Highlights
- Most recovered
COVID-19 patients mount broad, durable immunity after infection
- Neutralizing
antibodies show a bi-phasic decay with half-lives >200 days
- Spike IgG+ memory B
cells increase and persist post-infection
- Durable
polyfunctional CD4 and CD8 T cells recognize distinct viral epitope
regions
Summary
Ending
the COVID-19 pandemic will require long-lived immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Here, we
evaluate 254 COVID-19 patients longitudinally up to 8 months and find
durable broad-based immune responses.
SARS-CoV-2
spike binding and neutralizing antibodies exhibit a bi-phasic decay with an
extended half-life of >200 days suggesting the generation of
longer-lived plasma cells.
SARS-CoV-2
infection also boosts antibody titers to SARS-CoV-1 and common
betacoronaviruses. In addition, spike-specific IgG+ memory B cells persist,
which bodes well for a rapid antibody response upon virus re-exposure or
vaccination.
Virus-specific
CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are polyfunctional and maintained with an estimated
half-life of 200 days. Interestingly, CD4+ T cell responses equally
target several SARS-CoV-2 proteins, whereas the CD8+ T cell responses
preferentially target the nucleoprotein, highlighting the potential importance
of including the nucleoprotein in future vaccines.
Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity
may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients.
Graphical abstract
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-3791(21)00203-2?s=03#secsectitle0020
Green tea, zinc, Quercetin and hydroxychloroquine: Coronavirus cure?
Friday, August 14, 2020 by: Ethan Huff
Tags: coronavirus, covid-19, Cures, EGCG, epigallocatechin
gallate, goodhealth, Green tea, hcq, hydroxychloroquine, infections, natural remedies, nutrients, outbreak, pandemic, plant medicine, prevention, remedies, Wuhan coronavirus, zinc, zinc ionophore
(Natural News) The alt-media is all over the coronavirus – hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) scandal, with some news outlets even bravely talking about the importance of supplementing with zinc for maximum immune protection. But there is another healing component that few are mentioning, and it is probably already stocked away in your kitchen pantry.
We are talking about green
tea, or more specifically epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a polyphenol
component of green tea that research suggests might be substantially more
powerful than HCQ and zinc at protecting against viral infections.
Ionic zinc, as a quick
background, helps to modulate both the innate and adaptive immune signaling
pathways inside the body to ward off pathogenic invaders, including the Wuhan
coronavirus (COVID-19). And HCQ is said to help zinc ions more easily and
effectively do their job in supporting healthy immune function.
There has been a whole lot
of bickering recently over the alleged benefits of HCQ, with the anti-Trump
left insisting that it does not work. Those on the right, primarily, say that
HCQ works surprisingly well, and peer-reviewed science would seem to back this.
But the real power is in
the zinc which, among its many other functions, acts as a protective nutrient
for preserving natural tissue barriers, including in the respiratory
epithelium. In essence, zinc helps to block pathogenic entry into the body
while optimizing the immune system.
Zinc deficiency, in other
words, is a major risk factor for Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) infection. We
already know that about 16 percent of all deep respiratory infections worldwide
are linked to zinc deficiency, and Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) infection is no
exception.
“As a virus, SARS-CoV2
(Wuhan coronavirus) is highly dependent on the metabolism of the host cell,”
one paper explains. “Direct antiviral effects of zinc have been demonstrated in
various cases … Examples include coronaviridae [i.e. coronaviruses].”
“Zinc supplementation
improves the mucociliary clearance, strengthens the integrity of the
epithelium, decreases viral replication, preserves antiviral immunity,
attenuates the risk of hyper-inflammation, supports anti-oxidative effects and
thus reduces lung damage and minimizes secondary infections.”
Drinking green tea and taking zinc is BETTER than taking HCQ
Where HCQ comes into play has to do with its role as a zinc ionophore,
meaning HCQ helps to deliver otherwise bio-unavailable zinc across the lipid
boundaries of cells. Another drug known as clioquinol
is said to be an even more potent zinc ionophore, delivering up to 10 times
more zinc into the cells than HCQ.
As for
green tea, its natural EGCG content is also a zinc ionophore. Not only that, it
is a much more powerful zinc ionophore than HCQ which, it is important to keep
in mind, is still a pharmaceutical drug.
While EGCG is
only about 60 percent as powerful as clioquinol, it is substantially more
powerful than HCQ which, due to political strife, remains largely inaccessible
to Americans. Green tea, on the other hand, is widely available without a
prescription.
“Fortunately,
the main active ingredient in green tea, epigallocatechin gallate (“EGCG”) has
been shown by a team of Spanish scientists to be 60% as powerful a zinc
ionophore as clioquinol, which is the world’s most powerful zinc ionophore,”
reports Zero Hedge.
“Dr. Juan
Bautista Fernández Larre – a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and
Biotechnology at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili – and his team have published
several scientific papers on the topic.”
Another
beneficial zinc ionophore in the natural category is quercetin (QCT), which is
said to be about 30 percent as effective as clioquinol. This is still more
effective than HCQ, though, providing yet another potential option for healing
that avoids the political red tape and questionable safety of prescription
drugs.
For more
related news about natural remedies for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), be
sure to check out Pandemic.news.
Sources for
this article include:
BY GEORGE WASHINGTON
WEDNESDAY, AUG 05, 2020 - 0:03
Zinc is a
very powerful way to strengthen your body against viruses. The National
Institutes of Health notes:
Zinc is found in cells throughout the body. It
helps the immune system fight off invading bacteria and viruses.
An abundance of evidence has accumulated over the
past 50 years to demonstrate the antiviral activity of zinc against a variety
of viruses, and via numerous mechanisms.
***
Ionic zinc
possesses unique and distinct antiviral properties against a number of human
viruses .... Zinc has been shown to contribute to a number of innate and
adaptive immune signaling pathways that have been comprehensively reviewed
recently.
***
Upon
recognition of microbial antigens ... a rapid and transient influx of free
zinc ions occurs.
***
Zinc plays a
significant role in the response to [interferons] by modulating secretion,
cytokine potency, and receptor binding, as well as influencing signaling
intermediates and pathway inhibitors.
Harvard notes:
Zinc is a component of many enzymes and
transcription factors in cells all over the body, and inadequate zinc levels
limit the individual’s ability to mount an adequate immune response to
infections. Multiple meta-analyses and pooled analyses of randomized
controlled trials (RCTs) have shown that oral zinc supplementation reduces the
incidence rate of acute respiratory infections by 35%, shortens the duration of
flu-like symptoms by approximately 2 days, and improves the rate of recovery.
The studies were conducted in the US as well as in multiple low- and
middle-income countries such as India, South Africa, and Peru. The dose of zinc
in these studies ranged from 20 mg/week to 92 mg/day. Dose does not appear to
be the main driver of the effectiveness of zinc supplementation. [More on this
below.]
Zinc was
shown to inhibit viral replication in many other types of coronavirus,
including in the original SarsCov coronavirus. Many common colds are actually mild coronaviruses, and as
UCHealth points out:
A Cochrane review updated in 2013 summarized 18 randomized controlled trials
involving 1,781 participants across all age groups found that zinc – particularly
in lozenge or syrup form – “inhibits replication of the virus” that cause the
common cold and shortens average duration of the common cold when taken within
24 hours of onset of symptoms at a dose of more than 75 milligrams a day.
A 2010 study led by University of Leiden Medical researchers in the Netherlands
sought to understand how zinc inhibited that replication. The team reported
that zinc inhibits a cousin of SARS-CoV-2: SARS-CoV, the original SARS of the
2003 outbreak.
And it could
be very helpful in fighting
this specific type of coronavirus, SarsCov2 (i.e. Covid):
Interestingly, most of the risk groups described
for COVID-19 are at the same time groups that were associated with zinc deficiency.
As zinc is essential to preserve natural tissue barriers such as the
respiratory epithelium, preventing pathogen entry, for a balanced function of
the immune system and the redox system, zinc deficiency can probably be added to the
factors predisposing individuals to infection and detrimental progression of
COVID-19. Finally, due to its direct antiviral properties,
it can be assumed that zinc administration is beneficial for most of the
population, especially those with suboptimal zinc status.
***
The fact that
zinc deficiency is responsible for 16% of all deep respiratory infections
world-wide provides a first strong hint on a link of zinc deficiency with the
risk of infection and severe progression of COVID-19 and suggests potential
benefits of zinc supplementation.
***
Infections
with coronaviruses go along with damage of the ciliated epithelium and ciliary
dyskinesia consecutively impairing the mucociliar clearance. It was shown that
physiological concentrations of zinc increase ciliary beat frequency. Moreover,
zinc supplementation in zinc deficient rats had a positive effect on the number
and the length of bronchial cilia .... Improved ciliary clearance does not only
improve the removal of virus particle, it also reduces the risk of secondary bacterial
infections ....
***
Zinc is
essential for preserving tissue barriers
***
Zinc ...
might decrease ACE-2 expression and thus viral entry into the cell.
***
As a virus,
SARS-CoV2 is highly dependent on the metabolism of the host cell. Direct
antiviral effects of zinc have been demonstrated in various cases .... Examples
include coronaviridae [i.e. coronaviruses].
***
Zinc
supplementation improves the mucociliary clearance, strengthens the integrity
of the epithelium, decreases viral replication, preserves antiviral immunity,
attenuates the risk of hyper-inflammation, supports anti-oxidative effects and
thus reduces lung damage and minimized secondary infections.
Need to Catch
a Ride
However, it
is difficult for zinc to get into your cells unless it catches a ride from a
"zinc ionophore". An ionophore is just a substance which transports
things across the lipid boundary of your cells.
Hydroxychloroquine
is a zinc ionophore.
Another
drug, clioquinol, is even more potent. One of the scientists
who discovered
that chloroquine is a zinc ionophore (Dr. Wei-Qun Ding from the University
of Oklahoma) told me that he estimates that clioquinol is 10 times more powerful as a zinc ionophore compared to hydroxychloroquine.
Leslie
Costello - an oncology professor at the University of Maryland - agrees that
clioquinol is a more powerful zinc ionophore than hydroxychloroquine:
ZnClioquinol [i.e. clioquinol zinc
ionophore] has a zinc-binding affinity of logKf=7-8; which is ideal
for the competitive binding of most of the plasma zinc that exists in the
exchangeable ZnLigands. In contrast, chloroquine zinc
ionophore (ZnChloroquine) has a logKf=5-6. Consequently, it
competitively binds with much less zinc that is delivered to the ... site.
However, most
scientists believe that clioquinol is much more dangerous
than hydroxychloroquine.
Moreover,
both clioquinol and hydroxychloroquine are only available in the U.S.
by prescription. The science around hydroxychloroquine is so
politically charged at the moment that it is difficult to obtain a
prescription, and some have warned of dangerous side effects of
hydroxychloroquine (I won't give you my own opinion on this issue; make up your
own mind). And hydroxychloroquine is important for people with
certain conditions such as lupus, and so- if everyone
took hydroxychloroquine - it would create a shortage for those people.
More
importantly, even those who believe that hydroxychloroquine is helpful
against Covid say that it is only effective if taken very soon after catching the disease. But many
people are
asymptomatic (at least at first), and don't know they have Covid until it's too late.
So how can
you know to take something when you don't even know you have a bug?
Fortunately, the main active ingredient in green tea, epigallocatechin gallate ("EGCG") has been shown by a team of Spanish scientists to be 60% as powerful a zinc ionophore as clioquinol, which is the world's most powerful zinc ionophore. Dr. Juan Bautista Fernández Larre - a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili - and his team have published several scientific papers on the topic.
Remarks:
"CQ" stands for clioquinol,
"EGCG" is the ingredient in green tea,
"QCT" stands for quercetin, a common ingredient
in certain foods such as capers, red apple peels and red onions.
Professor
Fernández Larre explained to me by email:
Taking Clioquinol (CQ) as the standard, as is its
the most potent ionophore we have tested in our liposomal assay, and assigning
a 100% value to the clioquinol ionophoric activity , then pyrithione (PYR),
which is not a polyphenol, displays also almost a 100% activity relative to
clioquinol, whereas epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) has 60% activity and
quercetin (QCT) has only 30% the efficiency of clioquinol, on a equimolar
basis.Nonetheless, this is a proof of concept assay, and exact ionophoric
capacity of each compound will vary with the absolute and relative
concentrations of the ionophore and of zinc; it will also depend on
temperature, pH of the solution and lipid composition of the liposome (absolute
and relative amounts of lecithin, other phospholipids, cholesterol, etc). It
will also vary dependent on the fluorochrome used to detect zinc in the
interior of the liposome (FluoZinc, Zinquin, etc) and on the concentration of
the fluorochrome within the liposome, since different fluorochromes display
different strengths to separate zinc from the polyphenol zinc complex.
In any case,
in the exact standardized conditions used in our assay, we can conclude the
relative ionophoric effect of the different compounds tested.It is, I think,
important to remark that the liposomal assay allows to elaborate a scale or a
standard of ionophoric strength or ionophoric capacity or potential; and that,
once established through this assay that a compound behaves as an ionophore in
a liposome, we can say that it will also be ionophoric in any type of cell, as
this effect is independent of content of protein, glycoprotein, glycolipids, of
the cell membrane, although of course it will vary according to the fluidity of
the cell membrane, that depends on its exact lipid composition.
As a
follow-up question, I asked Dr. Larrea how well zinc is absorbed by cells in
the absence of an ionophore. His answer was, essentially, not at all:
Zinc, 10 micromolar (Zn10), alone, by itself,
renders just circa 2% fluorescence of that obtained with CQ. Control means,
fluorescence of liposomes without the addition of any substance. That means
that zinc alone,
by itself is not able to enter the liposomes, as expected. This 1-2% is the background fluorescence of the whole
system.
So what does
this mean?
If professor
Ding is correct that clioquinol is 10 times as powerful
as hydroxychloroquine, and given that EGCG is only .6 times as powerful
as clioquinol, that means that EGCG could be a lot more powerful than hydroxychloroquine. In other words, EGCG could
be 6 times more powerful than hydroxychloroquine as a zinc ionophore (EGCG
=.6 times as potent as clioquinol which is times 10 as powerful as
hydroxychloroquine ... so .6 times 10 = 6).
And green tea
is super healthy for you
anyway. So drinking it every day preventatively can only help you, and can't hurt you. You'll be maintaining
a high baseline of zinc ionophores, and so bathing your cells with zinc to
help ward of viral infections.
How to Take
Zinc and EGCG
The Mayo Clinic notes that
zinc should be taken on an empty stomach:
Zinc supplements are most effective if they are
taken at least 1 hour before or 2 hours after meals.
***
When zinc
combines with certain foods it may not be absorbed into your body and it will
do you no good. If you are taking zinc, the following foods should be avoided
or taken 2 hours after you take zinc:
·
Bran
·
Fiber-containing foods
·
Phosphorus-containing
foods such as milk or poultry
·
Whole-grain breads and cereals
Oysters
and oyster extract is the highest food source of zinc, although many meats
also contain good doses. (If you eat a lot of red meat you're probably
getting enough zinc; but you still need a
zinc ionophore to get it into your cells). If you take zinc supplements, don't
take more than the recommended daily amount (40 mg a day is the
upper limit for long term supplement use; indeed, too much zinc can
actually suppress immunity), and studies imply that it is best
to dissolve the zinc in your mouth (i.e. zinc lozenges).
The same is
true for EGCG ... proteins
bind with EGCG, so it can't
be absorbed very well by your body. (And some green teas are higher in EGCG than
others.) If you take EGCG supplements, never take high doses. For example,
studies show that 800 mg/day can cause liver damage.
I'm not talking about taking away anything from your diet. For
example, I'm not saying quit drinking coffee and instead drink tea. I
still drink plenty of coffee ... but I just add green tea to my daily
intake.
Note: I am not a health professional and this article is solely general
information, and not intended to diagnose or treat. Please see your doctor
before deciding to change anything you're doing.
Postscript: Exercise may also be
helpful.
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