, which are often heavily contaminated with PCBs and mercury, supplement with a high-quality purified krill oil, or opt for small fatty fish such as sardines, anchovies, mackerel and wild caught Alaskan salmon.

Maintain optimal gut flora by eating raw food grown in healthy, organic soil and reseeding your gut with fermented foods. If you aren't eating fermented foods, you most likely need to supplement with a probiotic on a regular basis, especially if you're eating processed foods.

Optimize your vitamin D level, ideally through sensible sun exposure.

Exercise regularly throughout your pregnancy. Previous studies have shown that, in general, women who exercise throughout their pregnancies have larger placentas than their more sedentary peers. The volume of your placenta is a general marker of its ability to transport oxygen and nutrients to your fetus, so it stands to reason that having a large, healthy placenta will lead to a healthier baby.

Once your baby is born, seek to breastfeed for as long as you’re able, ideally at least six months. Breastfeeding helps ensure that your child's gut flora develops properly right from the start, as breast milk is loaded both with beneficial bacteria and nutrient growth factors that will support their continued growth. It also has powerful components that will inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria and yeast.

Store your food and beverages in glass rather than plastic, and avoid using plastic wrap and canned foods (which are often lined with BPA-containing liners).

Have your tap water tested and, if contaminants are found, install an appropriate water filter on all your faucets (including your shower or bath).

Only use nontoxic natural cleaning products in your home.

Switch over to natural brands of toiletries such as shampoo, toothpaste, antiperspirants and cosmetics.

Avoid using artificial air fresheners, dryer sheets, fabric softeners or other synthetic fragrances, as they often contain phthalates, which have been linked to reductions in IQ and other chronic health problems. High-quality essential oils can be substituted for most of these if you desire a scent.

Replace your nonstick pots and pans with ceramic or glass cookware.

When redoing your home, look for "green," toxin-free alternatives in lieu of regular paint and vinyl floor coverings.

Replace your vinyl shower curtain with one made of fabric, or install a glass shower door. Most all flexible plastics, like shower curtains, contain dangerous plasticizers like phthalates.

Avoid spraying pesticides around your home or insect repellants that contain DEET on your body. There are safe, effective and natural alternatives out there.

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