Much of the tropical world is being attacked by insect- and otherwise-transmitted diseases. This includes diseases like Ebola, chikungunya, dengue fever, West Nile, and leishmaniasis (A disease from a parasite carried by sandflies that is showing up more in America.). Significant fear is now in the American medical community for the surge of cases reported without significant available treatment and prevention. Per the CDC, Zika is now considered a level 2 threat (practice enhanced protection and some are calling it a full blown infection with transmission by mosquitos and sexual activity) in Puerto Rico. The US Congress is so concerned that it recently approved a $1.1 billion Zika funding bill. With the struggle to find immediate effective prevention and treatment, the nutraceutical Metadichol® may provide a solution.
Metadichol®, a nanoemulsion of policosanol has been found to be effective in vitro of eliminating the infections from cells. It has also been found effective in two case studies of patients with dengue fever. Policosanol is long chain lipid alcohols found in many foods like rice, sugar cane, wheat, and peanuts. The reason that Metadichol® is so effective is because it is better absorbed as the nanoemulsion.
With the favorable findings for other tropical diseases, Metadichol® was tested against the Zika virus with very positive results. Link here for published paper in Journal for Immunological Techniques in Infectious Disease: In vitro Inhibition of Zika Virus by Metadichol®, A Novel Nano Emulsion Lipid From the abstract: “Conclusion: Metadichol® is a safe and effective inhibitor for enveloped viruses in humans. Since it is known to bind to the vitamin D receptor (VDR), its action mechanism likely involves the competitive displacement of virus particles from VDR’s on host cell membranes. Metabolism studies of long chain alcohol in fibroblasts suggest that very long chain fatty alcohols, fatty aldehydes, and fatty acids are reversibly interconverted in a fatty alcohol cycle [3]. Metadichol consists of natural components of common foods (classified as GRAS), Metadichol has no known negative side effects. The inhibition of Zika virus by Metadichol® is not surprising, given that we have recently published the results of Metadichol® which showed broad-spectrum antiviral activity against Dengue, Ebola, H1N1, SARS, Chikungunya and other enveloped viruses. (4)”
Discoverer of Metadichol®, Dr. P. R. Raghavan, believes that Metadichol® could be used as a preventive for the many diseases. He states in his conclusion at the end of the paper: “Metadichol® could serve as a preventive agent for Zika given that it strengthens the innate immunity through VDR binding, and represent the first key step in preventing diseases. Metadichol® is ready for large scale testing in areas which are ravaged by viruses. Once proven on large populations, Metadichol® could be used as a preventive nutritional supplement in countries where viral fevers are widely prevalent. Metadichol is being sold as a nutritional supplement in a few Asian countries for the last two years and is extremely well tolerated. So far, there have been no reports of any adverse side effects.”
In discussions with Dr. Raghavan, Metadichol, through binding to nuclear receptors, allows the physiology of the human body to act at its highest level. This is especially true of the immune system. I believe that we are headed to a new and ancient understanding of how food is critical to health. It is interesting in how the lipid alcohols act along vitamin D pathways. It is well established how infections tend to block the action of the VDR. With Metadichol allowing the body to operate at its optimum, it is even more critical that we have the nutrients necessary to raise our immune system. The short list is Vitamin D, Vitamin A, vitamin C, Vitamin E, zinc, and magnesium.
It is now time to stop the insane madness of trying to create only synthetic drugs with the many destructive side effects to treat disease. The medical community should look to nutrition first through food and supplementation for the treatment of chronic and infectious disease.
©2016 Mark Pegram