Coronavirus: Who are at risk? Intracellular defense & Battle of immune system!

What we call the immune system protects the body from ‘external spies’ like a strong army with a lot of corps. In this article, I will be talking about battles with viruses after they get into the body.

First things to know about viruses:
1. They need living cells to live.
2. They act like intracellular spies.

What does intracellular mean?
The word speaks for itself. Intracellular means the first battle within the cells.

Does extracellular exist? Are intracellular and extracellular different?
Yes. Extracellular exists. Intracellular and extracellular are different ways of defence when it comes to the immune system.

Let’s make the first distinction below:

Intracellular: Battle of immune system within the cells.
Extracellular: External battle before intracellular activity.

• It takes time (time is gold in the case of Covid-19)
• It requires a fixed virus structure (the structure of Covid-19 virus keeps changing)
• It consists of antibodies (vaccinations are made of antibodies)

Let me make this clear; the amount of antibodies produced against a virus does not specify the amount of that specific virus within the cell. Meaning, antibodies are only produced against the agents outside of the cells when viruses, bacterias and fungus are in the bloodstream.

We’ll be focusing on the cases where viruses are within the cells and the importance of intracellular defense.

T cell lymphocytes and antiviral defense
T cells exist in the immune system. We also have B cells in the immune system. T cells get their names from Thymus. The thymus is a specialized primary lymphoid organ of the immune system. One thing we should know about thymus is that it loses its activity by the age.

What we should know about T cells are their helpers called T-helper cells.

There are two types of T-helper cells: Th1 and Th2.
What we need for intercellular defence is Th1 cells because they are responsible from the defense within the cells. Th1: This is the most essential of t-helper cells for the defense against viruses.

When a virus gets into a cell, Macrophages are expected to destroy this virus. “Phage” means to devour and macrophages get their name from “Phage”. Macrophages are the first line of defense against viruses. Macrophages produce NITRIC OXIDE (NO) gas from l-arginine amino acids. They produce this gas when there is an ‘attacker’ within the cell.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Saying no to an attacker within the cell starts with NO.

What NO does is to release some radicals when we inhale and get oxygen to the body. What we use for intercellular defense are these radicals. Without going into too many details, these radicals are;

• Superoxides • Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)• Peroxynitrite

These radicals act like bleach. They attack the viruses and destroy them.

Note: While viruses are being destroyed, Macrophages can also start attacking the body if destroying viruses takes longer than usual. This is a typical danger when fighting a virus such as Covid-19.

When do Macrophages also attack the body?
They attack the body when we run out of ‘X’ that I will explain later on.

We understand how viruses are destroyed within the cells. However, what if there is an egregious amount of viruses or there are too many viruses getting into a cell or viruses multiply extremely fast? How long can this defense system keep going on for?

After radicals are used as weapons to destroy the viruses within a cell, the inside of this cell (a.k.a. the war zone) must be cleaned up. This cleaning is made by the antioxidants that exist within the cells.

If the ‘war’ produces such an amount of radicals that antioxidants are not enough to clean them up, these radicals are a threat to the cell since these ‘freed’ radicals attack whatever they come across until they come across the antioxidants that neutralize them.

When a cell runs out of antioxidants, it has two options. Well, it’s actually one option in two different ways. The option is to die, but in what way? These ways are;

1. Apoptosis: The death that keeps us alive.
2. Necrosis: The death that kills us.

Apoptosis: It’s a very well organized and planned suicide of a cell.

The cells kill themselves if they are no good for the whole organism anymore as a result of negative circumstances. Apoptosis requires some “planning time” and for that, the cell still needs to be working.

Since apoptosis is a circadian event, we should be living according to circadian rhythms. Apoptosis mostly happens during sleep, night and hunger.

Source: https://www.bewellwithin.com/back-to-school-back-to-health/circadian-rhythm-clock/

“A virus invaded cell” may not have time for Apoptosis. How can that happen?

• The amount of workload dealing with a virus might be more than usual.
• The cell might be running out of artilleries (NO).
• There may not be enough antioxidants to clean the war zone.

When one of these happens, cells experience a total failure called Necrosis.

This is what happens in the lungs because of Covid-19.

Necrosis creates an inflammation that prevents lungs from observing oxygen which causes lack of oxygen called “hypoxia”. This is the reason that people with Covid-19 are supported with ventilation in ICU.

What if the situation is a mix of lack of artillery and antioxidants? Which perspective can bring us a solution?

Weapon: Nitrogen radicals (NOS) that are produced from NO and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).

Cleaning is made with antioxidants.

What are these antioxidants?
We need to understand this part very well.
You probably heard about oxidative stress. However, dealing with viruses, we should focus more on nitrosative stress as explained below:

• A virus gets into a cell
• Macrophages see it
• NO is produced
• NOs radicals are produced from NO
• The virus is destroyed

There is a cleaning pool to clean the residue of NOS called Thiol Pool. What we call thiol is an organic compound containing sulphur.

The reason Covid-19 virus is able to damage lungs is the fact that thiol pool is run out of. To prevent thiol pool from running out of, sulphur has a crucial role in the immune system. You will easily recognize some of the sulphuric compounds that are called antioxidants.

Some of the antioxidants are:

• Selenium
• Glutathione
• Cysteine
• Acetylcysteine
• SAMe
• TMG
• MSM

Some foods that are high in these antioxidants:

• Garlic
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• White cabbage

There are even sulphur pools that you can go in and they are really good for health. They smell very bad like a rotten egg and they are green. There are also some soaps with sulphur. I believe what sulphur does is more or less clear.

These all compounds make the Thiol pool. Thiols are the cleaners that clean the residue after the war with viruses. Therefore, this pool should always be full. If the thiol pool is not sufficient, necrosis will occur.

Before explaining how we can increase thiols, let’s have a look at what decreases thiols in the system.

Processed meat decreases Thiol pool!!!

Processed meat is prepared by putting nitrites in meat so that meat stops producing bacterias. Sausages and hams can be given as examples to processed meat.

Remember NO? Nitrites in processed meat is about NO. Both NO and nitrites carry Nitrogen. When they come together and increase in amount, they cause nitrosative stress.

Some industrial goods have nitrites and this is not good for the body whereas plants have the good version of it called nitrate. Another one called Nitrosamine is carcinogenic and it can be found in processed and burnt meat.

As we keep consuming this type of food, the body uses the sulphur in thiol pools to protect itself.

Therefore, it can be said that Processed meat empties the thiol pools.

Is it possible to get this residue of NO that is NOS from somewhere else?

Yes. Let’s have a look at them:

• Pollution (like in the case of Wuhan — I ll be writing a separate article about this)
• Contaminated water
• Cigarettes
• Chemical residues
• Inorganic fertilizers

Let’s make a note for plants:

Plants use nitrogen. They get the nitrogen from the air and when they die, the bacterias in the soil process this nitrogen in a way that it’s released back to the atmosphere. This is called nitrogen cycle. It’s the cycle of life. Remember that there is more nitrogen than oxygen in the air.

However, synthetic nitrogen is not wanted.

Medicine is effective in terms of consuming this pool. Thus, it’s important to use medicine only if it’s necessary. For example, many people use painkillers unnecessarily. Avoiding this will help thiol pool not be consumed unnecessarily.

Talking about medicine, the medicine that supports erections also affects the NO ratio in the blood. NO is a vascular opener. Thus, it increases the blood flow synthetically as well as with the NO ratio. However, when this happens, antioxidants from thiol pool are used to clean the synthetic NO.

What foods can we consume to increase thiol pool?

1. Vegetables with sulphur such as garlic and broccoli.
2. Vegetables that can increase the amount of NO naturally such as beetroot and all vegetables with purple and dark green leafs. Remember that NO is needed as a weapon whereas sulphur is used to clean up the war zone.
3. Other supplements that can increase the thiol pool:

• Food that contains cysteine such as NAC, SAMe, glutathione, selenium, TMG and MSM.

4. Other elements of antioxidant defense;

• Vitamin C: Vitamin C should be taken as doses every three hours. It will be a key player in antiviral defense in the world.
• Vitamin D: Th1 cells that are used for the immune system for intracellular defense have Vitamin D receptors. Therefore, Vitamin D is a necessity for Th1 cells to work.
• Berries: ‘All of the purple ones’ such as murva, purple lettuce and blueberries.
• Superoxide dismutase and catalase: They are the enzymes of antioxidants.
• Prebiotic and probiotics.

Let’s not forget that intestines work as a fermentation tank. People also have nitrogen cycles like plants. Like the bacterias processing nitrogen residues in plants, bacterias in the human body process nitrogen residues and make them harmless.

The nitrite that is gotten from food, pollution, contaminated water or cigarettes are processed into harmless residues by good bacterias. By doing that, thiol pool is kept protected.

Zinc: Zinc support is necessary to prevent mucosa leaks and preserve tissue strength. Zinc is used to make wounds heal. For what happens in lungs with Covid-19, zinc support is also used to heal the damage.

Let’s make another note here: The entry point of Covid-19 virus is what is called ACE2 is an enzyme and cofactor of this enzyme is zinc. In the case of Zinc attaching itself to this enzyme, it will be harder for Covid-19 to attach itself to ACE2.

(There are not sufficient medical resources about this. This is my theory).

When I was doing research on ACE2, I saw that one of the things that can stabilize ACE2 is lysozyme. Lysozyme is an enzyme that protects our eyes from bacterias and viruses. Lysozyme exists in tears. In terms of food, it can be found in egg white.

In summary;

• Th1 defense must be strong
• NOS residues coming NO used during the defense by Th1 must be cleaned up.
• Nutrition with natural NO supplements should be done.
• Unwanted nitrosamines supplements should be decreased.
• Sulphur and thiol pool should be increased by consuming the food explained here before.

Before finishing this up, I also like to mention the stress factor.

Stress weakens the immune system. The reason for that is that cortisol (a.k.a the stress hormone) suppresses the TH1 defense mechanism.

Th1 system works best in the mornings and during the night, it loses its power by almost 100%.

When there is cortisol, the Th1 defense system doesn’t work. When the Th1 defense system doesn’t work, viruses within cells can be multiplied.

When the level of cortisol is high and the Th1 defense system doesn’t work 100%, let’s avoid meeting friends in the mornings. Do the kissing at night :)

Thank you for reading…