MERS (April 29, 2014)
If you read alternative news sources (and you should not completely ignore them, because even the wackier ones regularly address topics that are ignored by the mainstream) you’ve already heard of MERS, or “Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome”. Not much is known about it yet (it wasn’t identified until 2012) but it is a respiratory virus of the same type as the common cold virus -- except that MERS is completely resistant to all known treatments and has a death rate of about 33%. That last is HUGE -- in comparison, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic had a death rate of 0.03%.
MERS was present chiefly in Saudi Arabia until the last few weeks, when the number of cases sharply increased and it began surfacing in several new countries. We’re still talking only on the order of hundreds of cases. But respiratory viruses mutate quickly and spread even more quickly, which is why health organizations always freak out about them.
It's my feeling that for any infectious disease, supporting the immune system is a far better bet than any treatment, and there’s no secret as to how to do that. Getting enough sleep (for most adults, that’s between seven and eight hours), moderate exercise (several 30-minute walks per week or the equivalent), and lots of fruits and vegetables as a regular part of the diet are vital. Washing your hands a LOT is also a genuinely beneficial action. And there are several Chinese herbal formulas (in Chinese medicine, herbs are usually used in combination with each other) that have been used for many hundreds of years very effectively that can be used in prevention and in treatment, as well as acupuncture.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014
If you read alternative news sources (and you should not completely ignore them, because even the wackier ones regularly address topics that are ignored by the mainstream) you’ve already heard of MERS, or “Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome”. Not much is known about it yet (it wasn’t identified until 2012) but it is a respiratory virus of the same type as the common cold virus -- except that MERS is completely resistant to all known treatments and has a death rate of about 33%. That last is HUGE -- in comparison, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic had a death rate of 0.03%.
MERS was present chiefly in Saudi Arabia until the last few weeks, when the number of cases sharply increased and it began surfacing in several new countries. We’re still talking only on the order of hundreds of cases. But respiratory viruses mutate quickly and spread even more quickly, which is why health organizations always freak out about them.
It's my feeling that for any infectious disease, supporting the immune system is a far better bet than any treatment, and there’s no secret as to how to do that. Getting enough sleep (for most adults, that’s between seven and eight hours), moderate exercise (several 30-minute walks per week or the equivalent), and lots of fruits and vegetables as a regular part of the diet are vital. Washing your hands a LOT is also a genuinely beneficial action. And there are several Chinese herbal formulas (in Chinese medicine, herbs are usually used in combination with each other) that have been used for many hundreds of years very effectively that can be used in prevention and in treatment, as well as acupuncture.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014