Sarah Myhill, MD

The Infection Game

Aired on: May 3, 2019

Episode Description

People used to believe that infection is a killer of the past. This is incorrect because research shows that our big killers from cancers, diabetes, heart disease and dementia are largely infection driven. It is difficult to find a pathology that does not have an associated infection. Many viral infections can be stealth, hidden from our awareness and create immunological havoc. Microbes in the fermenting gut drive gut tumours, psychiatric disease and arthritis. Sarah Myhill ,MD, is a genius at putting the tools for recovery into the hands of the patient. She discusses her latest book, ‘The Infection Game’ and the role of microbes, mitochondria, diet and rest in healing. A healthy endocrine function is essential to winning the aeons long battle between humanity and all those bugs that regards us as lunch.

SUMMARY

Her goals

  • To give the reader the rules of the “game” and the tools to get well
    • Ground hog basic
      • Pale ketogenic diet
        • Avoid sugar
      • Mineral and vitamin supplement
      • Good sleep
      • exercise
    • Ground hog acute do at first sign of infection
      • Vitamin C, iodine antimicrobial, heat, light
    • Ground hog chronic when know dealing with infection load
      • Add detox and be more diligent

 

  • Much of medicine focuses on symptoms. Sick care disease management
  • Functional medicine looks at underlying causes but involves many expensive tests
  • Symptoms warn that something needs to be tended to
    • pills are given to avoid mucus plugs (but mucus plugs help get bacteria out
    • bring down infection, fever can help us get us well
    • anti inflammatory pills suppress immune response
  • Mark Houston, MD (interviewed previously had said that there were over 400 conditions that can lead to heart disease while the vessels respond in the same predictable response
  • Antony Haynes has studied how viruses can cause inflammation and many underlying illnesses
  • Virus, bacteria and infection can contribute to many chronic diseases

 

Dr Myhill

  • Infections drive many chronic diseases
  • A veterinarian colleague had commented that in animals most diseases are infection driven
  • Myhill’s research shows an infectious associated for almost every Western disease
  • These diseases are present because our immune systems are down
  • Western life, diets are immune toxic
    • Dementia causes
      • Syphilis (called general paralysis of the insane)
      • Lyme
      • Toxoplasmosis
      • Herpes viruses
      • Cryptococcus
    • Arterial disease
      • Oral infection
      • Herpes viruses
      • H pylori
      • Chlamydia
      • CMV
    • Cancers
      • Stomach cancer H pylori
      • Esophageal cancer (Human papilloma virus (HPV))
      • Colon Cancer associated with fermenting gut condition
      • Oral cancer associated with Gum disease
      • Bladder cancer associated with Salmonella
      • Cervical cancer associated with Human Papilloma Virus
    • We can measure titres (levels) of these diseases, but this does not mean the virus is causing trouble
    • Her emphasis is not determining which microbe or which disease there is, but strengthening the defenses
      • e, helping the body fight that infection itself
      • If you have one microbe that should not be in the body, then there are other microbes in the body that should not be there
      • Life has developed over millions of years as part of an arms race
      • As a bacteria or organism, the best thing to do is to parasitize another organism – it is a free lunch
      • – living with helpful bacteria
      • Increasingly, our bodies are inhabited by organisms that are not good for us
        • They drive inflammation, pathology, and degenerative disease
        • Western diets and Wester lifestyle allowed these organisms to get in
      • What can we do to increase our defenses to keep these infections at bay
        • Simple things done well can get us a long way
          • Microbiome, diet, micronutrient supplements, good sleep, improving energy delivery mechanisms
        • She observed that in some patients, antibiotics did not improve their condition.
        • Antimicrobials are an assistance in healing; improving anti-microbial defenses always helps
          • Antibiotics are the “atomic warfare” in fighting microbes
            • Is effective but is a “two-edged sword as it harms the microbiome as well
            • Use after everything else has been tried
            • “First do no harm”

 

Three main “groundhog” chapters – the basic package of treatment (need a foundation for a house)

  • Ground hog basic
    • Avoid sugar as All microbes love to live on and ferment carbohydrates
      • Explains why diabetics are susceptible to infection (have high sugars throughout body)
        • Microbes love sugar, start fermenting sugar and become infectious
          • Microbes can only run on carbohydrates
          • Humans can run on fats and on carbohydrates
      • Paleo-ketogenic diet
        • (high in fat and fiber) can starve them out, low carbs, low allergens, rich micronutrients. low chemical and toxic burden, and non-addictive foods (such as gluten)
          • We get some energy from fiber; we get a lot of energy from fat
          • Fat cannot be fermented (does not go rotten if left out on the shelf)
            • Bacteria and yeast will ferment any carb left out on a shelf
            • If one eats meat, it will spike insulin levels unless fat is consumed with the meat
              • The meat must be organic as toxins are stored in the fat
            • Is important to be as close to ketosis as possible
              • Can check with ketone sticks
              • Slight ketone levels are OK
              • An occasional feast is OK but not continually

 

  • Ketogenic diet (low carb diet) diet benefits gut fiber
    • Proposed by Atkins
      • Allows dairy products which are for young mammals
        • All dairy products naturally contain growth elements (bad for cancer)
        • Made of allergens
        • Dairy products create risk for cancer because the ratio of calcium / Magnesium is high
          • Calcium and magnesium compete for each other so dairy products create a magnesium deficiency
          • Dairy products are a major risk factor for osteoporosis
        • Recommends artificial sweeteners
          • But the body responds to an artificial sweetener as if it expects a full calorie sweetener and will spike insulin resulting in
            • Laying down fat
            • Then blood sugars drop developing symptoms of hypoglycemia
            • , aspartame is broken down in liver to formaldehyde
              • A pesticide, a known neurotoxin
            • Vitamin and mineral Supplements
              • Modern agriculture result in a deficiency of nutritious (vitamins and minerals) soil and food
                • Even an organic diet can be deficient
              • Good sleep
                • Is when body repairs and detoxifies
                  • Lymphatics and glymphatics
                  • Prions are cleared out of the brain during sleep
                • Average 8 -9 hours in 24 hours
                  • Ancestors used to nap
                  • Perhaps sleep requirements increase in winter when there is more semi-hibernation
                • Wake feeling refreshed not needing an alarm clock

 

  • Exercise
    • Make ourselves puff and pant, sweat
    • Get pulse rate up to 120 adjusted by age
  • Ground hog acute done at first sign of any infection
    • Vitamin C
      • Safe, well researched, no adverse effects
      • When she gets sick, she takes 10 grams of vitamin C every hour til bowel tolerance
      • Humans, fruit bats and guinea pigs cannot make vitamin C,
      • but animals can make vitamin C
      • Kills all bacteria, viruses and fungi
      • Dose up until bowel tolerance
      • Cleans up fermenting gut
        • Vitamin C kills any microbes in the upper gut
          • 90 % infections come through mouth (food, inhaled, get stuck on mucus in nose and end up in stomach
            • Vitamin C will contact these microbes in stomach and kill them
            • If take enough vitamin C, will get diarrhea and wash out microbes from gut
            • If infection is systemic, the body absorbs vitamin C from gut
              • Bowel tolerances increases
              • The amount of vitamin C tolerated is a measurement of total infectious load and fermenting gut
              • Verified in others’ research
              • When goats get sick, they upgrade their levels of Vitamin C
            • Linus Pauling, two time Nobel Prize winner estimates we need 4 – 15 g Vitamin C daily
              • Recommended daily dose is 30 mg which will prevent scurvy but not give optimal health
              • Vitamin C more healthy than sugar
              • She speculates that because vitamin C is structurally similar to sugar that it might be grabbed instead of sugar
                • This explains bowel tolerance mechanism
              • Cancer cells are similar to bacterial cells because they, too, can run only on carbohydrates / sugar
            • Upper gut should be near sterile so it can deal with fat and protein
            • If upper gut is not sterile, she calls it upper fermenting gut
              • May have H pylori, parasites, small bowel overgrowth
            • Lower gut (colon) should be fermenting for fiber which supports the gut microbiome
            • She uses ascorbic acid
              • Is cheaper
              • Is mad through fermenting corn so be careful of corn allergies
            • Our DNA is 15 % retrovirus
              • We all carry viruses: our immune system keep them at bay
              • She received the Salt polio vaccine so she will carry the Simian virus 40
              • Ninety percent infected with Epstein Barr virus (EBV)
                • Many diseases, autoimmune diseases and cancers are associated with DBV
                • chronic fatigue syndrome is often EBV driven
              • Heat
                • When fighting any infection, body gets high
                  • Need good energy delivery mechanism
                • Light (sunbathing)

Ground hog chronic (Chronic maintenance)

  • Same as ground hog basic except more discipline
    • Detox
    • Be prepared with doses of Vitamin C
    • Disciplined with sleep, exercise, cooking
      • Apices have antimicrobial properties
      • Keep warm
      • Maintain mitochondria
    • As age adrenal and thyroid glands “go down”
    • We have to use our brains
  • Iodine
    • Many microbes end up in airways
      • Sinusitis, chronic lung infection, pharyngitis, laryngitis
    • Contact kills all microbes like vitamin C
    • It coats all surfaces
    • Is very safe
      • Surgeons use it
    • Inhale lugol’s iodine in a salt pipe
      • Miners that worked in salt mines had good lungs
    • She believes that many diseases are vaccination driven

 

For bleeding gums

  • Avoid sugar and carbohydrates (primary cause)
  • Lugols iodine swish in mouth
    • Will penetrate